Good Evening Folks
I am TDY on my MacBook Retina, and while this $2000 laptop is a marvel of engineering, the owner (me) can’t figure out how to cut and paste graphics into my site. I forgot my mouse and am using the trackpad. My apologies….
Skipping cool graphics and charts, for now, I am happy to see that May is off to a great start. The SP 500 is above 1600, and things are looking “up.” The official TSP monthly returns are in, and the I-Fund knocked it out of the park for April and I-Fund was the best performer for April. The Year to Date best performer is still the S-Fund, but as the other funds start to demonstrate life and energy, we need to monitor those funds closer. May got started with C-Fund and S-Fund outperforming I-Fund however. So the April burst of life for I-Fund may (or may not be…) be an isolated burst of life.
I would like to present the following video, from CNBC, in which NetJets Fractional Jet program is profiled. In this video, Warren Buffett is interviewed, along with NetJets CEO Jordan Hansell. While Warren is not really a “stock investor” per se, since he buys entire companies, and turns them around, obviously if Warren talks then it would be probably be smart to listen at least a little bit. I believe that NetJets is a good barometer for the economy because while many owners are wealthy individuals, who have ownership in NetJet aircraft who travel to Aspen and ski, many are corporations that are “up and coming” and prefer not to use airline travel, but cannot write a check for a $40M Gulfstream. NetJets bridges the gap and fulfills a corporate/executive travel solution.
It appears that NetJets business is coming back, and this is reflective in my opinion, of the economy. This is consistent with my own travel observations (I was on the road approximately 200 days in CY 2012), that private aircraft ramps are becoming more crowded and business-oriented hotels such as Marriott and Hilton are seeing less availability of rooms due to increased business travel. These, too, are reflective of the economy, in my opinion. Full hotels and lots of private jets at airports are not reflective of a pending recession, I guess that’s my point here. Lets take a look at the video: VIDEO LINK
That’s all I have for now, I am 100% S-Fund at the present time. This may change depending on how the other funds perform this month.
Sorry no cool graphics…..forgot the mouse…..
Thank you for reading
– Bill Pritchard
