1. People with college degrees are not the only people in the workforce. Everywhere I read, I see articles of job types or sectors that have been altered forever as a result of this. That will lead to a major realignment of the workforce. Naturally those with the least education will be disproportionately negatively affected. Been that way for a long time, but this greatly exacerbates this. That may not be on the radar for many people since they are not "educated" but their vote counts as much as mine, and their not having a job costs this country not only monetarily but socially as well. Employed people cost less to the government in the long run. Money up front saves money down the road. 2. I do not know what your opinion is to what the job of the government is, but I am assuming it claims to be very much aligned with a capitalistic philosophy. Our current government absolutely does not represent that. Our government is a corporate socialist entity which tips the scales in favor of multinationals at the expense of small and medium businesses. That's not capitalism at all. I am not in favor of favoritism for those with more means. I am not in favor of rewarding companies who play fast and loose with their assets. I am not in favor of taking from the middle class and giving to the wealthy via loopholes, write offs, and "corporate restructuring". I think "trickle down" economics is a farce and a lie to placate people and give them a false sense of hope while those in power legally steal assets and put our future on credit. None of that is capitalism. That is cronyism. I would rather have our government spend the money on small/medium business and the individual. We all know that all of that money will go right back into the economy and make it stronger. We are in an economy of consumption. You think all those trillions of dollars that went to big business will go back into the economy? Please. That claim has been debunked to death. Since you say you have a different opinion of what a government's role is, I am curious as to how you differ from what I wrote above. Or are you in favor of no more anything and let the chips fall where they may? In that case, that will be the beginning of a revolution for all the reasons stated above. It is beyond obvious that we are way past the point of hiding the fact that this government is not for the average American, and if it just decides to "let them eat cake", then we all know what happens next...
The government should not be in the business of cronyism. However, I think the point is that we need to get people back to work... at all levels... not just college educated people. I live in LV and our population is largely a blue collar, non professionally educated workforce. We have a lot of people out of work here in our city. The government offering another stimulus check seems like purely a political attempt to buy people who are in this situation off until after the election so then they can open up. The only solution is to re open and have older and less healthy people take responsibly to quarantine themselves if they want to. As a conservative, I am not in favor of spending money trying to win over votes by giving out stim checks, when the real solution is much simpler and cheaper. I agree with what you said about the government practicing favoritism and the government being socialistic entity rather than a capitalistic entity. I just don’t think that another round of stimulus is worth it for our nation either. I also don’t think the government should be favoring the mega multinationals over the mom and pop shops.
I will be the absolute first to say that both sides do far more than their fair share of cheap political tactics to buy over voters. Far too many examples to list. I will also be the first to offer to eat my shoe if Biden wins and all of a sudden the economy opens up right afterwards - his victory bought by another round of stim checks. That will not happen, as Jan-April is peak flu/COVID season in the northern hemisphere for climate and social reasons. As far as I am concerned, stim checks directly to people is much more justified than just about any other government payout other than helping struggling small businesses. The fact that the wife of a wrastlin' empire CEO is appointed as the SBA admin is so very apropos for this administration.
Well......here is a very nice little article for any NOVICE INVESTORS. Perhaps even for some higher than NOVICE to use as a way to start over or reset and revitalize their investing habits: Should I Invest in the S&P 500? How Do I Get Started? Here's a primer on how S&P 500 funds work, and whether they might work for you https://www.thestreet.com/personal-...-started-nw?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO&yptr=yahoo (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) (I consider this WHOLE article as important content) "For those would-be investors wanting to jump into the stock market but wondering which stock to buy, legendary investor Warren Buffett has a suggestion: Try buying 500 stocks instead. “In my view, for most people, the best thing to do is own the S&P 500 index fund,” Buffett said at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in May. But what is the S&P 500, and how do you invest in one of its funds? Here’s an intro to how S&P 500 funds work, and whether one might be a good fit for your portfolio. What Is the S&P 500? The S&P 500, or S&P, is a stock market index comprising shares of 500 large, industry-leading U.S. companies. It is widely followed and often considered a proxy for the overall health of the U.S. stock market. Standard & Poor’s, an American investment information service, created the index in 1957. Every quarter, its investment committee meets to review which stocks belong in the index based on each company’s market size, liquidity and group representation. Today, 505 stocks constitute the index, since some of the 500 companies have more than one class of shares. Contrary to popular belief, the stocks forming the index are not the 500 biggest U.S. companies, but they are arguably the 500 most important companies. Over $11.2 trillion is invested through the index, with these 505 stocks representing about 80% of the total U.S. stock market’s value. The S&P 500 is a cap-weighted index, meaning each stock within the index is weighted according to its market capitalization, or total market value (number of outstanding shares multiplied by current market price). The larger the company, the greater its influence on the index. AAPL) - Get Report Microsoft. (MSFT) - Get Report Amazon. (AMZN) - Get Report Facebook. (FB) - Get Report Alphabet, Google’s parent company (shares in class A (GOOGL) - Get Report and class C (GOOG) - Get Report). Berkshire Hathaway. (BRK.A) - Get Report Johnson & Johnson. (JNJ) - Get Report Visa. (V) - Get Report Procter & Gamble. (PG) - Get Report How Do You Invest in the S&P 500? An index is a measure of its underlying stocks’ performance, so you cannot directly invest in the index itself. Buying every company’s shares would be an arduous task (think 505 separate transactions), but thankfully there are index funds and exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, that replicate the index, effectively doing that work for you. While all S&P 500 SPX funds track the holdings of this index, an investor must consider whether using an index fund (a passively managed mutual fund) or an ETF makes the most sense for them. The good news when weighing index funds versus ETFs is that there are solid S&P 500 options in each category, and all of these products leverage the diversity of the index itself. Because the S&P 500 is weighted by each company’s market capitalization, the larger companies in the index can sometimes have an outsize impact on the performance of the larger index. In other words, a big dip in price for Apple shares can create a dip in the index as a whole. Because of this, some investors prefer to purchase the S&P 500 in an equal-weighted format, so that each company has the same impact on the index. This is meant to create an index that is more representative of the overall U.S. market. After deciding your preference for an index fund or ETF, cap-weighted or equal-weighted, you can begin narrowing down which S&P 500 fund to purchase. To minimize your costs, look into each fund’s expense ratio — the percentage of your assets you’ll pay in fees each year — to see how they compare. Fees are important here since all of these funds track the same index, which means their returns should be roughly the same. The lower the fee, the more of that return you keep. Should You Invest in the S&P 500? There are a number of things to think about before you choose any investment. But an S&P fund can generally be a good choice if you want to add broad exposure to the U.S. stock market to your portfolio. “The S&P 500 is a key part of a diversified investing strategy because it’s a good bet that the U.S. economy will continue to succeed and grow in the long term,” says Tony Molina, senior product manager at Wealthfront. The U.S. has the largest economy and stock market in the world, and is one of the most resilient and active, especially when it comes to innovation. That’s why it’s a no-brainer to include the S&P 500 as part of your portfolio.” Larger companies are generally more stable to invest in because they are well-established and widely followed. Thus, these stocks usually have less risk and lower volatility. The S&P 500 combines large companies across various industries, so investors access a broad, diversified mix of companies when investing in it. Choosing an index fund or ETF can also help investors avoid — or at least minimize — the behavioral pitfalls from stock-picking, which is a losing strategy, says Dejan Ilijevski, president of Sabela Capital Markets. Ilijevski cites the May 2018 study by professor Hendrik Bessembinder at Arizona State University, which examined investments in publicly traded U.S. stocks between 1926 and 2016 and found that just over 4% of the companies accounted for the total wealth created. “Picking those few individual winners is impossible,” Ilijevski says. “Your best bet is to own as much of the market with a fund that tracks the index.” Using index funds and ETFs can help investors generate strong returns while also minimizing their costs, says Kevin Koehler, chartered financial analyst and director of the investment strategy group at Miracle Mile Advisors in Los Angeles. “Investing in the S&P 500 the past 25 years would have given an investor over a 10% annualized return, proving that an investor does not need to be paying high expenses to get good market returns,” Koehler says. Are There Drawbacks to Investing in the S&P 500? There are caveats to consider. The S&P 500 consists of only large-cap U.S. stocks. Portfolio diversification encompasses buying mid- and small-cap companies along with large-caps; allocating funds to international companies along with domestic ones; and including bonds, cash and potentially other asset classes with stocks. Koehler also notes drawbacks in the S&P 500 related to its market-cap weighting. “As passive investing increases, investors are continually investing in S&P 500 funds, which has contributed to a ‘rich get richer’ problem, where the largest stocks are getting larger due to S&P 500 investing, rather than individual stock investing,” Koehler says. “This can lead to higher volatility, as active managers sell an individual stock on top of index funds selling a portion. The market could continuously be overvalued compared to its underlying value.” But relative to the downsides of many investment types, the flaws of S&P 500 funds seem relatively minor, especially when used as a part of your overall portfolio and held for the longer term. This helps explain why icons like Buffett have so publicly endorsed them. “I happen to believe that Berkshire is about as solid as any single investment can be, in terms of earning reasonable returns over time,” said Buffett at the May meeting, speaking about the investing company he’s turned into an empire. “But, I would not want to bet my life on whether we beat the S&P 500 over the next 10 years.”" MY COMMENT I ALSO believe that the SP500 is the perfect single investment vehicle for the majority of investors REGARDLESS of experience level.
WOW.......great gains today. ALL green across my accounts. AND......a nice beat of the SP500 which was UP by 1.74% today. My account was up by 1.89% or a beat of the SP500 by .15%. Nice to beat the SP500 when it is up so much for the day. LOVE those extra gains that pile up over the long term..........if I can get them.
HERE is a nice little article. I HATE the current FAD of CEO types pretending to be WOKE.......so they can hang out with all the Hollywood crowd and friends. YOU are running a business..........keep your personal beliefs to yourself and.......STFU: In Defense of “Me-First Capitalism” https://www.city-journal.org/coinbase-ceo-brian-armstrong-defends-me-first-capitalism (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) Several years ago, after reading some of my writing, an elderly Chinese woman who had lived through Mao’s regime told me, “You would have been shot on the second day of the revolution.” I took this as a compliment. Though I am not an important person and therefore not a candidate for execution on the first day, my work seemed sufficiently provocative to her to set me before a firing squad on the second day. She confirmed this when I asked her, “Are you sure you don’t mean the third day?” She replied, “Yes. The second day.” I now know who’ll be shot on the first day: insufficiently woke CEOs. In a now-deleted tweet, Twitter’s former CEO Dick Costolo said that business leaders refusing to inject political activism into their workplaces will be “the first people lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution. I’ll happily provide video commentary.” He was responding to a blogpost by Brian Armstrong, CEO of the cryptocurrency firm Coinbase, arguing that developing good products should take priority over encouraging employees to air their political grievances or dedicating one’s company to a political mission. Costolo accused Armstrong of wanting to “separate society from business.” Both men’s statements say much about the current state, and perils, of American business, and how much about being a CEO has changed. The archetypical nineteenth-century businessman was efficient and worked hard. He built; he speculated; he bought and sold; he woke up with the thought of money and fell asleep with the same thought; and he became very rich. Yet he never concerned himself about whether his employees felt a sense of belonging or personal growth. His employees labored, and he paid them. Their personal thoughts and feelings remained their own. Armstrong speaks like a 1950s Organization Man. He recognizes the primacy of profit, yet his attitude toward his employees suggests “people-mindedness” as much as “job-mindedness,” in stark contrast with the old businessman. He encourages his employees to work as a team. He proudly makes money, but he also sees himself as a morale-builder who helps workers fulfill themselves. Armstrong expresses paternalistic affection for his workers, while also expecting them to sacrifice “individual goals” (his words) for the company good. His message is classic 1950s company-speak. Where the nineteenth-century businessman was harsh and distant, Armstrong expresses more concern for his workers’ souls. His intentions seem helpful and positive, but something is nevertheless intrusive in his appeal. Encouraging workers to find fulfillment in an organization risks having them dissolve their personalities into the companies they work for, like the confidential servants in aristocratic Europe, called lackeys, who merged their identities with those of their masters, basking in their glory. This servile attitude first emerged in the U.S. during the 1950s, among the clerks and salespeople who, for example, bragged how they worked “for Time” or “for IBM.” We can encounter this same sensibility among employees at Goldman Sachs, Google, or Harvard when they assume an air of grandeur because of the prestigious companies they work for. The lackey is not an ideal member of a democratic society, because he is not an independently minded individual and applies his obsession with work status to other aspects of life, making for a very stratified, class-conscious society. Nonetheless, Armstrong seems like a responsible businessperson. He recognizes that business’s role is to make a useful product, earn money, and leave people to their own politics and creeds. Not so Costolo, who preaches social-justice ideology, and, like the most fervent commissar, suggests that no compartment in society should be walled off from politics. One can never be sure if today’s CEOs support social justice merely as a PR ploy, though Costolo’s call for mass executions sounds earnest. Like an old Soviet ideologue, Costolo gives ideas contrary meaning, as when he criticizes Armstrong for not encouraging “lively debate” among his tech workers, though lively debate in tech increasingly means just the opposite: attend diversity seminars and rehearse canned sentiments or get fired. Praising debate when no such debate is actually permitted is like the old Communist game of calling one’s country a “democratic republic”—for example, the German Democratic Republic—to cover up the fact that it is not. Costolo’s remarks represent something of a symbol of our time in that they pose a risk to society that we never saw coming. Like Armstrong, he belongs to the 1950s tradition of businesspeople who think beyond money and product. Yet he has turned his sensitivity toward other people’s feelings and attitudes into a kind of political weapon. Americans have traditionally supported a division between business and the state because they feared the state. They feared government stripping them of their right to think differently, or their right not to think at all, and just to work and live and mind their own business. In our own day, though, business is increasingly the entity to fear—at least, businesses guided by CEOs who think it a martyr’s task to run a company; who talk incessantly about the public good, but with a censor’s spirit; who enjoy issuing public statements broadcasting their dissatisfaction with the world, while portraying moneymaking as some secret, shameful act, a plain necessity, but not the ostensible reason for going to the office; who call for a collective leap in consciousness—on their terms. All in the name of good employer-employee relations. MY COMMENT I SO HATE the modern........Social Justice.......woke......company management and CEO's. I dont care what they might believe but when it spills over into their management of a company in business to sell products and make money for shareholders that is where i draw the line. As I said.......STFU. For every customer you suck up to with this stuff you are losing another customer. I swear they do this stuff so they can.......hang out.......with all the other minor celebrities........and get their ego stroked. I ONLY want one thing from management......good business decisions and results......achieved in an ethical way. AND....by "ethical way"........I do not mean SUCKING UP to people and groups that in the end are totally CONTRARY to our free market economy. I apply this standard to BOTH sides. BUT.......for some reason........I RARELY see a conservative business person out there shooting off their mouth and putting corporate assets behind what they are SPOUTING. I am sure there are some and to them........I ALSO say......STFU.
Nice Green Day indeed. All across the board. Imagine if the Dow ends up positive for the year (not that it really matters at this point) we would actually have a KILLER year in the market considering the Nasdaq is so rampant
JUST shows how strong and powerful the underlying economy is when you look at the following numbers for the past 3 months. In spite of........everything......here is how the various sectors of the economy have been performing: Stock Sectors 3 Month % Change Communications +3.36% Consumer Durables +32.64% Consumer Non-durables +10.03% Commercial Services +10.56% Electronic Technology +15.61% Energy Minerals -18.37% Finance +7.20% Health Services +8.25% Retail Trade +11.82% Technology Services +8.51% Transportation +24.53% Utilities +10.20%
IBM.......one of the BIG stories of the day. IBM shares soar on plans to spin off its IT infrastructure unit and focus on the cloud business https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/08/ibm...t-into-separate-publicly-traded-company-.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points IBM will separate the managed infrastructure services unit of its global technology services division into a new public company. IBM said it hopes to become more focused on cloud software and solutions through the separation. The spin-off is expected to be tax-free to IBM shareholders, and completed by the end of 2021, the company said. IBM said Thursday it would spin off its IT infrastructure unit into a new publicly traded company to focus its legacy business more on cloud computing, a high-margin segment that has seen a boost as companies increasingly ramp up their digital shift. Shares of the company were up more than 7% in premarket trading. The separation of the new company, temporarily called NewCo, will be completed by the end of 2021. IBM said it will manage and modernize client-owned infrastructures, which it says is a $500 billion market opportunity. J.P. Morgan and Lazard are serving as financial advisors for the transaction. IBM has trimmed its legacy businesses over the years to focus on cloud, aiming to make up for slowing software sales and seasonal demand for its mainframe servers. Arvind Krishna, who took over as chief executive officer from Ginni Rometty in April, said IBM’s software and solutions portfolio will account for the majority of company revenue after the separation. “IBM will focus on its open hybrid cloud platform and AI capabilities,” Krishna said in a prepared statement. “NewCo will have greater agility to design, run and modernize the infrastructure of the world’s most important organizations. Both companies will be on an improved growth trajectory with greater ability to partner and capture new opportunities – creating value for clients and shareholders.” Krishna led IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, an enterprise software maker that is now a part of IBM’s hybrid cloud division. “The success we’ve had with Red Hat gives us confidence that this is the right move,” he added, calling the move a “significant shift” in the company’s business model. IBM’s Cloud and Cognitive Software segment, which includes Red Hat, produced $5.75 billion in revenue in its second quarter of 2020, slightly beating analysts’ estimates. IBM also provided preliminary financial results for the third quarter. The company said it expected third-quarter revenue of $17.6 billion and an adjusted profit per share of $2.58, in line with Wall Street estimates. IBM is expected to report Q3 earnings Oct. 21." MY COMMENT This MIGHT bring some PIZAZZZZZZZZZ to a company that has been a BIG YAWNER over the past 20-30 years. Back in the OLD DAYS this company was KING. Their ARROGANCE and incompetent management.........brought down the company and made it irrelevant. They have never been able to recover.....even though they put up reasonable results for their business model and products. It has been a LONG TIME since this company has generated any BUZZ. I will continue to have.......ZERO......interest in this company. In spite of all the positive, glowing, media spin.......this move is basically DUMPING their OLD core business. Will they be able to compete and dominate in the cloud segment against the many companies that currently dominate that business niche........I doubt it. IN GENERAL......however......it is a good thing to see some excitement and energy come into the markets with this news.....even though it is really just PR and cheer-leading and in the end will PROBABLY NOT propel IBM back to their old glory days.
As a long term, hold it forever, old school stock buyer.....IBM is still in my portfolio. Worth half of what it used to be. Don't even ask about Xerox
THIS is going to be one of the largest issues for a big percentage of Americans going forward. Cash and money management in retirement is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT.......more difficult than people realize. A Mindset Shift for a Low-Yield World https://www.fisherinvestments.com/en-us/marketminder/a-mindset-shift-for-a-low-yield-world (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "In a world with 10-year Treasurys yielding below 1%, stock dividend yields around 2% and the Fed mulling an extension of its dividend caps even as the ECB considers lifting its own ban, where will investors get income? This is a question we see a lot, with several pundits suggesting the so-called 4% Rule—which holds that diversified stock portfolios can support withdrawals of 4% of the starting value annually, adjusted for inflation, without depleting the assets—is obsolete. In our view, this question stems from a common misperception: that income and cash flow are equivalent. We don’t think they are, and once you lift that veil, the future of retirement withdrawals should look a lot brighter to you regardless of where interest rates and dividends go from here. Portfolio cash flow, simply, is money withdrawn (usually) regularly to fund living expenses. It is easy to think of it as income since, for many retired people, it replaces income earned from their job. But in the investing world, “income” refers specifically to investment income—interest and dividends from bonds, stocks, CDs, etcetera, etcetera and so forth. Using these payments to fund living expenses is fine, but in our view, it introduces unnecessary limitations. If you live off of only interest and dividends, you could end up over-concentrated in sectors like Utilities and Financials and with an asset allocation that doesn’t quite match your time horizon and long-term goals. Beyond that, you are at the mercy of corporate boards who determine dividend payouts and the central banks that both regulate banks’ payouts and, lately, hoover up government bonds, reducing long-term interest rates. Call us crazy, but we don’t think it is wholly beneficial for people to let their day-to-day funding needs be vulnerable to such human (and occasionally misguided) decision making outside of their control. Thankfully, there is another way to generate cash flow: sell stocks and distribute the proceeds. This is a tactic we call generating homegrown dividends. In our experience, some people have a mental block against this because they view their stocks as the investment principal that kicks off income, and touching your principal seems to violate Compound Interest 101. But that principal doesn’t just kick off (today’s meager) dividends. It also rises (and occasionally falls, temporarily) with the market. Homegrown dividends basically harvest that price return as cash flow. When you use homegrown dividends, your primary concern shifts from interest and dividends to total return—interest and dividends plus price appreciation. That, in turn, expands your universe of potential investments to the many companies that don’t pay dividends, choosing instead to invest in growth-oriented endeavors or return cash to shareholders by repurchasing stock. This isn’t a securities recommendation, but for one high-profile and extreme example, Amazon has never paid a dividend and is one of the highest-returning stocks in recent years. Of course, not every company that doesn’t pay a dividend has Amazon-like returns, but limiting your investment universe to dividend payers has juuuuuust a bit of a blind spot, to say the least. Total return is also what makes rumors of the 4% Rule’s demise greatly exaggerated. When you manage for total return and have cash flows, you are basically seeking enough growth to at least partly offset your withdrawals in the long run so that your portfolio doesn’t expire before you do. We have always considered the 4% Rule more of a useful guide and illustration than a hard and fast rule, as the right level of withdrawals for any investor will depend on their unique circumstances. Asset allocation (the mix of stocks and bonds) is a critical factor, too, as reducing a portfolio’s expected short-term volatility can be key for people with relatively higher cash flow needs. But this also reduces long-term returns. Everything is a tradeoff. But that tradeoff is the same today as it always has been. Those saying otherwise lean largely on P/E ratios and other valuations to argue weak long-term returns are in store for stocks—an error we have seen again and again. Homegrown dividends have other benefits. Portfolio maintenance is one: You can accomplish two things at once if you take your dividends from a sector weight or individual company you need to pare back for risk management. Additionally, if you are taking your withdrawals from a taxable account rather than a qualified retirement account (e.g., 401(k) or traditional IRA), homegrown dividends could easily be more tax efficient since capital gains have a lower tax rate than interest and dividends. Note, we aren’t anti-dividends or interest. Both are great. But we counsel against limiting yourself by building a portfolio around them. Instead, think of them as one piece of your cash flow strategy and let total return be your primary consideration. MY COMMENT The average person will have little to no success managing their retirement by maintaining and withdrawing funds from a stock account in retirement. How do I know this? Because the VAST number of investors SEVERELY UNDER-PERFORM the general averages and do not do a good job of managing their brokerage money BEFORE retirement. In addition.........it is an EXTREMELY rare person that has the ability to see and project market risk and cash needs into the future. I have personally been retired for 22 years now. One of the first realizations that hit me when I retired was the potential impact of a period of 2-3 bad years on a portfolio WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY withdrawing funds to live on. I had not thought much about this before I retired. I was...........lucky or unlucky........take your pick........to be forced to live with and manage my retirement funds in many very BAD MARKETS in the early and middle years of my 22 years of retirement. It hit me very early on that taking money out of a stock account to live on during a time of 2-3 years of BEAR MARKET could reduce a nice retirement portfolio by 30-40% or even 50% in just a few years. It is very difficult to get that money back.........even with nice market gains.......if you are actively pulling money out of your account to live on. I learned very quickly that it was an absolute necessity to keep at the minimum 3-5 years of liquid money on hand that was NOT exposed to stock market risk, for living expenses.
I know A55........I have vaguely followed IBM over the years. I owned IBM for many years during their GLORY years. I have NOT owned that stock in the past 20 years.
I haven't owned IBM since the late 1980s when it was my primary holding. My stake was sold during the period I worked at IBM.
Checked my accounts a few minutes ago. GREEN......but........less than $600. I even forgot to check the percentage gain versus the SP500. I imagine it BEAT me handily today........since........the SP was up .8% for the day. Seems like we are starting to settle into the ELECTION DOLDRUMS. At the same time we are looking at the start of EARNINGS. ELECTION DOLDRUMS + EARNINGS could........equal........a correction if the markets take their usual micro........short term.......view of some obscure part of earnings reports as an excuse to drop on good earnings. Or Another alternative is that on one hand we experience an election.........fear mongered.........push to the negative at the same time we are experiencing GREAT earnings trying to push the markets up........and.......we waffle around with the markets not being able to decide what to do other than flail around up and down day by day. Or If we are lucky the markets just say WTF about the election and get tired of all the drama and just move UP with earnings. In any event......I remain fully invested for the long term.
picking winners is easy. Timing the market isn't. Know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. I've lost plenty of money holding onto things I should have dumped. AOL, IBM, Xerox, my ex, a Kodak instant camera, a Polaroid instant camera, a Renault LeCar......
"picking winners is easy. Timing the market isn't. Know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em" YES..........it is very difficult for most people to sell ANYTHING. To me this is NOT an issue of "market timing". It is a psychological issue that PLAGUES most investors. People have no problem buying a stock.........but selling.......they just can not handle it. They get emotionally vested in their stocks. They wait and wait for some imagined come-back that never happens. They FAIL to do due diligence on their stocks........AFTER........they own them. It should be a constant process for most investors to monitor their holdings. Each company........total return, financials, fundamentals, etc, etc, etc. FORGET what others and the media are saying. FORGET about waiting to make back some of your loses or for some rally or other event. If you own a company that is NOT performing for a few years and is one of the DOGS of your portfolio.........SELL IT. I have no problem with selling a holding. I believe part of the reason is that I look at selling as a LATERAL MOVE. I dont worry about taking a loss. ALTHOUGH......when I sell.......I RARELY have a loss in the holding. I usually end up selling when a holding has a gain......BUT.....the gain is not up to the level of my other gains. I dont worry about anything other than where an I going to put that money when I make a lateral move so that the move puts me in a SUPERIOR position in terms of my future portfolio make-up. There is NO reason not to sell a poor performing stock.......especially.......after a couple of years of under-performance. In fact.......it is an opportunity to UPGRADE your portfolio going forward. I HATE to hold a stock for years waiting for a come-back......even if it happens. I prefer to be invested in something else and later when the old holding comes back and is doing well I will have plenty of opportunity to buy it if I wish. A PERFECT example is BOEING. I am too lazy to go back in this thread and look at when I sold BOEING.......but........it was well before the current lows. If or when it comes back and is hitting on all cylinders.......I can re-buy it if I wish. There is no reason to ride a stock like that down to the bottom and sit for years while waiting to see when it is going to come back. Money in a losing or poorly performing position is LOST OPPORTUNITY. If nothing else I can park that money in a SP500 Index Fund till I find something that I want to buy. There have been a few times that I bought a stock as a long term holding and ended up selling within a few months. Other times I have sold within 6-12 months. It is my hope that everything I buy will be a long term holding.........but......I have no set rules. BUT if my thinking on a company changes or some event happens or fundamentals change.....I dont care if I just purchased it........it needs to go.
Interesting little article here. UNFORTUNATELY.......I can only see the first paragraph since I am not a subscriber: at the Harvard endowment’s below-average grade can teach you about index funds and your investments https://finance.yahoo.com/m/8d21c5f5-d43a-3b82-a893-b03d522fded9/what-the-harvard-endowment’s.html "Harvard's University's endowment's return lagged the U.S. stock market — again. For the fiscal year ending June 30, Harvard's endowment produced a 7.3% return, versus a 7.5% total return for the S&P 500 (SPX) . This marks the 12th year in a row in which the $42 billion portfolio fell behind the benchmark index." MY COMMENT I cant tell you how many articles I have seen over the decades about the AMAZING investment returns of the ELITE colleges and their endowments. The DIRTY TRUTH.........as shown above........HARVARD number 1 of the elites in endowment money management.......has not beaten the simple........working-class.........SP500 twelve years in a row. You would think that a school with all the connections of Harvard would have access to the BEST money managers in the world. WELL.......in fact they do. The problem is they can NOT beat the SP500.......just like ALL the other experts. You would think that a school with so many smart people would simply invest their ENTIRE endowment in the SP500. With the money they save on investment fees along with the SP500 total return they would WAY OUTPERFORM. BUT no.......they choose to waste their money. Although......to them......the money they pay in fees buys influence and power and that is what they want......so it is not a waste.
