France shares reflect observation

While in Paris a few weeks ago a post here on April 14 was titled "Economic troubles less apparent". Returning to New York on April 17 when I could have easily decided to believe my not sold eyes and buy the EWQ, the ETF based on the French equity market, I did not. Since that day the French market is up almost 17% and has outperformed Germany, Italy, the U.K, and the European ETF. We even had dinner on the 15th at a brasserie, Le Vaudeville, directly across the street from The Bourse and it was packed at 8:30 in the evening. Why not more conviction, a little faith in one of Peter Lynch's adages that what you observe is an important factor in an investment decision, often one that can be ahead of any analyst's number crunching or networking. Next time the opportunity to travel comes...

That gives me an idea. I could turn myself into an LLC and expense travel. I love travel. Here's how it could work. Say a nice trip to some interesting place for a week or two would cost $5000. That would be a business expense for the LLC. So while enjoying the trip my intuitive observations would be at work. If over the calendar year the observations from the trip would lead to a $5000 gain on investment ideas that would be a gain for the LLC, leading to net income of zero for the LLC. That means that the travel would be paid for by tax free income. If it led higher gains that would be gravy so paying taxes on that would be no real pain. This could be done repeatedly. Tahiti here I come. Of course to make the LLC look like it has a purpose it would be necessary to get a few close friends to invest modest amounts in the LLC but that's no problem. I could just promise them, say, a 10% guaranteed annual return on their money. This could be great... but... Wait a minute... Aw Shucks! Bernie Madoff beat me to this idea by 30 years.