Stock Market rigged. We discussed electronics and the market about a year ago. It looks like it is even worse than we thought. I have lost out on the 2013 gains for the most part. But did not give the thieves anything.
I think we have all known that those high speed traders had an advantage. It appears to me that the large high speed traders are stealing from each other mostly on very large transactions. With the type of trades that most of us make, we might lose a penny now and then. It would appear that you can even avoid that by not making any "market" buys.
That said, cheating is still cheating, and high speed computer trading should be banned.
@anthonyp said:
good by fellows nice to have been with you :-) Tony
Tony,
I'm guilty for not having posted anything here for a long time. Let's face it. This Forum has been going downhill for quite a while now. I hope you are feeling ok. Please let us know.
I promised to post some photos when I get the 2014 S550. Believe it or not, I still don't have it. When I ordered the car back in early January, it was estimated that it arrive in Kansas City about mid March. Well, the ship brought it to Baltimore at that time, but incredibly enough, it has not yet made it to KC. The car was released on March 17 and the ETA to KC was suppose to be no later than March 27. When that did not happen, I was told that the car was on the truck as of late this past Friday. My sales guy called the VPC yesterday and he was told that my car was in route. When it had not yet arrived as of early this afternoon, he checked again and was told the car was still in Baltimore. Can you believe that? Mind boggling! The transportation company botched it up royally. They promised it would be on the truck tomorrow and be in KC by Friday. So, I'm planning to pick it up by no later than Saturday.
This occurred when a high-frequency trader was able to see the price of a stock change on one exchange and pick off orders sitting on other exchanges before those exchanges were able to react. This happened all day, every day, and very likely generated more billions of dollars a year than the other strategies combined.
I think we were told not that long ago that Apple had more than $100 billion invested out side the USA. Now they are claiming only $54 billion.
Conglomerate General Electric Co had the biggest pile of earnings stored abroad, at $110 billion, the firm said.
Next were software maker Microsoft Corp, with $76.4 billion; drugmakers Pfizer Inc, with $69 billion, and Merck & Co Inc, with $57.1 billion; and high-tech group Apple Inc, with $54.4 billion, it said.
Ok, As I promised, I will try and post a few photos of my new S550. I can tell you that it is a heavenly ride and from what I have heard the technology in this car is even more advanced than that on the Rolls or Bentley.
I'm still learning about all the incredible features this car has. I've only had it for less than a week. Probably my favorite feature is what MB calls Distronic Plus. It allows the car to basically drive itself about 50% of the time. In city, stop and go traffic, you can use the Auto Pilot and the S550 follows the vehicle in front. It will stop when the vehicle in from stops, stay in its lane, etc. This works for up to 37 mph in city traffic. On the Interstate, you can take your hands off the wheel, the foot off the accelerator, and the car will drive itself for up to 12 seconds. It will then warn you to put your hands on the wheel. Once you touch the wheel, you can repeat the process. When I was driving home from KC (on right hand lane on the Interstate) after I picked up the car, I was looking at one of the screens for a moment and I veered slightly on the breakdown line. The car instantly corrected itself after warning me in red and the steering wheel vibrating to warn me of the danger.
The ride is incredibly smooth and amazingly quiet. It is quieter than the LS was. The audio system is out of this world good. It's called Burmester. I believe it is even better than the Mark Levenson system on the LS.
To tiop things off, I got an amazing 30.9 mpg driving home from KC. Since then, I have been idling the car for hours at a time trying to learn all the features in it and the gas mileage is suffering, but I think I will be getting about 19 mpg in city traffic.
Amazing car, I hope you enjoy it for as long as you have it. This is indeed the most advanced production car right now - the British luxobarges don't come close - RR is old school or at best, the Ghost which is something of a very fancy BMW 7-series, Bentley is bling above all. In this car, you get 80% of the luxury for half the price, with twice the tech. It'll be very interesting to see how BMW, Audi, and Lexus react, as the S now makes their cars look old.
Although not exactly an affordable car for most, it does have an insane amount of lux and tech. You can get something a little more posh, but you'll pay a lot more - the cheapest Bentley sedan has to be twice as much, and that's the next step up. Your car appears to have what I call the "luxury" wheels, rather than more aggressive wheels. Yours probably have better ride quality, and might match well with the color.
I am at mbworld or benzworld with this name. I am generally only posting on the vintage and W212 forums, and not too often. Those forums are very helpful.
@cyclone4 said:
Thank you fintail! What else can I say. I love this car. I actually cannot believe the price is so low for what I got.
Btw, I think I saw you name on an MB forum somewhere but I don't recall which one it was.
Thanks Houdini! So far, the safety features are astonishing to me. It's to the point that it feels like one needs to try hard to get in an accident with this car. Long drives of more than 500 miles I believe will be very comfortable with 6 massage options (including hot stone massage), the comfortable seats, and the incredibly smooth, very quiet, and almost effortless ride. I had radar cruise on my Lexus, but this car takes radar cruise to another level.
@fintail said:
Although not exactly an affordable car for most, it does have an insane amount of lux and tech. You can get something a little more posh, but you'll pay a lot more - the cheapest Bentley sedan has to be twice as much, and that's the next step up. Your car appears to have what I call the "luxury" wheels, rather than more aggressive wheels. Yours probably have better ride quality, and might match well with the color.
I am at mbworld or benzworld with this name. I am generally only posting on the vintage and W212 forums, and not too often. Those forums are very helpful.
Yes fintail. I did order mine with the standard 18 inch wheels. I went for comfort over looks. Plus the cost of the 19-20" wheels was between $2,500-$6,000 extra deepening on what you got. I didn't see the point. Actually, these standard wheels look just fine in my opinion.
@cyclone4 said:
Ok, As I promised, I will try and post a few photos of my new S550. I can tell you that it is a heavenly ride and from what I have heard the technology in this car is even more advanced than that on the Rolls or Bentley.
That is one knockout car. I just saw one on the highway and they are the luxury car to beat. The fruits of labor are sweet. Enjoy your beautiful car.
With decaying roads, the higher sidewall tires are probably a better choice. It's not a sportscar. Those tires will be cheaper, too. I doubt I will ever seek a low profile tires car again, too many compromises.
Thanks gagrice and cdnpinhead! My wife and I are in Seattle this week visiting our son and his family and I really miss driving the new S550. There is SO much to learn and enjoy about this car.
I should get together with fintail while in Seattle but we have been constantly on the go with kids and grandkids.
@cyclone4 said:
Thanks gagrice and cdnpinhead! My wife and I are in Seattle this week visiting our son and his family and I really miss driving the new S550. There is SO much to learn and enjoy about this car.
I should get together with fintail while in Seattle but we have been constantly on the go with kids and grandkids.
@fintail said:
Enjoy the rain! You missed an amazing weekend.
We actually got here early Saturday evening.It was indeed gorgeous Sunday and Monday. And, even though there will be some rain in the days ahead, at least we will not freeze our rear ends off. When we were here back in March of 2012, it was the worst possible weather Seattle can possibly have at that time of year. It either snowed or snow/rain mixed every single day we were here (mid March or so) and highs were in the 30s each day. So, this is not bad at all. At least highs will be in the 50s.
How long are you here? Should be OK tomorrow and for most of Sunday. It's been a lot wetter than normal so far this year, hopefully will pay off with a nice summer (summers here are probably the best in the country, and a big reason some tolerate the dreary winters).
And to you, Houdini. I'm doing OK and just letting it ride...
'21 Dark Blue/Black Audi A7 PHEV (mine); '22 White/Beige BMW X3 (hers); '20 Estoril Blue/Oyster BMW M240xi 'Vert (Ours, read: hers in 'vert weather; mine during Nor'easters...)
My observation of this board over the past few years would lead me to believe that if there's nothing to discuss regarding Apple stock, there's nothing to talk about.
@tlong said:
The market has done so well for so long that it makes me nervous. It can't last forever.
True, but what is your time horizon? Mine grows shorter with each passing year, but I'd hate to miss the ongoing-ish Bull...
'21 Dark Blue/Black Audi A7 PHEV (mine); '22 White/Beige BMW X3 (hers); '20 Estoril Blue/Oyster BMW M240xi 'Vert (Ours, read: hers in 'vert weather; mine during Nor'easters...)
@laurasdada said:
True, but what is your time horizon? Mine grows shorter with each passing year, but I'd hate to miss the ongoing-ish Bull...
Well I'm edging closer to retirement, but I'm still moderately aggressive. Just because I'm worried doesn't mean I'm changing my asset allocation. I'm not going to try and time the market. So I will ride the ups and downs with the portion of my portfolio that is in the market.
My dirt-simple (probably considered beneath contempt by those "in the know") approach is to keep the percentage of equities at 110 minus my age. The rest goes into money markets and bonds. If I live to 110, I may reconsider.
Anecdotally, the performance of my "thing" (I hesitate to call it a portfolio) seems to have weathered the joys of 2001 and 2008 about as well as I could have hoped, but what do I know?
@cdnpinhead said:
My dirt-simple (probably considered beneath contempt by those "in the know") approach is to keep the percentage of equities at 110 minus my age. The rest goes into money markets and bonds. If I live to 110, I may reconsider.
Anecdotally, the performance of my "thing" (I hesitate to call it a portfolio) seems to have weathered the joys of 2001 and 2008 about as well as I could have hoped, but what do I know?
Stats show that with rebalancing, approaches such as yours outperform >70% of the investors out there. Not to mention cutting around 1% off the costs due to advisor fees, etc. IMHO the entire advisor financial industry is a scam that plays on the ignorance of most people.
There's a saying "All the brokers have yachts. Why don't their customers have yachts?"
I hope everyone is having some success in this irrepressible market. Does anyone correspond personally with our friend ljflx? He has not posted in over 7 months. I hope he is OK and just very busy. I also wonder how tagman is doing !
I hope everyone is having some success in this irrepressible market. Does anyone correspond personally with our friend ljflx? He has not posted in over 7 months. I hope he is OK and just very busy. I also wonder how tagman is doing !
Due to a lack of working capital, I have not purchased any stocks for quite some time. And, they have all gone up quite significantly!
'21 Dark Blue/Black Audi A7 PHEV (mine); '22 White/Beige BMW X3 (hers); '20 Estoril Blue/Oyster BMW M240xi 'Vert (Ours, read: hers in 'vert weather; mine during Nor'easters...)
@laurasdada said:
Due to a lack of working capital, I have not purchased any stocks for quite some time. And, they have all gone up quite significantly!
That's OK, you can take a big deduction on your 2014 taxes. Just explain to the IRS that stocks went up and you didn't have any... and tell them that you are a big Obama fan and he said it was OK !!
@houdini1 said:
That's OK, you can take a big deduction on your 2014 taxes. Just explain to the IRS that stocks went up and you didn't have any... and tell them that you are a big Obama fan and he said it was OK !!
Genius. To redistribute the capital gains wealth a bit. Gotta start thinking about what to do with this money in '15. Maybe invest....in a BMW i8. Obama would have to love that plan!
'21 Dark Blue/Black Audi A7 PHEV (mine); '22 White/Beige BMW X3 (hers); '20 Estoril Blue/Oyster BMW M240xi 'Vert (Ours, read: hers in 'vert weather; mine during Nor'easters...)
I hope everyone is having some success in this irrepressible market. Does anyone correspond personally with our friend ljflx? He has not posted in over 7 months. I hope he is OK and just very busy. I also wonder how tagman is doing !
I have been in communication with Len. He is doing great. He just informed me that he will post here next week. He has been extremely busy since he and his wife will be moving to a beautiful spot near Sarasota. FL. They bought a gorgeous piece of property on a beach front and will be building a house there.
Len has also bought 3 high end MB's in the past year or so.
thanks for your concern. All is good here. I've sold my business so that had me very pre-occupied. Car wise - I had the SL 550 and S550, both are 2013's and I love them and I re-upped my GL lease to a 2014. That truck is almost as silky smooth as the S 550 and very qiet. I really loaded this one up with night vision and a designo interior that is very similar in interior colors as my SL, which is also designo. On a lease the designo is such a great upgade and because it retains so much value it doesn't cost much more. In fact this truck which lists for $15K more than my old truck is barely costing me $100 a month more as I got a terrific deal. I've also been heavily pre-occupied with a land acquisition in Florida. Last winter was it for me. Too much snow, it was constantly on the ground from December into late March and bitter cold. I need summer all year round. So we have contracted for a beautuful parcel of land, that is a bit more than half an acre in Casey Key Florida on the gulf and am building with John Cannon Homes. We close on the land as soon as we get a title review in about 20 days. But it'll take two years to complete the build of the home. Casey Key is a real residential area, not commercial like Longboat Key or Siesta Key and is about 20-30 minutes south of Sarasota. That area is relatively safe from hurricanes and they now build all block construction with 170mph wind strength windows and first floor living space is 20' above flood level. In my case I'll be 23' up, The homes usually have 3 levels with first floor being storage and a 3 car garage. I have 100' of gulf frontage, which is plenty to build about a 70' wide house by about 45' deep. We are going to build a 4800' house but it will also have 4200' of outdoor livng on all three levels combined. Outdoor living space is crucial in Florida as is a pool (ours will actually be under the home and first floor lanai) an outdoor kitchen and an elevator. We seriously thought about South caolina (Myrtle Beach to Charleston) but we just love the Sarasota area and St Armands Circle. BTW - when we wentdown there I rented a BMW 5-series and Cadillac ATS. I can appreciate the 5-series handling but what a quirky car with as counter-intuative placement of things I've ever seen. I think BMW doesn't care about unfriendly controls so long as they are different from everyone else. They actually place the wiper control where MB paces it's shift handle So there I was ready to shift into drive and I'm turning on my wipers instead because I am so use to MB controls now. The cadillac I loved and will take it whenever it's available on future trips. I never set up a lux car in advance as you pay too much. ifd you ask for an upgrade at the counter they usually charge you just a token amount more if they have the car on hand. They even had vettes for rental.
On investments - no major changes for me. Still have Apple, think it's headed for $125 and am fully in the market..
Good to hear from you and thanks for checking in. It sounds like you are doing somewhat better than "well". Are you talking about a permanent move to Florida or will it just be your winter home?
Comments
Nope - no bitcoins for me. Fake currency with wild fluctuations and ability to go poof is not where I'd put my money.
good by fellows nice to have been with you :-) Tony
Goodbye for now. Hope you make it back from time to time.
Gary
Hey tony, where are you going. Did I miss something?
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Stock Market rigged. We discussed electronics and the market about a year ago. It looks like it is even worse than we thought. I have lost out on the 2013 gains for the most part. But did not give the thieves anything.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-the-us-stock-market-rigged/
I think we have all known that those high speed traders had an advantage. It appears to me that the large high speed traders are stealing from each other mostly on very large transactions. With the type of trades that most of us make, we might lose a penny now and then. It would appear that you can even avoid that by not making any "market" buys.
That said, cheating is still cheating, and high speed computer trading should be banned.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Tony,
I'm guilty for not having posted anything here for a long time. Let's face it. This Forum has been going downhill for quite a while now. I hope you are feeling ok. Please let us know.
I promised to post some photos when I get the 2014 S550. Believe it or not, I still don't have it. When I ordered the car back in early January, it was estimated that it arrive in Kansas City about mid March. Well, the ship brought it to Baltimore at that time, but incredibly enough, it has not yet made it to KC. The car was released on March 17 and the ETA to KC was suppose to be no later than March 27. When that did not happen, I was told that the car was on the truck as of late this past Friday. My sales guy called the VPC yesterday and he was told that my car was in route. When it had not yet arrived as of early this afternoon, he checked again and was told the car was still in Baltimore. Can you believe that? Mind boggling! The transportation company botched it up royally. They promised it would be on the truck tomorrow and be in KC by Friday. So, I'm planning to pick it up by no later than Saturday.
What's a solution I saw, charge a fee of one cent per buy or sell, and it would kill the cheaters' game?
That's insane - I hope their error comes with some kind of compensation.
The Wolf Hunters of Wall Street
This occurred when a high-frequency trader was able to see the price of a stock change on one exchange and pick off orders sitting on other exchanges before those exchanges were able to react. This happened all day, every day, and very likely generated more billions of dollars a year than the other strategies combined.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/magazine/flash-boys-michael-lewis.html
But it's legal, so it must be good, right? Just like offshoring, tax avoiding, etc.
There probably should be an inquisition of sorts, eventually.
I think we were told not that long ago that Apple had more than $100 billion invested out side the USA. Now they are claiming only $54 billion.
Conglomerate General Electric Co had the biggest pile of earnings stored abroad, at $110 billion, the firm said.
Next were software maker Microsoft Corp, with $76.4 billion; drugmakers Pfizer Inc, with $69 billion, and Merck & Co Inc, with $57.1 billion; and high-tech group Apple Inc, with $54.4 billion, it said.
http://news.yahoo.com/untaxed-u-corporate-profits-held-overseas-top-2-231036078--business.html;_ylt=AwrBEiSyhkRTh0wARiLQtDMD
Ok, As I promised, I will try and post a few photos of my new S550. I can tell you that it is a heavenly ride and from what I have heard the technology in this car is even more advanced than that on the Rolls or Bentley.
(https://us.v-cdn.net/5021145/uploads/editor/5z/qlz5d2mbhhwq.jpg "")
I'm still learning about all the incredible features this car has. I've only had it for less than a week. Probably my favorite feature is what MB calls Distronic Plus. It allows the car to basically drive itself about 50% of the time. In city, stop and go traffic, you can use the Auto Pilot and the S550 follows the vehicle in front. It will stop when the vehicle in from stops, stay in its lane, etc. This works for up to 37 mph in city traffic. On the Interstate, you can take your hands off the wheel, the foot off the accelerator, and the car will drive itself for up to 12 seconds. It will then warn you to put your hands on the wheel. Once you touch the wheel, you can repeat the process. When I was driving home from KC (on right hand lane on the Interstate) after I picked up the car, I was looking at one of the screens for a moment and I veered slightly on the breakdown line. The car instantly corrected itself after warning me in red and the steering wheel vibrating to warn me of the danger.
The ride is incredibly smooth and amazingly quiet. It is quieter than the LS was. The audio system is out of this world good. It's called Burmester. I believe it is even better than the Mark Levenson system on the LS.
To tiop things off, I got an amazing 30.9 mpg driving home from KC. Since then, I have been idling the car for hours at a time trying to learn all the features in it and the gas mileage is suffering, but I think I will be getting about 19 mpg in city traffic.
Here are a few more photos
Amazing car, I hope you enjoy it for as long as you have it. This is indeed the most advanced production car right now - the British luxobarges don't come close - RR is old school or at best, the Ghost which is something of a very fancy BMW 7-series, Bentley is bling above all. In this car, you get 80% of the luxury for half the price, with twice the tech. It'll be very interesting to see how BMW, Audi, and Lexus react, as the S now makes their cars look old.
Thank you fintail! What else can I say. I love this car. I actually cannot believe the price is so low for what I got.
Btw, I think I saw you name on an MB forum somewhere but I don't recall which one it was.
Sweeeeet car....many safe miles!
Congratulations, WOW !
Please keep us posted on how all of those wonderful safety features work in the real world. Sounds fantastic.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Although not exactly an affordable car for most, it does have an insane amount of lux and tech. You can get something a little more posh, but you'll pay a lot more - the cheapest Bentley sedan has to be twice as much, and that's the next step up. Your car appears to have what I call the "luxury" wheels, rather than more aggressive wheels. Yours probably have better ride quality, and might match well with the color.
I am at mbworld or benzworld with this name. I am generally only posting on the vintage and W212 forums, and not too often. Those forums are very helpful.
Thanks Houdini! So far, the safety features are astonishing to me. It's to the point that it feels like one needs to try hard to get in an accident with this car. Long drives of more than 500 miles I believe will be very comfortable with 6 massage options (including hot stone massage), the comfortable seats, and the incredibly smooth, very quiet, and almost effortless ride. I had radar cruise on my Lexus, but this car takes radar cruise to another level.
Thank you carnaught!
Yes fintail. I did order mine with the standard 18 inch wheels. I went for comfort over looks. Plus the cost of the 19-20" wheels was between $2,500-$6,000 extra deepening on what you got. I didn't see the point. Actually, these standard wheels look just fine in my opinion.
That is one knockout car. I just saw one on the highway and they are the luxury car to beat. The fruits of labor are sweet. Enjoy your beautiful car.
+1
Very nice, cyclone.
With decaying roads, the higher sidewall tires are probably a better choice. It's not a sportscar. Those tires will be cheaper, too. I doubt I will ever seek a low profile tires car again, too many compromises.
Thanks gagrice and cdnpinhead! My wife and I are in Seattle this week visiting our son and his family and I really miss driving the new S550. There is SO much to learn and enjoy about this car.
I should get together with fintail while in Seattle but we have been constantly on the go with kids and grandkids.
Enjoy the rain! You missed an amazing weekend.
We actually got here early Saturday evening.It was indeed gorgeous Sunday and Monday. And, even though there will be some rain in the days ahead, at least we will not freeze our rear ends off. When we were here back in March of 2012, it was the worst possible weather Seattle can possibly have at that time of year. It either snowed or snow/rain mixed every single day we were here (mid March or so) and highs were in the 30s each day. So, this is not bad at all. At least highs will be in the 50s.
How long are you here? Should be OK tomorrow and for most of Sunday. It's been a lot wetter than normal so far this year, hopefully will pay off with a nice summer (summers here are probably the best in the country, and a big reason some tolerate the dreary winters).
I saw a new S today, in Bellevue of course.
We are leaving Monday afternoon and heading back to Des Moines where we will see some 80s next week. Awesome!
It'll be 80 here, eventually, maybe not til June or even July. Hope you have a fun time, and that local traffic and rain isn't too annoying
I hope everyone is doing well and investing wisely. The forum has gotten very slow lately and I hope it picks up soon. What happened to ljflx?
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
And to you, Houdini. I'm doing OK and just letting it ride...
'21 Dark Blue/Black Audi A7 PHEV (mine); '22 White/Beige BMW X3 (hers); '20 Estoril Blue/Oyster BMW M240xi 'Vert (Ours, read: hers in 'vert weather; mine during Nor'easters...)
My observation of this board over the past few years would lead me to believe that if there's nothing to discuss regarding Apple stock, there's nothing to talk about.
The market has done so well for so long that it makes me nervous. It can't last forever.
True, but what is your time horizon? Mine grows shorter with each passing year, but I'd hate to miss the ongoing-ish Bull...
'21 Dark Blue/Black Audi A7 PHEV (mine); '22 White/Beige BMW X3 (hers); '20 Estoril Blue/Oyster BMW M240xi 'Vert (Ours, read: hers in 'vert weather; mine during Nor'easters...)
Well I'm edging closer to retirement, but I'm still moderately aggressive. Just because I'm worried doesn't mean I'm changing my asset allocation. I'm not going to try and time the market. So I will ride the ups and downs with the portion of my portfolio that is in the market.
My dirt-simple (probably considered beneath contempt by those "in the know") approach is to keep the percentage of equities at 110 minus my age. The rest goes into money markets and bonds. If I live to 110, I may reconsider.
Anecdotally, the performance of my "thing" (I hesitate to call it a portfolio) seems to have weathered the joys of 2001 and 2008 about as well as I could have hoped, but what do I know?
Stats show that with rebalancing, approaches such as yours outperform >70% of the investors out there. Not to mention cutting around 1% off the costs due to advisor fees, etc. IMHO the entire advisor financial industry is a scam that plays on the ignorance of most people.
There's a saying "All the brokers have yachts. Why don't their customers have yachts?"
That is SO true.
Market
I hope everyone is having some success in this irrepressible market. Does anyone correspond personally with our friend ljflx? He has not posted in over 7 months. I hope he is OK and just very busy. I also wonder how tagman is doing !
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Yeah.......gone but not forgotten.
Would love to see this board rekindled.
Due to a lack of working capital, I have not purchased any stocks for quite some time. And, they have all gone up quite significantly!
'21 Dark Blue/Black Audi A7 PHEV (mine); '22 White/Beige BMW X3 (hers); '20 Estoril Blue/Oyster BMW M240xi 'Vert (Ours, read: hers in 'vert weather; mine during Nor'easters...)
That's OK, you can take a big deduction on your 2014 taxes. Just explain to the IRS that stocks went up and you didn't have any... and tell them that you are a big Obama fan and he said it was OK !!
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Genius. To redistribute the capital gains wealth a bit. Gotta start thinking about what to do with this money in '15. Maybe invest....in a BMW i8. Obama would have to love that plan!
'21 Dark Blue/Black Audi A7 PHEV (mine); '22 White/Beige BMW X3 (hers); '20 Estoril Blue/Oyster BMW M240xi 'Vert (Ours, read: hers in 'vert weather; mine during Nor'easters...)
I have been in communication with Len. He is doing great. He just informed me that he will post here next week. He has been extremely busy since he and his wife will be moving to a beautiful spot near Sarasota. FL. They bought a gorgeous piece of property on a beach front and will be building a house there.
Len has also bought 3 high end MB's in the past year or so.
Thank you, that is a relief. I will be looking forward to his post next week.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Houdini,
thanks for your concern. All is good here. I've sold my business so that had me very pre-occupied. Car wise - I had the SL 550 and S550, both are 2013's and I love them and I re-upped my GL lease to a 2014. That truck is almost as silky smooth as the S 550 and very qiet. I really loaded this one up with night vision and a designo interior that is very similar in interior colors as my SL, which is also designo. On a lease the designo is such a great upgade and because it retains so much value it doesn't cost much more. In fact this truck which lists for $15K more than my old truck is barely costing me $100 a month more as I got a terrific deal. I've also been heavily pre-occupied with a land acquisition in Florida. Last winter was it for me. Too much snow, it was constantly on the ground from December into late March and bitter cold. I need summer all year round. So we have contracted for a beautuful parcel of land, that is a bit more than half an acre in Casey Key Florida on the gulf and am building with John Cannon Homes. We close on the land as soon as we get a title review in about 20 days. But it'll take two years to complete the build of the home. Casey Key is a real residential area, not commercial like Longboat Key or Siesta Key and is about 20-30 minutes south of Sarasota. That area is relatively safe from hurricanes and they now build all block construction with 170mph wind strength windows and first floor living space is 20' above flood level. In my case I'll be 23' up, The homes usually have 3 levels with first floor being storage and a 3 car garage. I have 100' of gulf frontage, which is plenty to build about a 70' wide house by about 45' deep. We are going to build a 4800' house but it will also have 4200' of outdoor livng on all three levels combined. Outdoor living space is crucial in Florida as is a pool (ours will actually be under the home and first floor lanai) an outdoor kitchen and an elevator. We seriously thought about South caolina (Myrtle Beach to Charleston) but we just love the Sarasota area and St Armands Circle. BTW - when we wentdown there I rented a BMW 5-series and Cadillac ATS. I can appreciate the 5-series handling but what a quirky car with as counter-intuative placement of things I've ever seen. I think BMW doesn't care about unfriendly controls so long as they are different from everyone else. They actually place the wiper control where MB paces it's shift handle So there I was ready to shift into drive and I'm turning on my wipers instead because I am so use to MB controls now. The cadillac I loved and will take it whenever it's available on future trips. I never set up a lux car in advance as you pay too much. ifd you ask for an upgrade at the counter they usually charge you just a token amount more if they have the car on hand. They even had vettes for rental.
On investments - no major changes for me. Still have Apple, think it's headed for $125 and am fully in the market..
Good to hear from you and thanks for checking in. It sounds like you are doing somewhat better than "well". Are you talking about a permanent move to Florida or will it just be your winter home?
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460