The Anna Maria Island Sun Newspaper

Vol. 13 No. 2 - October 24, 2012

BUSINESS

O'Shucks – new name, new look, new menu

CORTEZ – O'Shucks has opened quietly where Pelican Pete’s used to be at 12012 Cortez Road West, and early patrons have been seen leaving the restaurant raving about the food.

O'Shucks owners Jimmy and Sandy Galanis reopened the eatery with a new look inside and a plan to make it a restaurant with a bar and outside dining. They are adding windows and have put in French doors to make it easier to go from the front porch tables to the bar or tables inside. Inside, there’s a new wood floor, and it’s lighter inside than in the past.

Jimmy Galanis is proud of his menu, which includes dishes other restaurants don’t have.

“We use haddock in our fish and chips, we offer fried pickles, frog legs and smelt, and the smelt has been a popular dish,” Galanis said. “In addition, we have Baja tacos, clams on the half shell, smoked wings, whole fried mullet and a featured fish, like hogshead, where we fry the whole fish, plus shepherds pie and collard greens.”

Incidentally, when you pull into the parking lot, you’re going to find a large smoker in front of the building. It’s not there for show; he offers pulled pork, smoked ribs and other southern favorites.

Galanis has been in the restaurant business locally for 25 years and he knows what people want and what they’re not getting. That’s the reason for the unusual menu choices and for the diners raving about the food, he says.

It is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week.

Come on out and taste the kind of food you could only find in a Southern restaurant with a Cortez and Island heritage. For more information, call 792-4822.

Anna Maria Island Sun News Story

Stock market defies individual investors

Investment Corner

I don’t think the market will go anywhere until after the election.” “Stocks can’t go up when there are so many problems around the world.”.

These phrases are typical of what we were hearing from investors starting early this year. Apparently, many have voted with their money as we have been seeing individual investors remove far more money than they deposited in stock mutual funds for over three years in a row now.

Despite the market’s significant recovery from the depths of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose from under 7000 in early 2009 to over 13,000 presently, U.S. equity mutual funds saw net outflows of 38 billion in 2010, 135 billion in 2011 and 59 billion in the first 9 months of 2012. Granted there were two attention-getting corrections. One each in the summer of 2010 and 2011, but the stock market has turned in positive performances every year since 2009 and through the first three quarters of 2012.

It is not unusual for individual investors, as a group, to get it wrong when it comes to predicting the market or the best place to invest. For example, in 2010, while money was flowing out of funds which invest in U.S. stocks, investors were investing heavily in international stock funds. Those funds were the worst performers in 2011, once again burning those who followed the crowd.

Still, it is a bit perplexing why investors continue to pull money out of an asset class that has been performing reasonable well. I suspect, and this is just my opinion, that after more than a decade of disappointment and enduring several bubbles and subsequent bubble bursts, many investors have had enough.

We’ve seen this pattern before. It was quite a while ago, but after a very frustrating decade in the 1970s where inflation and interest rates were high and stocks were at about the same level in 1982 as they were in 1968, investors acted in a similar manner as they are today. And it may not just be economic frustration that factors into this behavior. Back in the 1970s we had Watergate, Nixon’s resignation, Carter’s ineffectiveness and a generally poor outlook for our future as a nation. Sound familiar?

It’s hard to invest in the future of corporate America as an owner if you don’t feel good about the prospects. But, of course, history has always had a different lesson for us. Good times and bad times ebb and flow like the tide. Unless this time is different and we have a permanent period of a languishing economy, I suspect the stock market will continue its long-term march higher, and the apathy investors are showing towards equities at present will be proven wrong just as it has been in the past.

Tom Breiter is president of Breiter Capital Management, Inc., an Anna Maria based investment advisor. He can be reached at 778-1900. Some of the investment concepts highlighted in this column may carry the risk of loss of principal, and investors should determine appropriateness for their personal situation before investing. Visit www.breitercapital.com.

 


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