Rick Kinnaird

Sunday, June 14, 2026

Why I never tell people what stocks to buy. (Well, hardly never*)

*Sorry G&S**

**Gilbert and Sullivan

The problem is Now.

Now as in the Present.

If you are talking past, present, and future you are not talking about the actual moment. In that context the present is viewing the very recent past. I learned this when I was supposed to “come in on time” in a song. If you stop  to think “Is that now?” You’ve missed the moment; the moment you were supposed to come in and sing. Coming in on time is a leap of faith and can only be realized in retrospect.

What does this have to do with Spacex? Well, good question. Or someone might ask, “Should I buy Spacex?” Well, it opened at the IPO price of $135 and stood there for a while. It closed at $173. So the time to have bought it was when it was 135, not 173. Well, that was easy. Of course it was. Because that is not NOW, that was THEN. The price is 173, do you want it? And that, boys and girls is all you need to know about buying stocks.

Forget whatever you think about Elon Musk. The stock is 173. That’s the now. Yes, you could have bought it at 135 but that’s not where it’s at. It at 173. I know you are asking yourself, “Does that make sense? Should I buy it?” The wise stock advisor says to you, “Well, that depends….” The smart investor screams at you, “Shit! NO!” (Just to be clear.)

Okay. Wait. Hold on. Why do I say that? Well, to put it in the words of Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman, “Do you really think Spacex is worth more than Microsoft?”

Hum, well, when you put it like that…

Yeah. That’s called reality. Well, is it? Is Spacex worth more than Microsoft?

Well, if you look at the total value of Microsoft based on stock price and the total value of Spacex … Forget that. Think about this. What has each company done? To refer back to Krugman, SpaceX has been “a moderately successful rocket launch company”. Okay. and that is pretty spectacular, but a trillion dollars spectacular? No. Maybe, in the future? Yeah. That’s the bet.

Well, when it comes to betting on the future … with Elon … how’s that worked out?

Once again, it depends. He’s a good functional engineer. He can figure out how to make something work, how to streamline it. He did that with PayPal and he sold it for millions. He bought into Tesla and was on the brink of going under and bought into solar shingles and a company that could bore holes in the Earth. None of that really worked out but he folded it all into Tesla bought Twitter and halved its value and folded that and his clunky AI into SpaceX. He’s made predictions about going to Mars the way Trump makes predictions about ending the war he started or about anything he doesn’t know anything about (“two weeks”, “ten days”). Except, Elon uses years or decades. It gives him a bit more wiggle room.

There are three ways to buy stocks that work:

!. Buy stuff when it’s cheap (Warren Buffett),

2. Buy stuff that has great leadership (Motley Fool),

3. Buy the Dow or some Index (Vanguard).

The trick is to buy say ten and hope three work out, because no one, and I mean no one, can figure out what the future will bring. But you can hedge your bets by paying attention, buy a bunch of stuff and hope you hit a few. 

What Musk has done is convinced a lot of the fund index managers to bend their rules and include SpaceX. This guarantees that someone is buying it. Usually, Index funds would wait a year before including it. So even if you hate Elon he’s wormed his way into your 401K. Brilliant!

Egads.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Same with money. When the two combine it merely accelerates the process.

I read “Lost to the West,” the story of the history of Constantinople. Constantinople, now Istanbul, is where Asia and Europe meet. It is literally where East meets West. It s history is the story of the rich and powerful rising up and taking over. Every time they did they decreased taxes on themselves and therefore the bulk fell to the middle class. Every time that happened the middle class left. They literally “took to the hills.” The city fell apart. The tide shifted and the middle class took control and things improved. Until the next time.

Historians, when viewing democracies, give them 250 years. Often referred to as times of chaos. Before order is restored is the term used. That means before someone comes in and beats everyone into submission. Or another way to look at it is, it takes 250 years to figure out how to jerry rig the system to your advantage so others can’t fight back.

Well? What will happen? 

No one knows. You should have bought at 135. Do you sell ate 173, before everyone figures out it’s a con?

Or do you wait? Maybe it will go to 193? Or 200?

Constantinople fell when a new technology came along that shredded their defenses. They had big walls. One of their own came up with a new thing. A big long tube that fired a huge stone ball. It was so big and heavy and got so hot it could only fire six or eight times a day. They laughed at him; They turned him down. He sold the idea to the Ottomans, who used ti to pound the indestructible walls.

It’s impossible until it’s not.

No one comes back from being 29 points down at the half. Except the Knicks whose man figured out the now with 1.2 seconds left and leapt at just the right moment to grab the ball and put it through the rim. In the Now.

Friday, June 12, 2026

I had been learning a lot about IPOs and Spacex recently.

I tend to stay away from IPOs because more often than not they go down after coming on the market.

I was planning on buying a goodly chunk of Spacex and then I started doing some research.

Part of that research was understanding how I could even buy into an IPO via Fidelity.

In the old days, you had to have a broker or a person at the bank (a major bank), who could put in for you.

Typically, I never got any of the IPO shares, unless it was garbage.

But I learned Fidelity had an IPO Calendar web page where they told you what stocks they were offering.

It turned out to be a two step process: Step 1) Indicate interest in a company.

Step 2) The night before the stock comes out Fidelity will ask via that webpage if you want to “confirm” your choice. 

I learned if you didn’t confirm it was the same as not having done anything.

I tried two test cases: Quantinuum and Sunshine Silver (say that quickly!!!)

I didn’t realize about the confirm bit until the morning the shares were supposed to start trading. It was after 8A.M. and it turned out on one of them I had to confirm before eight so I wasn’t even in the game.

The other, Quantinuum I confirmed and when the shares opened on the market at 9:30 I didn’t get any.

I bought both companies on the open market a bit below their IPO price and they have done spectacularly nothing.

With Spacex I had said I wanted to participate in several different accounts. I sold some stuff so I’d have money to buy. Turned out the next day the stock market went down so my selling looked like a bloody genius move.

Last night the “confirm” option came. By then I had done some (sober?) reflection and I cut way back on my orders. I signaled I wanted ten shares in each of two accounts, about $2600 total commitment. I only got ten shares in one account. They said it was over subscribed – so be it.

In my research I discovered that the offering stock price was about one hundred times earnings. That means it would take one hundred years for you to make your investment back based on current earnings. Yikes.

But…but…the case is that Spacex will do lots of great things in the near future.

However, if you look at Elon’s track record on doing great things it ain’t so great. 

Paul Krugman, award winning economist, calls Elon “A Human Ponzi Scheme.” Why? His company to bore holes – hasn’t. His buying of Twitter resulted in his personal decimation of the company and it is now worth 50% of what it was when he bought it. Make that 40%. His Tesla stuff. He was ahead of the curve on the EV part. The self driving? Not so much. Only a few cars in one city and the technology he’s employing ain’t working. And he, like Donald Trump, is given to pronouncements that don’t come true. In Elon’s case it seems he says things like we’ll go to Mars and he throws out a date or a number of years hence as if he’s thought about it for maybe ten seconds. Many of those pronouncements were made seven or ten years ago and this is the year they are supposed to happen. Donald Trump uses the phrases: “In two weeks” or “In ten days” when he has no idea. This is typically followed by “you’ll be surprised what we found.” or some version of that. The exception is the Trump War with Iran which is going to be settled every week.

One hour until the market opens – it should be interesting. If “the smart money” is right SpaceX should fall to around $63 a share from its open at $135.00.

But will it be like Gamestop? Will it be propped up by idiot retail investors?

Or has Elon ponzied all of them into the fold already?

Thursday, June 11, 2026

You know what I want? I want a coach or a player on the Knicks to say, “No, that was our plan all along. Let the Spurs get 29 points ahead in the first half and then come back and win by a point with 1.2 seconds left.”

Speaking of crazy sh*t. Elon Musk, SpaceX IPO. What’s going to happen? Well, I can tell you what should happen. The stock should open and crash. Or will it be another GameStop? I’ll try to get a few shares at the pre-trade IPO price, but the stock is priced at 100 times earnings and the consensus is the stock is worth $63 not the $135 being said to being priced at.

Let’s remember Elon, like Trump, says a lot that doesn’t come true or isn’t true. He’s going to Mars in Idunno 2 years, 3 years, ten years, do I hear 20?

He boasts his Teslas are driverless, while ignoring the fact that they aren’t and that he refuses to use technology that could help make them so.

Is The Strait of Hormuz open yet? No. Next week? Okay. When have i heard that before? Oh, right, every week since Trump started this war.

Interesting piece in that rag The New York Times. It outlined in great detail the attempts by Trump’s FBI and Justice Department to go after people. For some reason some of the lawyers were saying there was no evidence and no case. Can you imagine that? Suggesting to the alternate facts crowd that reality played a part? Stunning. Most were fired. Correction. All were fired. 

Imagine if Donald Trump were a basketball coach. “We need more player on the court.” “You are only allowed five.” “That’s just a rule. Put out seven.” Whistle. Penalty. Stoppage of play.

Play resumes, but this time with nine players for one team.

“Why won’t they just let them play? It’s so unfair. These refs are a disgrace.”

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

The title is an ode to Backdoor Man by the Doors. That is to say with “extensive modification.”

I was also thinking of Jimi Hendrix Wait Until Tomorrow – 

I hear you say.

I think we better wait for tomorrow

click, bang what a hang. your daddy shot poor me.

and I hear you say as I fade away…

I think we better wait for tomorrow

A few days ago I was thinking that anyone born in this millennium has no idea what America used to be like.

When I was growing up World War II was extensively talked about. Democrats held the House. Eisenhower was President – a war hero. Then came Kennedy and Camelot. 

Then Vietnam (started by Eisenhower expanded slightly by Kennedy and made huge by Johnson.)

But through all that there was a sense that we were all on the same team, trying to reach the same or similar goals.

That is no longer true.

It started with Reagan, and we’ve been moving further apart ever since.

Now we have one party that is so corrupt and dismissive of reality that they are non-functional. We now watch daily the antics of open corruption. It used to be that a politician tried to hide their corrupt shenanigans. Not any more. They don’t have to because they now ascribe to the “alternate facts” philosophy. This is not gaslighting it’s changing the whole light apparatus. So what if it doesn’t exist?

I was thinking about Greg Platner. We listened to his victory speech yesterday. Jim Messina, Barrack Obama’s Campaign Manager, said Platner’s speech was a masterclass. Wow.

I’ve got to say I was impressed. Yes, he’s plain spoken. He’s admitted mistakes and has said people can change and he’s changed. Then he went right after Susan Collins. Basically, he was asking what has she done for Maine? Well, he said she’s gotten twenty one times richer since in office. He asked if anyone had gotten 21 times richer since Collins has been in office. He said she’s a moderate but only when it doesn’t count. 

The media keeps saying “scandal-plagued” etc. of Platner. As far as I know one woman has come out and said he assaulted her. Funny thing is she’s a Republican operative. Some women said they were uncomfortable around him and things he said. Yeah? He’s a big guy. A little gruff. I get it. But he keeps bringing up the important stuff. And as far as I know, there hasn’t been a huge ground swell of women coming out of the woodwork about him, just this Republican operative who just coincidentally mentioned it the week before the primary. 

Susan Collins, like Stephen Miller, is afraid of chalk Collins hasn’t held a town hall in decades. So someone scribbled some stuff on the sidewalk in front of her house asking why not? What did she do? Called the cops. Made big noise about being threatened. Blah, Blah, Blah. Miller? Oh man. He’s the guy who said, “You don’t’ know how tough we can be.” Yes. Yes, we do. When someone wrote on the sidewalk in front of your house you sold the house. So we know how tough you are.

Now let’s talk about screw worms. What the heck. I saw an interview with a guy who talked about screw worms. He said there haven’t been any screw worm cases for sixty years. Why? We’ll get to that in a minute, but first let’s remember the MAGA Republican talking point of making fun of our government for spending money on studying fly mating. Yeah, why are we spending money on fly fucking?

Well, what our government was doing and had done was to figure out how to make female screw worm flies that lay sterile eggs. If the eggs are sterile they don’t hatch. If they don’t hatch there are no new screw worm flies. Our government has (or had) a center down in Panama that released over the last sixty years sterile female screw worm flies. Now? Not so much. So the flies migrated into Mexico. Biden made sure we wouldn’t let any of the Mexican beef into the U.S. because of the screw worm danger. Argentina too.

Then Trump came in and ended all that. Now we have screw worms in our cattle. And what did Trump say? It’s Biden’s fault. Huh? I wonder if he was awake enough during the Knicks/Spurs game to hear the boos?

May 9, 2026

It is worth reminding oneself that this President has no idea how to actually run a government. At least not the kind and style of government we have come to expect. If he is doing nothing about an issue he says that he is working on it and in about two weeks you’ll see something and that you’ll be surprised what he’s found or what he or they are doing. Then nothing happens. Because he’s forgotten about it. I used to think he forgot as soon as he left the room, but I think it is sooner than that. I think it is as soon as the words have left his lips.

Considering the evidence, it is safe to say that he is a tool (useful idiot? Manchurian Candidate?) of Putin and Russia. There are others that Putin has reached out to, but none have been as good as Trump.

By Trump’s own admission he likes to surround himself with losers so he looks smart. At least that’s his thinking. He then bullies and browbeats those around him. He fires those who actually do things that help the country and don’t directly make him look good. So what  if what he is asking is a crime?

In his two terms, he has doubled the National Debt. He has dismantled so many of the programs that we as Americans used to point to with pride. It is awkwardly apparent that there is a cabal of people who don’t believe in helping others and only themselves and that they have been able to get their way.

It’s Stephen Miller and his racist agenda. John Roberts who as a young intern clerk worked vigorously in the 1960s to stop portions of The Voting Rights Act has now gotten his way in the Supreme Court. It is Robert Kennedy Jr who has destroyed our National Health institutions. It’s Elon Musk who has dismantled huge swaths of our government bureaucracy. It is The Heritage Foundation and their continuing attacks on FDR and all the things that he did. Surprisingly to me is that they attack but they offer no real alternatives other than to let them run wild in an economic free for all.

The results we are seeing of these actions and policies. 

We stand alone, deserting our allies, aiding our enemies and aiding those competing against us, screwing: the small business owner, the farmer, the hourly worker. All the while these people in government are enriching themselves. It’s in bribes, huge gifts, or taking money directly from the government treasury.