Post Super Bowl Tidbits

Investing is in large part a psychological exercise. People often make poor decisions, succumb to emotion or otherwise make the task more difficult that it needs to be.

I tend to believe that people can reduce the difficulty they create for themselves before then even think about investing by making sure the rest of their life is in order or maybe a better word is balance.

Everyone's idea of a balanced life is of course different. I try exercise a lot, be involved with our fire department (I am the assistant chief and training coordinator), having a dog doesn't hurt and of course I enjoy most sports. When I'm trying not to get flung off the stairmaster or fighting a wildfire I don't think about the stock market although I have been asked about stocks while fighting a fire.

Quite a few times I have posted about my intellectual curiosity with Nassim Nicolas Taleb's idea of constructing a portfolio that is 90% (or thereabouts) invested in t-bill from around the world and then the remainder invested very speculatively. In the blink of an eye there are now two ETFs that create the foreign part of the equation; SPDR Barclays (six months ago that would have read Lehman) 1-3 Year International Treasury Bond Fund (BWZ) and the iShares S&P Citigroup 1-3 Year International Treasury Bond Fund (ISHG).

Despite the names being identical the funds are a little different. BWZ allocates 14% to emerging market t-bills (10% if you think of South Korea as a developed market). Aside from that they are very similar with the largest three country weightings being Japan followed by Germany then Italy. Someone wishing to implement something resembling Taleb's idea could buy some combination BWZ or ISHG and US treasury bills or even the SPDR Barclays 1-3 Month T-Bill ETF (BIL). The mix between the two would be up to the individual as would the how to allocate the 10% to be invested speculatively.

If I get so motivated maybe I'll try it with a small account like my one of my IRA's or maybe Joellyn's Roth IRA (hey honey, I wanna run something by you, lol).

A few years ago I stopped watching the Super Bowl pregame shows. The content has always been weak due to the difficulty of filling that much time. Yesterday as I was watching a little Cavaliers/Pistons I flipped over to NBC during a time out and was just in time for "now, Journey," as in the rock bank from the 70s and 80s.

Journey has long been one of those bands that I wonder why the hell I ever listed to them, what was I thinking? Anywhoo, they start singing Don't Stop Believing as I am reading something, I look up and it is not Steve Perry but some dude with long hair who looks like he is one of the kids of an original band member. I yelled to Joellyn, who BTW had the good sense to never like this group, that's not Journey it is a Journey cover band. She doesn't care. I looked up Journey on Wikipedia and the lead singer was in fact hired out of a Journey cover band that the group saw on YouTube. WHAT? Has this ever happened before? Does anyone know about this? Needless to say this has amused me to no end.

As for the game itself, in yesterday's comments, responding to a reader question, I said I thought the Cardinals had more of a we shocked the world thing going on and thought they would win by four. The Harrison TD at the end of the first half may have been the freakiest play ever in the Super Bowl and like against the Eagles they had a bad 3rd quarter. Their inability to find Fitzgerald (for the most part) until halfway through the fourth quarter having no answer for Santonio Homes did them in. But what a great game.

I also enjoyed the halftime show; my buddy Dave turned me on to Springsteen in the mid 70s. Very cool that the concert had a Born to Run flavor but I'm not sure why he kept referring to Silvio Dante as Stevie during Glory Days (Born in the USA).