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, November, 2018

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

Roll call:  A quorum was in danger at 6:30, but enough members wandered in, giving us a quorum so that we could conduct business.  Otherwise we would have shot some bulls, ate some dinner and gone home.    We also had a return guest, Joey Baron, who brought along his daughter Rebecca Baron.  We also had a walk-in guest in Daren Munson, who was unaware we are a dinner club. He didn't order, and bolted at the break.  We were especially sad to learn that Art (Ringo) Jensen was in the hospital and being fed intravenously.  He is still on a rough road to recovery from his cancer of the tongue.  We hope he is at the December meeting and feeling better.   

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.

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 $1,066.67 which is the amount of the food fund balance.

Our current value is $109,809.68, less contributions made in 2018 of $10,946.35 leaves an adjusted balance for contributions and withdrawals of $9,8863.33. Comparing this to the yearend valuation number of $89,908.48, we show a profit (realized and unrealized) of $8,954.85 or 10.996%. Given that the S&P 500 is up 2.34%, Dow is up 2.81%, and the NASD is up 4.99% - we remain noticeably ahead of all of the indexes!

Jerry also announced that if you  haven't paid your $500 annual contribution for 2018, you should bring a check at our December meeting.   After the November meeting stock selloff (see new business highlights below), we have a ton of cash to deploy for wiser investments.

A motion was made to suspend the rules to allow a motion concerning our annual "tip" to our charming waitress, Connie.  That passed.  So, Sam moved to give Connie a $100 extra tip for the Christmas Holiday season next month.  David Mitchell, who normally guards the treasury, moved to amend to $150.  During debate it was pointed out we gave $75 last year, and that $150 was too much.  The amendment failed, the motion carried.  Since we had suspended the rules, Jerry moved that at year end, we take our excess food cash account (from people who had a low attendance record) and route that money into our profit and loss" account.  That also passed. 

Membership:  We are now at full membership according to our bylaws.   A quasi-committee report by David Mitchell who has modified our "Partnership Agreement" in terms of Additional Partners, Contributions and club partnership agreement witness names and dates.  We will discuss and vote on this stuff at the December meeting.  David will send emails on the proposed changes for you to examine before our December meeting.

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

Buy/Hold:  Jerry ranked 4 holds, with just one buy...UNH.  

Sell/Hold:  Jerry suggested 5 sells; AAPL, BA, CRM, MA and V.

Watch List:  There were no additions or deletions from our current "watch list" which now 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.  We now have an inside man to help us determine if we should keep AVGO on the watchlist or buy it.

·       Education:  No education segment was presented, since we have moved the educational report to the end of the meeting, where there usually is no time left.  Nevertheless, frustrated by our collective ignorance, our Education Partner, Doug Kallevig, took just one lousy minute to display several indexes on a single chart showing who's leading and lagging.  

Stock Presentations:

A lot of stocks were thrown out there for consideration:  Sam Charchian suggested we place a buy limit-order at $59.69 on Verizon (VZ) due to their leadership in the upcoming G5 ultra high-band network being developed. Lloyd Mielke offered Schlumberger (SLB) and Halliburton for consideration as to which has the uglier chart.  Guest Rebecca Baron threw out the Turkey (it was Thanksgiving) country ETF, TUR.  Given no one could name even one company in Turkey or what is going on in Turkey, this suggestion went nowhere too.  Sagacious Sam then offered AAPL for consideration on a buy limit-order even if we sell our current shares.  No one took a bite from that apple either.

Investment Business:

Before I begin, note that we saved a serious bunch of dough (about $3k) by dumping NVDA and XPO last month.  

A motion was made to dump all of our APPL at market.  This was amended to include a Buy/Stop order to repurchase our same 50 shares at $200.69.  The amendment and main motion both passed.

Jerry moved to sell all our shares of Boeing (BA) at market.  That passed.   He then moved to sell all our shares of MasterCard (MA) at market.  That passed too.  He also moved to sell all of our Visa (V).  That passed.  On a major roll, with only resistance from David Mitchell, Jerry moved we sell all of our Salesforce.com (CRM).  That passed.  He then moved to cancel our previous limit-order on our $280 ILMN.  That passed.  He finally moved to cancel the $164 limit-order on IAC.  That also passed.  Tim Deegan was fearful the current limit-order may trigger upon market open (giving us IAC) before the cancel was submitted and was struggling on how to dump it immediately.  John Drewitz moved that if we own IAC, we dump it at market immediately.  That passed.  

·       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 8:30, George Heim dropped the gavel.  

Liar's Poker Highlights:  Only 4 Liar's poker players showed up this month, so the game was postponed to December.  The 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