Perkins’ Picks

MARKETS CAN LEARN FROM JAZZ

JPCULTURE: Jazz @ Lincoln Center, Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion, Stubbs and Wooton

STOCKTALK: APP, LVMH, MCD

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MARKETS CAN LEARN FROM JAZZ

Last night I headed off to Jazz @ Lincoln Center in New York for their annual gala which this year paid tribute to Nat King Cole. Although I had fun hanging out with my favorite investor, Mrs. Llewellyn, and sizing up dinner jackets with my man and jazz genius Wynton Marsalis (below), I couldn’t help but become inspired by the evening to do some work. At the top of the night, documentary film maker Ken Burns, was honored with an award for his work Jazz, one of his many brilliant films. A clip from Jazz was played. At one point the film touched on the interrelations of a community of jazz musicians having a dialogue via their instruments. The narrator read, “Jazz demands individual expression with selfless collaboration.” Then it hit me.

The U.S. economy, like jazz, demands individual expression, but with selfless collaboration. This makes much more sense than “counter-party risk”.

Wynton Marsalis & JP

I have been hearing a new motif on CNBC that I wish I could stop hearing, “long-term investing is over”. I guess that is precisely what I get for watching a show entitled Fast Money, which I thought was suppose to be combined with fast cars and fast women, all of which flee with the same rate, fast. Nonetheless, long-term investing, ahem, I should say, investing is not dead. There are questions as to what the new markets will reward in this new era, but I feel safe in saying that it will probably include good companies as usual, and we still have those because not all companies sold toxic mortgages (I am tired of people saying “toxic mortgages)

Investing big wig, and one of my very early inspirations, Byron Wein (former Morgan Staley big –wig) was sitting at the table adjacent to me, but I decided that my tux (outfitted with an uber hip red and black plaid shirt and special order Stubbs and Wootons) was too sexy for me to run up to B-dub while he’s eating a black-tie chicken plate with an obvious question like “What do you think of the economy?” (Said with a Steve Urkel voice because I am sure that is how annoying it would have been; the real reason I didn’t ask). And of course, a “real” question does not allow him to finish his meal in peace.

Byron

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Stubbs and Wooton

All was not lost as lovely conversation resided at our table which included investing pros and generally savvy individuals. One of the things that we discussed was the importance of infrastructure. Obviously it is not a simple task to redirect jobs, but there is more than enough infrastructure work to employ everyone in Detroit from the auto industry whether it is roads and bridges or cleaner energy alternatives. Ben Stein recently made an interesting point regarding industrial infrastructure and capacity lines. That one only wants to lose but so much capacity because in times of war or military replenishment ( a very misunderstood story) a high-powered country needs the ability to make tanks, jeeps and other armed accoutrement. A friend seconded this last night and made and even more intelligent point, that we also need the Research and Development efforts of these seemingly non-relevant companies as well. These points are much more compelling than actual broken pensions, because of course; the government will bail these out (see AIG’s bailout going from $85 B to $123 B, to yesterdays reported $150 B).

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What to Watch (W2W):

How well does the bass player communicate with drummer, who’s communicating with the trumpet player. Said another way, how well is the government communicating with the banks, who should be communicating with the consumer and liquidity markets.

A very sophisticated woman to my left said that she withdrew cash from the bank, and judging from the fur, I don’t think she meant $500. A noted investor to my right said that after forty years he had never seen this much fear.

We have had enough individual expression of fear, time for some selfless collaboration of liquidity.

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JPCulture

If you were in New York, I hope you were able to catch the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion in Central Park.

The pavilion in NYC's Central Park

STOCKTALK: APP, LVMH, MCD

• American Apparel (APP) beat analysts expectations by $0.03 (I tried to tell FOX), however, they did advise analysts to lower their expectations for the remainder of the year.
  

  american apparel leggings

• Watch Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton (LVMH), a documentary by Loic Prigent, you’ll probably want to buy stock immediately it is so sick how well their company is run.
• McDonald’s (MCD) October global sales rise 8.2% as Starbucks cancels plans to open more stores (how long did it take them to figure that one out?). One of my favorite themes, global, global, global came in to play as only 34% of sales come from the U.S. for McDonalds.