Patrick's Rants

We spent last weekend camping off the grid. Sure there was water, electricity, fire and gas. But the hills blocked the cell phone tower signals. When we camp out on the ranch everyone turns off their cell phones since they will suck the battery dry trying to find a signal. On Saturday afternoon my sister-in-law wanted to know what time it was. We all kind of looked around, everyone uses their phones for time now. I, of course, have a watch. I reached toward my pocket saying, “I have a watch.”

My sister-in-law is confused. “Why do you keep it in your pocket?”

“Because,” I pause for dramatic effect, “it’s a pocket watch.” That explains it. A dozen people chuckle at the matter of fact reasoning.

You know, watches have become scarce, the once ubiquitous pocket watch even more so but I like my pocket watch, it doesn’t need to have a signal from some cell phone tower and I will know what time it is every time we go camping. And once in a while, I get to have a small laugh with it.

The recent cell phone commercials are attempting to use humor to make you think their phones and networks are better. The AT&T commercial has two guys stuck on ski lift, the one guy asks his buddy if he can ask his ex-girlfriend out. The ex replies, “sure, we’ve been broken up for six months, but she wouldn’t go out with you”.

And now to the guy asking his friend’s ex-girlfriend out, “bing, bing, bing” goes the the jerk’s phone. He has a running commentary, “she says she’s wanted me to ask her out for a year, oh look, she send a video.” Hmm. The girl is a jerk too. She and the ex have been broken up for six months and she’s wanted to go out with the jerk for over a year.

Mr ex asks to see the phone and flings it over hand into the snow. Excellent – revenge on the jerks.

Our next jerk example is the Windows phone using sky-diver. Let me reiterate my disdain for phones that try to do everything, the dumb-ass phone. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, two guys jump out of a plane. One tries to take a picture with his smart phone and has to fumble with the settings. The other, using a Windows phone 7 smart phone pushes a single button* to take a picture of his buddy during free fall which he can then smugly post to Facebook and then pull his rip cord. As his buddy, still in free fall, struggles to complete his snapshot of the earth, smart phone jerk yells after him, “open your shute, Dave. Hey is it all right if I date Emily after you…” (Dave’s parachute opens), “never mind.” Smart phone jerk is trying to date his buddy’s girlfriend while he thinks his buddy might slam into the earth at 180 mph.

*I can push a single button on my dumb phone and on every camera in the house to take a photo. As a matter of fact single button cameras are pretty old school, but this is supposed to convince us they are state of the art.

I did ride ABAT down, I even bought more shares. I’m in pretty heavy for my account; a little heavier than my own rules say I should be. The question is, with an actual class action filing against ABAT does it make sense to hang on? I don’t know that answer and it gives me pause. First, none of the lawyers offices appear to have an actual “lead plaintiff”. That could mean that nobody has enough of a loss to be considered. They could all be little traders/investors like me. The last time I had a stock (NXG) that nosedived on me, I started trading it at the lower range – then stopped believing in it and wound it down at a 0.91% total gain. I bought and sold it over 15 months. .91% is still a gain, but I could have recovered and then some – .91% is really just a barely recovered. Had that been in a taxable account it would not have even had any gains as I would have had to count my options premiums separately – as it was I counted them as part of my overall gains on the shares. Technically, tax-wise, options are separate sales – in an IRA where they are, today’s gains don’t matter in the same way.

So. I have to watch some more. I try not to trade on fear (my own). Nor do I try to “cut my losses”. I have bought several times on the way down and averaged my cost per share down. I’ve started selling covered calls against my holdings and if I get called out, I have my eye on another stock that has been trading in about a $1.00 range – 8 times in the last six months – that could really ramp up my balance.

I have not gleaned how long these potential suits tend to run and I may be on the losing side of time – but I do have a lot of years to make up for what look like hefty momentary losses. Perhaps I will spend part of that make up time reading the D & O Diary for insight.

Jan Brewer vetoed Arizona’s recent Birther Bill. This legislation would have required a “long form” birth certificate in order to run for president of the United States. The long form would have had to list who was in the room when you were born, the doctor’s name, the hospital’s name and some other stuff. I’m relieved that she vetoed it because my step son was born before my wife could get to the hospital – right on the living room floor. There is no attending doctor, no hospital, no “witnesses” save the room full of firefighters and EMTs whose names did not make it onto the document. Heck, even the city is missing on the birth certificate. So my stepson was nearly blocked from running for president in the very state he was born in.

Oh sure, there were exceptions added to the bill for Catholics and Jews, a baptismal record or circumcision record would be accepted in lieu of the “long form”. Or get a bunch of people that remember the birth to swear it really happened in the US. Or turn over your mother’s post partum medical records.

This because of xenophobia, or racism – or both. Because of “how could that white guy with a ding bat running mate ever lose to a black man?”

Hey you decide, but Trump is quoted as saying the high price of oil is Obama’s fault. I mean, unrest in the Middle East, the internal, eternal struggle for freedom and personal independence that has erupted recently across the countries over the horizon disrupting oil production and flow have nothing to do with it. It’s all because Obama won’t hold hands with the Saudi prince and kiss him on the cheek.

And then Trump goes all schizophrenic on us and says we have to spend more money on infrastructure,

Although he blames China for “ripping off our country,” Trump gives them credit for using US funds to rebuild airports, bridges and other infrastructure.

“When was the last time you saw a bridge being built in the United States? You see them falling down all the time. When was the last time you saw an airport being built? We’re like a third-world country.”

Spend government money of roads and bridges and stuff? That sounds decidedly anti-tea party to me.

The Federal Government is too damned big. I say let it shut down. The government is too big and overreaching.
Let’s look at these examples:

• The military (need I say more?).
• You can’t send your 5 year old to work in the factory anymore.
• Your employer has to pay you overtime rates for hours worked over 40.
• Water you drink and air you breathe doesn’t kill you before you’re 30.
• Only one man and one woman can be married.
• You can’t use asbestos any way you please.
• The national weather service
• Cleaning, policing and preserving the national parks
• Meddling in the private business of automakers, bankers and brokers – saving these businesses instead of letting them die like Darwin intended
• Air Traffic controllers
• The National Highway System
• Forcing automakers to add safety features and reducing auto accident deaths
• So many more

Way too big and overbearing. I say shut it down. Grab some asbestos tea and brew up a pot, we might be here for a while.

ABAT has responded to the Variant Research posting that appeared on Seeking Alpha. In the point by point rebuttal, ABAT takes on each allegation made by the short sellers. It also appears that three law firms have filed class action suits against ABAT, although from the initial filings none appears to have acquired their “lead plaintiff”.

For its part, Seeking Alpha has posted a new damning story questioning a $20 million acquisition.

ABAT is up around 14% this morning.