E Moon Festival

Apologies to His Honor Mayor de Blasio. The computer outage yesterday was notbecause of the resurfacing of the streets leading to the former Queensborough, now Koch Bridge (named not for the right-wingers but for former mayor Ed.) I was wrong yesterday.

There was a flood in the basement of my building which took out the high-speed internet, but the old clunker desktop computer was able to function while the laptop went down. Sundays are a bad day for floods with reduced building staff. Making matters worse, we have an interim super not living on the premises, because the former one was sacked for corruption, trying to falsify a board election, and lying to a court about this. He refuses to leave the apartment which comes with the job.

To improve matters one might seek help from the moon, which tonight will be closest to earth according to Hindu astronomy. Since I live and work in a building overlooking the East River (actually an arm of the Atlantic Ocean), the flooding disaster may be because of high tide caused by the moon. Three weeks ago that we went out after supper to see the start of a lunar eclipse of the Harvest Moon which I wrote about here saying the moon matters.

In response to that blog, a Hindu reader sent me detailed instructions for how to celebrate Sharad Purnima tonight when the moon is closest to earth. To benefit from its divine rays, he advises heading outside after 9 pm to recite prayers to Hanuman (or at least think spiritual thoughts). Bring an offering of rice with milk, sugar, and dried fruits to Lakshmi and leave it overnight (covered with a transparent cover or a net to let the moonshine in and keep the bugs and mice out).

After midnight or tomorrow share it with family members. He remarks: “Non-Hindus have been known to also prosper after observing the rituals.”

Alas, I am doomed to monotheism. As a teenager I spent a weekend with the Chinese-American family of my classmate Ellen. Her Christian father went to pray in Chinatownon Sunday and returned with dim sum, the first time I ate them. Her Buddhist mother put offerings of fruit before a statue in the hall. My mother’s reaction was classically Jewish: “idol-worship!”

I also dislike the rise of murderous Hindutva militancy in Narendra Modi’s India. So I will not say a prayer to Hanuman the monkey god or Lakshmi the goddess of prosperity tonight.

A UK AIM stock, Globo (GOBPY) (GBO-LN, traded here as GOBPY) sells systems combining business mobile security with data management, has gone bust. Founded in 1997 and listed a decade later, it is one of the stocks we didn’t buy. I also wound up not buying its product. However we did get caught by another AIM stock. You can’t win em all.

After being hacked, TALK, the stock of the talktalk cellphone system I use to chat with my London sister-in-law, crashed on Monday. Off 12.3% it was the worst performer in London.

*Vedanta Ltd. (VEDL?) will report tomorrow after the close. VEDL rose yesterday in India trading.

*Apple reports today after the close. Maxim just raised its rating to buy from hold. We had a grudge against the brokerage for its cut price ipo for our Benitec Biotech. We are too scared to own AAPL but we do hold shares of a key supplier to its watch arm, Renishaw plc, RSW in Britain. (It also has a very inactive ADR.) If it rises enough I can afford an Apple Watch. However, yesterday UK chartists Investors Intelligence reiterated its short on RSW now at GBX1923.

Naspers News

*Alibaba (BABA), whose ipo we boycotted, also reports then. TH Capital has just raised it to buy from hold. Our Hong Kong-based China play is discussed next. Our new China correspondent Xing Cheng writes that TCTZF’s partner JD.com is picking up business from consumers and vendors trading down from BABA’s T-mall. We will know more as China’s e-commerce sector reports. The odds are greatest that BP, VEDL, and Naspers(34% owner of Tencent) have staff observing Sharad Purnima.