The Long Term Investor

SO FAR......today......made one VERY SMALL buy in one account.....NKE. Will wait till mid day or perhaps afternoon to decide if I am going to buy anything else today. Main criteria will be......IF....the markets are down and.......IF.....there are any good buys on individual stocks. I SUSPECT that I WILL put in some mutual fund orders for the close today if we are down heading to the end of the day.

 

PUT in my mutual fund trades for today. I WILL watch the markets near the close and decide if I wish to cancel the orders or let them go to the close. Buying All three funds in each of the TWO accounts that I am reinvesting cash. The trades will represent about 12% of the remaining available mutual fund cash in each account. The amount of TOTAL CASH that I have to invest, in each of the three funds, in each account, is going to be reinvested in each fund in the same proportion to total account value that existed in each fund position when they went to cash.

STRANGE....but NOT unexpected....to log in to my account and see the day POSITIVE so far. UP .11% versus the SP500 down 1.19%. MOSTLY due to the move in AMZN today, but a few other stocks that I hold are positive today......at the moment.

Take care everyone......

 

GOING into earnings reporting my primary account stock holdings BEAT the SP500 by 1.67% today. Stock holdings......eleven stocks.....was up by .66%. SP500 today was DOWN by 1.01%.

Stocks that were UP today....AMZN, MSFT, AAPL, GOOGL (see a trend here?)......and...PG.

EVEN the shares of AMZN that I bought with the DOW down about 500 this morning.......4 shares.....were UP by 1.47% by the end of the day. AMAZINGLY AMZN is less than 20 points from a 52 week high. NETFLIX.....which I do NOT own.....was at a 52 week high today.

A VERY aberrant day.....BUT......I will take it. TOMORROW is the start of the EARNINGS REPORTS with the banks reporting. We will SOON have an idea of how this virus "stuff" is going to impact the markets.....at least for now. The next 4 weeks will tell the story. BUT....many companies will be reporting mostly numbers that were put in the books BEFORE the shut down. What will REALLY tell the story will be the second quarter earnings in July and August. I suspect that the current earnings WILL NOT have that much of an impact.

I am HOPING to get the rest of my cash reinvested over the rest of the month of April 2020.

I DID NOT cancel the mutual fund trades that will now happen today at the current market close NAV.

 

I AGREE with the opinions in this little article.....that is why I am RUSHING to get reinvested in two of my accounts. By "rushing" I mean over the next few weeks on down days.....unless I am PUSHED to buy quicker by prices going up. I WILL go.....all in all at once with the remaining funds......if I need to, depending on how things go day to day.

Wall Street's top stock market experts strike bullish tone

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wall...et-experts-strike-bullish-tone-201040965.html

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

"Analysts from Wall Street’s top firms are getting more bullish on U.S. equities.

GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), BlackRock (BLK), and JPMorgan (JPM) said in new notes Monday. "Swift and sweeping fiscal and monetary policy responses from U.S. officials will ultimately support stock prices from here, blunting some of the damage as the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing measures ravage the economy and grind business activity to a temporary halt, analysts at Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), BlackRock (BLK), and JPMorgan (JPM) said in new notes Monday.

In other words, the bottom may already have been put in for stocks.

“The numerous and increasingly powerful policy actions have spurred equity investors to adopt a risk-on view,” said Goldman Sachs analyst David Kostin. “If the U.S. does not experience a second surge in infections after the economy reopens, the ‘do whatever it takes’ stance of policymakers means the equity market is unlikely to make new lows.”

Late last week, the Fed announced a new plan to inject some $2.3 trillion in funding for households and local governments, going above and beyond measures unleashed even during the 2008-2009 financial crisis and adding further support after
cutting interest rates to a zero lower bound and turbo-charging its asset purchases last month. Subsequent remarks from Federal Open Market Committee Officials reaffirmed the central bank was still willing to do more to support the economy as the pandemic continues." Late last week, the Fed announced a new plan to inject some $2.3 trillion in funding for households and local governments, going above and beyond measures unleashed even during the 2008-2009 financial crisis and adding further support after cutting interest rates to a zero lower bound and turbo-charging its asset purchases last month. Subsequent remarks from Federal Open Market Committee Officials reaffirmed the central bank was still willing to do more to support the economy as the pandemic continues.

Those monetary policy actions were on top of the programs Congress authorized just weeks prior in its own more than $2 trillion economic relief package.

In total, the U.S. fiscal package “is equivalent to about 10% of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), the largest among key DMs [developed markets], and we believe there may be more to come,” BlackRock analysts led including Mike Pyle said Monday. “Overall, we see more policy room in the U.S. than in other DMs in coming months to help shore up the economy, but recognize that successful and timely execution of fiscal measures is a key risk everywhere, including in the U.S.”

The outsized policy response, combined with mounting evidence that social distancing measures are in fact “flattening the curve” for new virus infections, has helped entice investors back to risk assets, Kostin said. With these factors in mind, the S&P 500 is “no longer likely” to plunge to a previously seen “near-term downside risk of 2,000,” he added.

Goldman Sachs maintained a 3,000 year-end price target for the S&P 500, implying a 7.5% rise from Thursday’s close.

JPMorgan analyst Marko Kolanovic went a step further, predicting the S&P 500 would reach a new all-time high earlier next year given the recent boost from policymakers.

“Unhindered by moral hazard, the response of fiscal and monetary authorities is and will continue to be unprecedented, with the goal of essentially making everyone 'whole,’” Kolanovic said. “We believe the significance of this development is underestimated by markets, and this reinforces our view of a full asset price recovery, and equity markets reaching all-time highs next year, likely by H1.”

In a similar vein, Morgan Stanley analyst Mike Wilson on Monday raised his bear, base and bull – or most pessimistic, most likely and most optimistic – scenarios for the S&P 500 to a respective 2,500, 3,000 and 3,250. Previously, his targets were for 2,400, 2,700 and 3,000 in his bear, base and bull cases.

“Our base case is that the market already had its successful re-test the week of March 30, meaning that week’s lows of 2,450 should not be challenged again, especially with the extraordinary action by the Fed since then and flattening of the curve on COVID-19.”

Wilson also upgraded U.S. small cap equities after being underweight the group since July 2018.

“With the stimulus directed right at corporate credit and small/medium businesses in particular, these companies are potentially the biggest beneficiaries thereby avoiding a much worse fate, and even potential bankruptcy,” Wilson said. He added that small caps “typically lead from the trough” as markets emerge from a downturn.

Investors will ‘look through’ dismal first-quarter earnings
The coming weeks will likely bring strikingly weak first-quarter corporate earnings results and deteriorating economic data due to the impacts of the pandemic. However, each of these batches of data will ultimately reflect already widely known weakness stemming from the global pandemic, and therefore not likely trigger a renewed, deeper sell-off in equities, the analysts said.

“Despite the likely steady stream of weak earnings reports, 1Q earnings season will not represent a major negative catalyst for equity market performance,” Kostin said. He expects first-quarter earnings per share for S&P 500 companies will decline 15% over last year.

“While earnings season always conveys backward-looking data, rarely has the information content of quarterly earnings reports been as outdated as the figures U.S. companies will release starting this week,” he said. “We expect investors will mostly ‘look through’ reported 1Q results, which will capture only the start of shutdowns that began at the end of the quarter. In fact, many investors we have spoken with have discounted 2020 earnings altogether, and are focused instead on the outlook for 2021.”

Goldman Sachs’ base case, or most-likely scenario, is for S&P 500 earnings per share to drop by 33% in 2020 to $110, but then rise by 55% in 2021 to $170 – or slightly above the $165 that S&P 500 companies earned in 2019.

But in the firm’s downside scenario, S&P 500 earnings per share could fall to $70 this year and then rise to just $115 in 2021, which would take place “either because the path to economic normalization is slower than most investors and policymakers expect or because of lingering economic impact in the form of permanent business closures and high unemployment even after the spread has been controlled,” Kostin said.

Wilson echoed these sentiments, saying that investors were already looking more toward the margin of rebound in 2021 over the depth of the declines at the start of this year.

“For 2021, the snap back is related to the severity of the decline in 2020 – the worse the decline the bigger the bounce,” Wilson said. “The net effect of this is that our EPS forecasts don’t change much for 2021 which is the year that really matters for stocks.”"

MY COMMENT

Having started BUYING on March 26, 2020, I am in COMPLETE agreement with the above. LOOKS like the BOTTOM was on March 23, 2020.

As to this "little" virus....which is going to simply turn out to be similar to a BAD FLU year.....we are at 23,485 deaths and FAR LESS than the 400,000 to 500,000 hospitalizations that we see with a nasty FLU year like 2018. AND.......like this virus........MOST of those hospitalizations and deaths in a NASTY FLY year like 2018.....60,000 to 80,000 deaths.......are in vulnerable populations and caused by pneumonia. OF COURSE....we NEVER shut down the economy for ANY of those years.

 

INTERESTING day........both accounts that I am reinvesting were positive for the day.......barely. I have to get my ASS IN GEAR on the buying in both accounts. I STILL have 35.48% and 34.22% of the funds in cash. Account 1 is 64.52% reinvested and account 2 is 65.78% reinvested.

One thing that makes me OPTIMISTIC is the way business seems to be weathering this storm. Most places that are able to be open, seem to be limping along ok.......right now. BUT.....we need to get business back open by the end of April or at worst end of the first week in May........by May 10.

A couple of predictions that WILL impact business and society:

1. We are NOW at the point where people WILL start to REVOLT. I am seeing reports of demonstrations and Civil Disobedience occurring around the country regarding taking away people's rights and in protest of keeping the economy closed. Over the next 2-4 weeks......ESPECIALLY........if we do not open business back up......the demonstrations WILL grow and will become impossible for the politicians to ignore.

2. As we do re-open business......there will be a MASSIVE musical chairs nation wide involving employees. Businesses are going to be in the hot seat to keep employees. Many people in service and lower level jobs are going to take this opportunity to look at other types of employers and work. I suspect that this WILL drive up wages as businesses compete for employees. Many people will use the very liberal unemployment benefits to take a week or two to look at other employment when businesses reopen. This has the potential to create a little bit of chaos.......especially for small businesses.

3. Some people will NOT have jobs to come back to. Either because their job has disappeared......or....because their employer will not take them back. This will also.....on a smaller level......contribute to the disruption in the employment market.

4. Those that are saying this event will create permanent impact on society and culture, etc, etc, will be proven to be TOTALLY wrong. The new normal, will turn out to be the same old normal. AND...the country will quickly return to normal in about 2-4 months after business re-opens.

5. The markets WILL return to pre-virus levels by the end of the year, with pretty good potential to achieve NEW HIGHS by year end.

Of course, the above is just guess-work......we will just have to wait it out to see how this REALLY plays out in the real world. And.....if you want the negative view of things.....opening business, the markets, testing the prior low, etc, etc, there are many articles taking that view by very smart people.

 

In preparing for the rest of the week and the trades that I NEED to make over the next 1-3 weeks, I decided to run some numbers and see where each of the 11 stocks that I hold are.....comparing......2020 high versus current price........and current percent below 2020 high......and considering that the market averages are WAY off their lows of the year. NOT that raw numbers mean anything compared to actual business results. I was just curious, more than anything, how the actual stock performance compared to my mental impression.

The TOP performing stocks are:

AMZN.......2020 high is $2170. The stock is at $2168 today....so for all intents it is EQUAL to the 2020 high NOW.

COST.......2020 high is $324. The stock is at $299 today....8.3% below the high for 2020.

The MIDDLE group of stocks is:

MSFT.......2020 high is $188. The stock is at $165 today.....13.9% below the high for 2020.

PG........2020 high is $127. The stock is at $115 today.....10.43% below the high for 2020.

JNJ........2020 high is $153. The stock is at $139 today....10.07% below the high for 2020.

The REST of the pack:

NKE.......2020 high is $104. The stock is at $84 today......23.8% below the 2020 high.

GOOGL....2020 high is $1524. The stock is at $1210 today....25.9% below the 2020 high.

AAPL.......2020 high is $327. The stock is at $273 today......19.7% below the 2020 high.

HD..........2020 high is $247. The stock is at $198 today......24.7% below the 2020 high.

HON......2020 high is $183. The stock is at $137 today......33.57 % below the 2020 high.

MMM......2020 high is $181. The stock is at $146 today......23.9% below the 2020 high.

Looking at where each stock was on February 20, just before the BIG DROP..........ALL except MMM and to a much lesser degree JNJ.......were at or within a dollar or two of being at their 2020 record high. I am.......too lazy.....to post actual figures.

 

WELL......whats done is done.....I invested the remainder of the cash in both accounts at the open today. BOTH accounts are NOW FULLY invested. Or....at least...they will be at the close today when the mutual fund orders are covered at the close. ALL the stock side of each portfolio is in place right now.

I decided to QUIT trying to time the markets short term and follow my long time rule of ALL IN ALL AT ONCE with the remainder of the cash. I STRONGLY BELIEVE that the general market direction now is UP. To me the CARDINAL SIN of investing is waiting for an entry point and missing out on the explosive gains that can never be anticipated. AND....being a very LONG TERM investor, there is no need for further micro-managing of this cash. If we retest the lows....so be it. If we dont.....so be it. I NEED this money in the markets in my usual fashion....so IT IS DONE.

I AM now fully invested for the long term.......as usual.

 

I debated....with myself....this morning.....holding the mutual fund portion of the cash to invest tomorrow or another day. I DECIDED to go ahead and put the mutual fund orders in for today. My thinking was......since I was doing the stock trades at the open when the markets were showing a BUMP UP.....if I did the mutual funds at the close today......and the markets TANKED over the course of the day......the price that I get on the mutual funds will somewhat balance out what I paid for the stock shares at the open today.

Being out of the markets and not fully invested.....makes me really jumpy. I FEEL much better now that I am fully invested as has been my usual course over the past 40+ years.

I STRONGLY believe....just my personal opinion obviously....,,,that there is a 30% UPSIDE to the general markets right now....over the next 4-8 months.

 

Bigmaix....glad to see you posting. Hope you will become a "regular".

As to M1 Finance.....I never heard of them till you mentioned them so I just looked them up. I see that they are a ....NEW....online broker. Not my personal cup of tea at all. I very much prefer a BIG, traditional, discount, broker like Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, etc. Just my personal bias....but I dont like new brokers. I prefer proven and BIG. I pay $0 for trades at Schwab. They have offices all over the country where I can go in in person if I wish. They also have all the online capability and anything else that any online broker might have.

Zukodany

You are doing very nicely. Yes....at some point going forward we may see some inflation. Besides all the government money, I suspect that rising wages might also contribute. BUT....inflation is so tame at the moment.....actually a deflationary environment world wide......all of this stuff might just have no negative impact. Time will tell.

ONE REASON that I bought in totally today is my.....personal opinion.....that earnings are going to be ONE BIG nothing-burger.
There has been so much talk about earnings and so many articles and other research and opinion that I believe in the end earnings will be TOTALLY disregarded as a one-off situation that DOES NOT reflect any sort of reality. As a result......it is my opinion....that the market direction will continue to be........UP.....regardless of earnings and perhaps even BECAUSE of earnings.

 

Now that I am.....fully invested (OMG)......I play my little investing mind games to amuse myself as we SLOG through the craziness.

One of those "games" is to compare account performance to the SP500. TODAY.....at least so far, only 40 minutes into a long day.....The SP500 is at (-2.79%) versus the stock portion of my primary account which is at (-1.74%). Not that I really care.....I am happy to be fully invested again.....for the LONG TERM.

Another little "game" is all the analysis....including mine....that you see to try to explain the DAILY MARKET MOVES......up, down, sideways, upside-down, under, over, sideways, etc, etc, etc. SOME are focused on bank earnings today.......I BELIEVE that the REAL reason for what the markets and the PROGRAM TRADERS are doing today is the BIG drop in Retail sales numbers:

US retail sales slump 8.7% in March, deepest drop on record

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/business/retail-sales/index.html

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

"Not surprisingly, Americans aren't buying much beyond food and drink right now.
US retail sales slumped 8.7% in March, their worst monthly decline since the Census Bureau began collecting the data in 1992.
Excluding autos and gas, retail sales fell by 3.1%.
While retail trade fell overall, one category stood out: grocery store sales surged 27% in March.
But sales at clothing and accessories stores, meanwhile, dropped 50.5%."

AND

Retail sales fall record 8.7% in March amid coronavirus shutdown, but grocery sales up 26%

https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...etail-sales-down-record-8-7-march/5136207002/

"WASHINGTON – U.S. retail sales plummeted 8.7% in March, an unprecedented decline, as the viral outbreak forces an almost complete lockdown of commerce nationwide.

The deterioration of sales far outpaces the previous record decline of 3.9% that took place during the depths of the Great Recession in November 2008. Auto sales dropped 25.6%, while clothing store sales collapsed, sliding 50.5%. Restaurants and bars reported a nearly 27% fall in revenue.

U.S. consumer confidence has plunged, and the vast majority of Americans are hunkered down at home under shelter-in-place orders. Consumer spending drives two-thirds of the U.S. economy, and the record drop in retail sales is a symptom of the sharp recession that most economists believe the U.S. has already entered. Economists at JPMorgan Chase now forecast the U.S. economy will shrink by a record-shattering 40% in the April-June quarter.

Signifying the titanic shift in consumer behavior, grocery store sales jumped by nearly 26% as Americans stocked up on food and consumer goods to ride out the pandemic.

The pullback in spending is intensifying the problems facing brick and mortar retailers which were already struggling with online competition. A category that mostly includes Internet sales rose 3.1% last month.

With a nationwide shutdown of malls and most stores, the pandemic is putting many clothing retailers in peril, while increasing the dominance of big box stores that have remained open during the pandemic because they sell essentials like food and household goods.

More than 250,000 stores, including Macy’s, Nordstrom and Nike, which sell non-essential merchandise, have been shuttered since mid-March. That’s 60% of overall U.S. retail square footage, according to Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalRetail Research.

Major retailers including J.C. Penney, Macy’s and Nordstrom have furloughed hundreds of thousands of workers, while Walmart and Amazon are on hiring sprees to try to meet the surging demand of shoppers buying online or for curbside dropoff or delivery.

Department stores and mall-based chains have cut executive pay, suspended cash dividends and stock buybacks or repurchases to preserve cash. They’re also drawing down their credit lines to make sure they have a bigger pile of cash on hand.

Nordstrom warned last week that it doesn’t know when it will be able to reopen its physical stores and that prolonged closures could cause it to become financially distressed. Ralph Lauren and Gap Inc. have announced that, for now, they’ve stopped ordering products for the fall. Other retailers will likely follow.

Discretionary spending by shoppers is expected to collapse 40%-50% in the first-half 2020, according to Fitch Ratings. And department stores lead a group of consumer companies that have seen their odds of default spike over the past month, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence."

MY COMMENT:

One word.......DUH. You cant shut down the entire US economy and NOT expect this result. We NEED to get the economy and business back open at the end of this month. If this shut down continues much longer there is going to be wholesale REVOLT by every day people. I think the government.....BUREAUCRATIC geniuses.....have about two weeks till they are going to start to have a BIG PROBLEM with people just ignoring what they are trying to push. I see more and more cars on the road every day.

My recipe for opening the economy.....cancel ALL pay and benefits, perks, gyms, dining rooms, kitchens, health care.....EVERYTHING.....for ALL (both sides) the politicians in Washingtton DC. Let them experience the PAIN that "the little normal people" are feeling right now. You would see things happen real quick.

 

WELL.......account beat the SP500 by 1.2% today......3 of 11 stocks were positive including AMZN........ONLY lost 1/3 of yesterdays gains today. That is as good as it gets for today. NOT concerned in the slightest......I am STILL very relieved at being back fully invested for the long term.

 

Some GOOD NEWS today.....at least for those that see the markets as I do.

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)

Costco bucks dividend suspension trend with near 8% raise

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...pension-trend-with-near-8-raise-idUSKCN21X39T

"(Reuters) - Costco Wholesale Corp (COST.O) said on Wednesday it would raise its quarterly dividend by 7.7% to 70 cents per share, at a time when several major companies have suspended cash returns to shareholders to shore up liquidity.

Unlike the rest of corporate America, which has been hammered by the coronavirus crisis, grocery retailers and some packaged-food companies have seen sales surge in recent weeks, as consumers stockpile household essentials to weather strict lockdowns across the United States.

Costco, which last week reported a 9.6% jump in March comparable sales, joins Procter & Gamble (PG.N) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) which also raised their dividends earlier this week.

Costco’s dividend is payable on May 15."

MY COMMENT

GOOD NEWS for me since I own COST, JNJ, and PG. Besides AMZN, both PG and JNJ were positive in my accounts today.

AND

Why analysts believe we’re in the midst of ‘peak pessimism’: Morning Brief

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wall...d-manager-survey-morning-brief-100653306.html

"And why stocks are already starting to rally" And why stocks are already starting to rally

And this as brutal economic and corporate headlines keep rolling in.

As we discussed earlier in the week, this dynamic makes sense. The stock market is focused on what will happen in the future, not what is happening in the present.

And it is starting to appear that assessments of the present won’t be able to get much worse. Which means there’s nowhere to go but up.

In its latest monthly fund manager survey published Tuesday, strategists at Bank of America Global Research said the survey shows “extreme investor pessimism” with average cash levels rising to 5.9% of assets under management, the highest level since 9/11. Higher cash on hand suggests that investors have fewer opinions than usual on what happens next for markets.

“We say April = peak pessimism,” BofA strategists led by Michael Hartnett said.

BofA’s survey results, for example, show that 93% of investors think a recession will happen in 2020, just 15% of investors expect a V-shaped recovery, and the firm’s bull and bear sentiment indicator came in at 0.0. In other words, the firm basically couldn’t find any bulls out there and a deep, prolonged recession is now consensus.

Combine this report with the IMF’s gloomy global economic forecast released Tuesday and Jamie Dimon’s sobering commentary published with JPMorgan’s (JPM) latest quarterly report and it’s hard to put together a more dour set of headlines than what markets got on Tuesday.

In its latest biannual economic outlook, the IMF said it now expects global growth to fall by the most since the Great Depression this year. Global GDP is set to drop 3% with the IMF calling for a 5.9% drop in 2020 GDP growth in the U.S.

“Much worse growth outcomes are possible and maybe even likely,” IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said in the Fund’s report. Economists at Bank of America have already called for the U.S. to experience its deepest recession on record.

Dimon, meanwhile, said the bank is preparing for a “fairly severe recession” and bolstered its credit reserves by some $6.8 billion during the first quarter as a result. As Bloomberg Opinion columnist Conor Sen said Tuesday, it was a strong day for the “headline contrarians.”"

The market finished Tuesday’s session up 3.1%. The Dow and the S&P 500 are now 31.5% and 29.8%, respectively, off their lows hit on March 23.

Now, when it comes to economic forecasts, the news always could get worse but the market’s view at this point seems to be: to what end? That we’re in the midst of the worst economic shock in modern history is already table stakes. And as Baird’s Michael Antonelli told Yahoo Finance earlier this week, the market rally in implying that even amid “peak pessimism” investors are taking the “left tail,” or the absolute worst case scenarios, out of play."

So what we know is that the coronavirus has resulted in an unprecedented economic shock and that stocks have rallied sharply since late March.

And the market’s recent behavior suggests that more bad news won’t be enough to get investors anymore depressed than they’ve already been. Peak pessimism indeed."

MY COMMENT

I welcome....PEAK PESSIMISM....a very positive for stocks and funds. ACTUALLY......Peak pessimism was back when the VIX(Volatility Index) closed at 82.69 , it's highest levels in history. We have NOW gone so far to the DARK SIDE that it will soon be IMPOSSIBLE for the markets to perform worse than expected. We ARE.....however......going to see the worst forward looking statements from companies in history. FINE with me......this will set up some MASSIVE earnings beats later in the year.

 

Zukodany

When I talk about REVOLT....I mean Civil Disobedience, of course. I believe it will only take a handful of states, like TEXAS and a few others......probably in the South or middle of the country..... to open up and start making money and get tax funds flowing back to the state.....and the rest will collapse like a house of cards and open back up. The pressure on politicians to do the same will be enormous. If California or others wish to hold out.......who cares......that is their problem.

I do not see this as a Republican vs Democrat issue. It is going to simply be an issue of political pressure regardless of party. As USUAL I suspect it will be the AMERICAN PEOPLE that will lead.......with guts and strength..........while the politicians......OF BOTH PARTIES.......cower in the background trying to play both sides of the issue for their own survival.