Snapchat, Tencent and Robocalls

Before I get started…this quote I stumbled across today made me laugh:

“Once, every village had an idiot. It took the internet to bring them all together.” Colonel Robert Bateman

With that quote in mind…this article ‘The Internet of Idiots‘ is a good read.

Also..Just in case you are feeling stupid about investing ….know there are still people 1n 2018 paying Bill Ackman 2 and 20 to buy shares in Starbucks. Bill now likes Starbucks to the tune of $900 million. You can buy it on Robinhood for free if you like.

Onwards…

For the last year I get one or two spam phone calls a day. I get less spam in Gmail!

For some asinine reason I take a lot of these calls. The salesperson in me believes that someone must be calling from Nigeria to give ME money.

Today I saw Brett Taylor ask about all this spam on his Twitter feed. Brett, unlike me, is no dummy. He might have one of the greatest resumes in the world.

Here are his credentials:

Facebook CTO

Co-creator of Google Maps. Yes…Google freaking maps.

Founded Quip which was acquired by Salesforce for $750 million.

Twitter Board member (won’t hold this against him based on his track record).

Turns out NPR wrote about the problem. No matter how smart we get, the assholes programming the robots are one step ahead.

Here are some tips on what you can do to slow it down.

Ok…back to markets.

I have three stocks in my portfolio that have been going down everyday. Tencent, $MMYT and $SCIF (Indian Small Cap ETF). Tencent is in my 8-80 list and I started buying it in the 20’s, went as high as 60 and is now back in the 30’s. Because Tencent is one of my 8 to 80 companies, I have been a buyer in the low 40’s as well as when my 8 to 80 stocks drop 25-30 percent, I add to them. The stock has lost over $200 billion in market value (ten Twitter’s):

Their $2 billion investment in Snapchat when the stock was at $12 now just looks sloppy as Snapchat bleeds money. I am not sure if the markets are more worried about Tencent losing the $2 billion they invested in snapchat or that they may buy the remaining 88 percent of it. The bigger issues are government related crackdowns in China, which I have zero insight into. In the meantime, I will hold because their products are LOVED by a majority of 8 to 80 citizens of China.

The other two losers are Indian investments I continue to classify as venture investments for exposure to India’s emerging market. I am sticking with the exposure to them both but losses are now near 30 percent which is not fun to watch.

I have a plan, but sometimes the best laid plans bleed out.