Crow's Nest

Death and Anti-Investments

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Mates, have you heard about Dead Pools? They are death prediction games. They each have their own rules and are quite popular. Invest a little for a possible gain of a hundredfold or more.

A small one on the internet is the Midway Dead Pool. It's rules are simpler than most. In December send in your $20 and list of 10 celebrities you think (hope) might die in the following year. You get points for each one who dies. 100 points minus their age at the time of death. The winner gets 80% of the pot and the runner-up gets 20%. Looks like there are 21 players for 2007 and the winner will get $340 for a gain of 1600%. That's a better return than your average Chinese Stock and Apple combined.

So far this year the most picked celebrity who died and earned points for the players was Tammy Faye Messner. She died in July and was worth 35 points. Because she was very sick and looked it, she was a popular choice. Another common pick who also passed in July was Lady Bird Johnson. Because of her age she was only worth 6 points. A more valuable pick that started her dirt-nap in February was Anna Nicole Smith. Addicted to drugs and alcohol and having numerous sexual partners apparently without the use of condoms she was a logical choice and was worth 61 points. One lucky player has all three of these ladies on her list and is in the lead with only a few months to go.

I'm surprised that I didn't see Britney Spears on anyone's list. She's only 25 years old (big 75 point value), seems more than a little ditzy, is addicted to drugs and alcohol, divorced, and every time you see her on TV she's behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. I thought she'd be the Google of Dead Pool investors this year.

Why do I bring up this insanity here?

Because I see on the Strategy Lab Open web site that the fifth most invested in stock by contestants this past week was UltraShort S&P 500 ProShares (SDS). Seeing that instantly brought Dead Pools to mind. They have so much in common.

With any UltraShort Proshare you're not really investing in something; you're gambling, betting against somebody's good fortune. It's an anti-investment. You can only win if someone else loses. According to the current prospectus the fund's investment strategy is taking positions in financial instruments including derivatives and employing leveraged investment techniques. For a net annual fund operating expense (fee) of only 0.95% you subject your investment to "Aggressive Investment Technique Risk, Credit Risk, Early Close/Trading Halt Risk, Liquidity Risk, Market Price Variance Risk, Market Risk and Non-diversification Risk."

Wow, what a deal. You're afraid that bad times are coming, a correction or crash is only a matter of time. You've got to have a hedge. There's easy money out there. You deserve it. "Money for nothing, chicks for free." Me. Me. Me.

Even in bad economic times there are great companies out there that will still have positive returns. Maybe it's more challenging to find them but I just believe that investing in something real that may provide a win-win for all involved is so much better than betting that others will fail. It's not just how much money you make, it's how you make it. Life is too short to be sitting around eagerly reading the obituaries or impatiently waiting for the next stock market crash.

Peace, love, and Happy Halloween.

Robert