Cosmopolitan Toastmasters

     -The Official minutes of Cosmopolitan Investors 2018-

Important Notice:  The Cosmopolitan Investment Club meets at the DoubleTree Hotel, 7800 Normandale Blvd., Bloomington, MN.  It is located at the Northwest Corner of Highways 100 and 494.  We meet in the "nine-mile grill", located just to the right and behind the front desk.         Note:  From years ago, some will remember the hotel as the Raddison South Hotel.

            Cosmopolitan Investment Club Meeting Minutes, December 2018

Beloved Club President George Heim dropped the gavel and began the meeting at 6:30 p.m.

Roll call:  A quorum was present to conduct business, with a full room. It was good to see Joe Porto back.  We also had a return guest, Joey Baron, who once again brought along his daughter Rebecca Baron.  Bill gave us an update on Art (Ringo) Jensen's condition. He is home, but getting some chemo and radiation.  He is still on a rough road to recovery from his cancer of the tongue.  We hope he is at the January meeting and feeling better.  He was sorely missed at the Liar's Poker table.   

Meeting Minutes:  Hopefully, ALL of you have read the minutes online, since there is much frustration with the accompanying editorializing, as your humble secretary reads the minutes of the previous meeting.  All feeble attempts to amend the minutes were foiled, especially the part where the secretary refers to himself as Sagacious Sam.  For those unaware, sagacious means wise, chuck full of wisdom but not a wise-guy.

Treasurer's Report:  Jerry Doffing read the monthly (highlights below) report -which was approved:

Please note the balances from TD Ameritrade and ICLUB are off by the food fund balance of $3,600, and the withdrawal request which has not cleared of $14,767.06.

Our current value is $93,619.91, less contributions made in 2019 of $1,000.00 leaves an adjusted balance for contributions and withdrawals of $107,386.97. Comparing this to the yearend valuation number of $108,050.82, we show a loss (realized and unrealized) of $663.55 or 0.6144%. Given that the S&P 500 is up 6.54%, Dow is up 5.91%, and the NASD is up 7.87% - we remain noticeably and significantly behind of all of the indexes!

Last year’s numbers look like this. Ending value of $108,050.82 less contributions in 2018 of 12,779.92 leaves a net number of $95,270.90. Comparing this to the 2017 yearend valuation number of $89,908.48, we show a gain (realized and unrealized) of $5,362.42 or 5.964%. Given that the S&P 500 was down 6.24%, Dow was down 5.63%, and the NASD was down 3.88% - we ended noticeably and significantly ahead of all of the indexes!   

Membership:  A quasi-committee report by David Mitchell who has modified our "Partnership Agreement" in terms of: 1) Additional Partners, 2) Contributions and 3)club partnership agreement witness names and dates.  We discussed and voted on this stuff at the December meeting. The bottom line is that we can now have 20 members instead of the previous 18.  Secondly, a new member can start with $250 toward his/her $500 annual contribution instead of the previous $500 right up front.  The motion also replaced the names of partners from a several years ago, like Wade Grantham, Al Traynham and Gordon Brown..with our current membership roster.

Stock Analysis:  Jerry provided an analysis of our current holdings and his recommendations which is briefly summarized below:

Buy/Hold:  Jerry ranked no holds, and no buys...  

Sell/Hold:  Jerry suggested all sells; CNC, COST, CVS, UNH, AND MU.

Watch List:  There were no additions or deletions from our current "watch list" which still consists of the following:  CHDN, AVGO, ATVI, SNE, LMT, ALXN, AMTD, and IAC.  note: Concerning Broadcom (AVGO); Wanting to learn more about Broadcom Limited, David Mitchell decided to get on the inside and spy around, so he applied for a job at Broadcom and was quickly accepted with alacrity and hired as a full-time consultant.  We now have an inside man (a spy) to help us determine if we should keep AVGO on the watchlist, buy or short it.

·       Education:  With the bearded one, Doug (Santa) Kallevig missing, no education segment was presented.  Since we have moved the educational report to the end of the meeting, there usually is no time left anyway.  Fearing he would be re-elected to Education Partner again, Doug feigned feeling somewhat ill, and stayed home.  There are rumors he was getting the reindeer ready for a midnight run around the 24th.   

Stock Presentations:

A lot of stocks were thrown out there for consideration:  Guest Joey Baron offered an ETF called FTEC, which is an IT ETF.  Jerry explained it has some good stocks and a whole bunch of lousy stocks, so this was not received too well.  Sam suggested we re-purchase XPO which has dropped over 40% since we sold it.  We reviewed some fundamentals and Sam suggested a BUY-STOP on this $52 stock at $70.  Then Jerry went nuts with a barrage of stocks and indexes.  To save some space, here they are w/o a lot of comment:  BABA and TCEHY from China.  Then ETF's, BWO and DGS.  Then an inverse ETF of Europe EPV.  Then indexes, DJIA, SH, and QQQ, along with PSQ which is the inverse of QQQ.  Then FJB which is a short on junk bonds.  Then the GOLD ETF.  Then back to stocks with PYPL and V.  This kept laptop volunteer operator, Lloyd Mielke,  very busy showing charts of these Indexes, ETF's and Stocks.  Ed. note:  we really need more members to come in with some stock buy or sell recommendations.  Along with a little on-line research, you can find a suggestion or two, to help spread ideas around the partnership better. Even once or twice a year would be appreciated. 

Investment Business: 

Sam Charchian moved that we place a BUY-STOP on XPO at $69.69 as he suggested during presentations.  There was some discussion on the buy point from its current price ($52) to its 50-day MA ($81).  The motion passed.

Jerry moved to sell CNC at market.   That passed.  Then sell COST at market.  That passed.  Then sell CVS with a STOP at $67.69.  That passed.  Then sell UNH with a STOP at $242.69.  That passed.  Then to buy 300 shares of the inverse QQQ (NASDAQ), which is PSQ.  Sam moved to amend the shares to 200.  That failed.  The main motion to buy 300 PSQ at market passed.  In short, we are almost out of the market and pretty much carefree which way it goes.

Time was getting short.  Someone moved to suspend the (agenda) rules to allow an election of officers for 2019.  Jerry Doffing was re-elected as Club Treasurer unchallenged.  I hate to admit it, but he's becoming indispensable.  Sam Charchian was re-elected to Club General Secretary (CGS).  Sagacity reigns.  The position of Education Partner and 1st Assistant President was open to nominations. With Doug missing, Guest Rebecca and waitress Connie nominated the dapper John Drewitz.  John reluctantly accepted and was quickly swept into office.  Finally, our beloved President, George Heim was re-elected unchallenged.     

·       The Finale':  Guest comments by Joey and daughter Rebecca, as usual, were mostly about being impressed by the sagacity of our beloved secretary.  

Closing:  It was 8:40, George Heim dropped the gavel.  

Liar's Poker Highlights:  Only 5 Liar's poker players showed up this month.  They were Sam, Norm, Jerry, Bill and Tim.  The only real highlight is that nobody won all night except Sam twice and Norm once.  Amazing.  Also, Bill saved Sam's butt on two occasions including the dreaded dumb-ass rule.   Last October highlights are below:

We had 7 players for Liars' Poker with the inclusion of Dr. Dave and Tom Nyberg.  We missed Tim Deegan, but were fortunate to have a good group playing.  It started out with Dr. Dave determined to take the King of the Hill away from the pompous self-award bearing Norm Grant.  After several failed costly attempts, Dave backed off.  Art was his usual self, bidding conservatively sometimes, and then going forward like a madman with outrageous bids.  Norm and Jerry were somewhat subdued all evening until late, when a miracle and a misstep by Tom Nyberg enabled the normally subdued Jerry to go for the Grand Slam.  We were all shocked when he took the throne from Norm.  Bill Kalina actually was a bit more aggressive, which caused him to overstep losing a few rounds. Sam, played brilliantly and left with a few bucks ahead.  Art had a rough night...financially.  As usual, Jerry made a few "love dates" during the game, as his mind seldom roams from "chicks" and "strippers", except when he was watching the Packers game on his phone.  Winning KoftheH was a miracle.  See photos below.                        

Section 2 article d.- Dumb-Ass-Loser Rule:  If a slam bid is made (the bubble has none) and the total count is also zero, then the dumb-ass bidder (who went for the grand slam) is obligated to: rise, apologize, and pay out $2 to each player.  Optional: He should apologize profusely to the King and offer him a drink.

                       Click on:   Liars Poker Rules  to play properly.

Important Links:      Letters-to-the-Editor ;   Club Photos;   Official Partnership Agreement