THE SENIOR MEN'S CLUB OF NEW CANAAN
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of February 22, 2002
Acting President Ron Seger opened the meeting with 161 members present. Membership is 500 with 44 on the waiting list.
Announcements: Members applauded Ken DeGroot for the new badges. Way to go Ken. Jim D' Acosta thanked the ten members who showed up for chair detail. Ron Seger said he would be discounting the trip to Washington D.C. in April for the remaining two couples. They will be the lucky ones to get a dollar off. We always knew that Ron was all heart.
Activities: Paddle, bridge, and bowling continue. Racquetball is still down in Florida, 4Fs luncheon is today. Trailblazers first hike will be 3/13 in Trumbull, and the second hike 3/27 at Huntington State Park.
Couth: March 5 Philadelphia Flower Show is sold out. The April trip to the CIA has been cancelled, a replacement trip is being looked into. The Bronx Zoo is still on for May.
Resident Humorist: Assistant humorist Jim Schlumpf told a real shaggy dog story about a dog named "Sex" who continuously got his owner into hot water.
Speaker: Vice President Bert Liebelt introduced Laszlo Birinyi, head of his own stock market research and money management company in Westport. He is also a strategist and consultant for Deutsche Bank Alex Brown. The first thing that Mr. Birinyi stressed is that investing in the stock market is a profession and should be treated as such. In other words, it is a full time job.
The Wall Street firms are run by these professionals whose main objective is making money for their individual companies. Making money for the client is absolutely secondary. The business of Wal1 Street is not markets, it is "marketing." We shouldn't put our brokers on a pedestal, we often are just as smart or smarter than they are. As far as the people we deal with, we should be wary about "technical" types, and be especially wary of the press, which is slanted towards Wall Street. Before investing, we should do thorough research on the sources of information we are using to make that investment. He considers the Wall Street Journal the best source for most of us. He also said everyone should read "The Money Game" by Adam Smith, which he considers the best book written on the subject. A few other comments were; "index funds" aren't so great, and a small part of Social Security should be invested in the market. He was fairly confident in a recovery this year, and in the short 1iked five stocks. They are Texas Instruments, Goldman Sachs, Eastman Kodak, General Motors, and BOP .
Eric Musa, Secretary