The Long Term Investor

OK......I am going to miss the close today. I have to head out for a rehearsal.

BUT....at the moment...powering on toward the close. The old portfolio is at another all time high. My year to date TOTAL RETURN has jumped up to +6% year to date. The sun is shining and the birds are singing.

I am sure that I am NOT alone.....MOST......realistic and rational.......investors are probably in about the same place.

We NEED a sustained run for stocks and funds for a month or two....to really LOCK IN these recent gains. With how EVERYTHING is shaping up right now....there is a very good...."probability"...that this will actually happen. If not......well.....that is the GLORY of being a long term investor.....there is ALWAYS a positive market environment......out there......somewhere in the future.

 

I ended up better than I thought. Solidly Green. And a good beat of the SP500 by .36%. I am now three for three with the green this week. I need two more days for a.......solid green week. After watching the BIG CAP growth stocks linger and waffle down for 4-5 weeks....this is nice.

 

I think what we are seeing with this late day weakness is.....program trading and AI trading by the big boys. It is NOT reflective of the REAL strength of the markets. Here is MORE confirmation of the RELENTLESS MARCH toward normalcy in business and investing.

Jobless claims preview: Another 680,000 Americans likely filed new claims

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/week...pril-3-2021-pandemic-175704861-180657616.html

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

"New weekly jobless claims likely fell back below 700,000 last week after an unexpected rise in late March, with more rehiring taking place across the recovering economy.

The Department of Labor is set to release its weekly report on new jobless claims on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here were the main metrics expected from the report, compared to consensus data compiled by Bloomberg:

• Initial jobless claims, week ended April 3: 680,000 expected and 719,000 during the prior week
  
• Continuing claims, week ended March 27: 3.638 million expected and 3.794 million during the prior week
  

New weekly jobless claims data have been sliding lower over the course of 2021 so far, though they still remain elevated relative to historical trends. At 680,000, initial jobless claims would still be about on par with the high of 665,000 new claims filed at the worst point of the Great Recession in March 2009. And the data continue to be choppy, with last week's new claims unexpectedly rising off a pandemic-era low.

But overall, the latest claims data "have been improving lately, with a downward trend reported since early in January that generally has coincided with vaccine distribution and a reduction in new COVID-19 cases," JPMorgan economist Bruce Kasman wrote in a note. "Initial claims did jump in the latest weekly report, but the four-week moving average for regular state filings hit its lowest level in over a year."

A spate of better-than-expected labor market data corroborated these trends. The March jobs report showed a staggering 916,000 payrolls were brought back, and employment indexes in the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) manufacturing and services indexes each advanced last month. Job openings reached a two-year high in February.

Individual companies have also announced a pick-up in rehiring to keep pace with rising consumer demand, with Southwest (LUV) and other air carriers announcing plans to recall hundreds of pilots who had been on extended leave during the pandemic. These signs of an impending travel surge also bode well for other services industries, which had been hit hard by anemic demand over the past year.

Still, a persistently massive number of Americans remain out of work, based on the number of claimants across all programs. As of mid-March, about 18.2 million individuals were still claiming unemployment benefits of some form. That included nearly 12.9 million Americans on the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, the latter of which offers extended benefits to those who have exhausted their regular state insurance."

MY COMMENT

Good stuff....lets see if the REAL report confirms what is being anticipated tomorrow. I would guess that it does.

 

Zukodany. You are seeing the BIG benefits of having nice diversification of assets. You have multiple.....very different....income sources......real estate, your studio business, collectables, stocks. As long as the.......NET....from all of them combined is positive you are doing well.

What a sweet bunch of income producing assets.

 

I continue to consider Coinbase. I am putting information on here where I can access it easily....and....anyone else that might be interested in this company might also want to see numbers and hard data. That is what is in this little article.

Coinbase Will Be First Major Cryptocurrency Company To Go Public

https://finance.yahoo.com/m/f57e31b0-d25f-3c1d-8b3a-a149dcb1c901/coinbase-will-be-first-major.html

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

"Following a year of massive growth in the value of Bitcoin, Coinbase Global plans to launch its highly anticipated initial public offering. The Coinbase IPO is scheduled to trade on April 14.

Coinbase is the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, listing about 50 cryptocurrencies for trading. The company will be the first major crypto company to go public.

Bitcoin is the largest digital coin by market value, and has more than doubled in value so far this year. As a result, that's helped lift the total value of the cryptocurrency market past $2 trillion, doubling in about two months amid surging institutional demand. Bitcoin accounts for about half of that $2 trillion.

The Coinbase IPO is expected to give the cryptocurrency market increased validation.

Morgan Stanley now allows some of its wealthiest clients to add Bitcoin to their portfolios. In addition, Tesla now accepts Bitcoin as payment for cars. Mastercard (MA) and PayPal (PYPL) are embracing Bitcoin as well.

Coinbase IPO Is A Direct Listing

The company is not doing a traditional IPO. It's going public through a direct listing instead. The current owners of Coinbase stock will convert their shares to make them available for trading. Doing so lets them avoid large fees from investment bankers.

Direct listings are rare but have been used by big-name companies such as Spotify Technology (SPOT) and Palantir Technologies (PLTR).

The Coinbase IPO will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker COIN.

The company is selling 114.9 million shares directly to the public, according to the Coinbase IPO filing. It plans to reveal a reference price for shares a day before trading begins.

Coinbase has been valued somewhere in the range of $70 billion to $90 billion.

In a voluntary and preliminary first-quarter earnings report issued after the market close Tuesday, Coinbase said it has 56 million users on its platform, up from 6 million users in the year-ago period.

First Quarter Tops All Of 2020

Its first-quarter results passed all of 2020. Coinbase reported revenue of $1.8 billion in the quarter, with net income of approximately $730 million to $800 million, according to the filing. Last year, it brought in $1.3 billion in revenue with a profit of $322 million.

Trading volume topped $335 billion in the quarter. For all of 2020, trading volume was $193 billion.

Total assets on Coinbase's platform increased from $90 billion to $223 billion, a nearly 150% increase.

Its full-year outlook presented a range of possibilities, "given the inherent unpredictability of our business," the company said in its report.

"To state the obvious, our business is hard to forecast," Coinbase Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas said after the earnings report. That's because it can't predict the prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

About 96% of Coinbase's revenue comes from transaction fees. It has several lines of business in addition to its exchange services. Among them is Coinbase Commerce, which provides online retailers with software that lets them accept cryptocurrency payments."

MY COMMENT

I will be curious to see the reference price they release a day before the IPO. At least....now....we are beginning to see some financial and business data for this company. I will probably decide if I am going to buy at the IPO the night before it happens. I want to see what is going on in the markets right up to the last minute.

 

HERE we have the SP500 hitting....18 all time highs....so far this year.

S&P 500 books 18th record close of 2021 in listless trading day after Fed signals commitment to lower rates

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/s...tment-to-lower-rates-2021-04-07?siteid=yhoof2

The S&P 500 on Wednesday eked out a record, its 18th of the year, but trading action was otherwise lackluster as minutes from the Federal Reserve's last policy meeting appeared to reaffirm a commitment to a lower-rate regime as the COVID-stricken labor market recovers. The S&P 500 index SPX, +0.15% closed up 0.2% at around 4,079, on a preliminary basis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.05% finished up less than 0.1% at about 33,446, to mark its third gain in four sessions, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.07% edged less than 0.1% lower to around 13,669. "While generally acknowledging that the medium-term outlook for real GDP growth and employment had improved, participants continued to see the uncertainty surrounding that outlook as elevated," minutes from the Fed's March 16-17 meeting read. The central bank said that its "current guidance for the federal funds rate and asset purchases was serving the economy well." Projections from Fed members indicate that policy makers won't look to normalize rates until at 2023 at the earliest but segments of the market have pushed back against that notion, amid fears that inflation will pick up as the economy improves.

MY COMMENT

We have seen a TYPICAL three months now of the markets....CLIMBING A WALL OF WORRY. A CLASSIC stock market situation. Day to day....we have seen MUCH short term doom&gloom and fear mongering. Anyone that has been overwhelmed.......with the day to day negativity.......is probably very surprised to see us at a very positive spot....after the first quarter.

AS USUAL.....ALL economic indicators are lined up to the positive. In addition we are now about to add earnings to the mix. My EXPECTATION is.....earnings will be very good and the number of "beats" will be a very high percentage.

We could be at the start of a HISTORIC RALLY....over the next months. Emphasis on......"could".

Investors that sat and held through the past three months......were strongly rewarded. The relentless media negativity made it a very nasty time for investors. I think that most long term investors made it through.........and now.....they are tougher as a result.

I continue to be fully invested for the long term as usual..........and....I am looking forward to the next couple of days in the markets.

 

Stockman2015

What is nice about the concepts behind long term investing.......which is the majority of the content in this thread......is.....it NEVER gets outdated. The same concepts apply now as did 20-30-40-50 years ago. No matter what the current investing FAD......the basics of long term investing NEVER go out of style.

 

So much for the employment numbers in the SPECULATIVE article above. We have WAY TOO MANY disincentives to go back to work right now. This is the problem with programs that basically pay people NOT to work. If I can make more on unemployment....tell me why I am going to go back to work.....if I am smart...I am going to milk the benefits till they end.

Weekly jobless claims higher than expected

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/08/weekly-jobless-claims.html

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

"Key Points

• Jobless claims totaled 744,000 for the week ended April 3, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
• That was above the Dow Jones estimate of 694,000 and the previous week’s 728,000.
• Continuing claims nudged lower as did the total of those receiving benefits.

First-time claims for unemployment insurance rose more than expected last week despite other signs of healing in the jobs market, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

First-time claims for the week ended April 3 totaled 744,000, well above the expectation for 694,000 from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The total represented an increase of 16,000 from the previous week’s upwardly revised 728,000. The four-week moving average edged higher to 723,750.



The news comes a week after a sign of more aggressive healing in the labor market, as nonfarm payrolls in March increased by 916,000 while the unemployment rate fell to 6%.

That was the biggest job gain since August 2020, though unemployment remains well above the pre-pandemic low of 3.5%.

Continuing claims provided some good news on the labor front, with the total dropping 16,000 to 3.73 million. That’s the lowest level for continuing claims since March 21, 2020, just after the Covid-19 pandemic hit and companies instituted wholesale layoffs in conjunction with the economic shutdown. Continuing claims run a week behind the headline weekly number.



A year ago, that total was just 3.44 million but surged shortly thereafter due to massive layoffs in late March and early April.

California and New York accounted for most of the rise in jobs, with respective increases of 38,963 and 15,714, according to unadjusted data. Those increases were offset somewhat by a decline of 13,944 in Alabama and 10,502 in Ohio.

Markets reacted little to the data, with stock futures and government bond yields mixed.

Despite recent progress, Federal Reserve officials say much more progress is needed on the jobs front before they think about changing policy.

Minutes from the most recent Federal Open Market Committee meeting, released Wednesday, indicated a better outlook for the economy though a continued need for easy policy.

Fed Governor Lael Brainard told CNBC on Wednesday that the economy outlook has “brightened considerably” but there are still about 9 million fewer workers than there were before the pandemic. Central bank officials have said they want to see not only full employment but also inclusive gains across income, racial and gender lines.

“In that sense, we’ve got some distance to go before the outcomes are achieved,” Brainard said."

MY COMMENT

This data....for better or worse....will have absolutely NO impact on stocks or funds. No one cares. AND.....as usual.....the poor economists were WRONG again. They must have the ABSOLUTE WORST record of predicting in human history.

People will go back to work when they can see an economic advantage to working.

This data is....GOOD NEWS.....for those that believe that......YES, there is NO inflation. Also probably good news for interest rates and a continuation of the stock market bull market.

 

I wonder if many.....small traders....will recognize or take to heart.....the recent lesson that we all were talking about a week ago.....I hope so. Two of the investing sins to avoid....PRIDE and GREED. Even long term investors need to be wary of thinking they are among the investing greats....versus...just riding a general bull market.

Archegos: How Wall Street's hubris is a lesson for retail traders

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/arch...is-a-lesson-for-retail-traders-161819848.html

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

"As Wall Street still clamors to untangle the levered Archegos bets on ViacomCBS (VIAC) and other stocks, lessons are emerging that ring true for both institutional and retail investors. However, while Wall Street lives on to trade another day, the retail crowd may not be as fortunate.

It doesn't matter if it's a retail trader buying call options on GameStop or an institution borrowing money from a prime broker to help fund a position. If a trade is levered 10 times, it only takes a 10% loss to wipe out.

On the Archegos matter, Bill Smead, chief investment officer of Smead Capital Management, writes, "Recent studies show that most investors have never been so concentrated in over-crowded ownership of popular tech-related securities. These managers are trying to justify over-paying for common stocks based on historically and unsustainably low interest rates. They are disrespectful of the history of forward returns, unafraid of antitrust enforcement and scrambling to support their compensation structure which favors leverage and risk!"

This speaks to the heart of the difference between institutional and retail traders: Wall Street rewards risk-taking even if that very same risk-taking historically ended up blowing out a fund or two. A few terrible decisions aren't necessarily career ending. Contrastingly, retail traders bear the brunt of their own decisions — both the good and the bad.

The greatest hedge fund meltdown perhaps of all time was Long Term Capital Management, which in 1998 required a bailout from the big investment banks orchestrated by none other than the New York Federal Reserve (although the Fed didn't supply any of the bailout funds). Long Term's principle, John Meriwether went on to start another hedge fund — and subsequently crashed that one too. Then he started another one.

A portfolio manager who demonstrates ability to generate returns (despite crashing and burning) usually gets at least a second chance. Retail traders must bear their own losses. If they blow out their account and can't replenish it, they're done.

Live to trade another day
It seems Credit Suisse was trying to play the same role the New York Fed played with Long Term. The bank wanted to sit all the other Archegos exposed brokerage houses down at a table and discuss options. Credit Suisse wanted to, along with the other so-called prime brokers, hash out a strategy to sell the collateral they had seized from Archegos and (hopefully) avoid a fire sale.

Bloomberg writes, "Underscoring the chaos of an escalating situation, representatives from Credit Suisse Group AG floated a suggestion as they met last week to confront the reality of such an exceptional margin call and consider ways to mitigate the damage: Maybe wait to see if his stocks recover? Viacom, some noted, seemed artificially low after its run-up past $100 just two days earlier."

Nice idea. But Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley simply offloaded billions worth of positions ahead of that meeting. Adults in the room at Credit Suisse ought to have known better. It gets back to the perverse incentive structure, which encourages recklessness among the weak-willed. "As is so often — not always! — the case, the market rewarded absolute unsentimental ruthlessness here," says Bloomberg's Matt Levine.

One piece of good news: Amid the Archegos margin calls and backstabbing by Wall Street banks, ultimately the trades were wound down without posing systemic risk. Taxpayers weren't on the hook. Heads are rolling at Credit Suisse, while banks and hedge funds are reassessing their relationships and risk procedures.

But retail traders sitting on losses or bleeding their accounts dry with expensive options positions must deal with the volatility in the market without losing their shirts. Of the incredible gyrations that markets have endured in 2021, including the GameStop maelstrom, Smead told Yahoo Finance, “The abuse for this stuff is going to cause a whole generation of people to not want to participate in the stock, which is exactly what happens every 30 years. We have to go through this.”

Let's hope retail traders learn some hard-fought lessons and stick around."

MY COMMENT

YES.....the markets are relentless, unsentimental, and ruthless. Just like nature.....unthinking and uncaring whether or not YOU live or die. Do something stupid and you die.

At the moment it "FEELS" like to me some of the mania has tempered a little bit. That is a good thing. Trade away....invest however you wish....but....financially survive. RECOGNIZE the point where you are taking extreme risk to your current and future finances.

I hate to see young people get shaken out of the markets and end up with such a painful experience that they will not invest again.

 

STRANGE......I now see very few articles about inflation or interest rates anymore. I do not see either as an issue at present. BUT....whether you agree or not....the media BEAT those topics to death. They just wore out investors to those stories. No one cares about reading yet another story about inflation or yields. EVERYONE has an opinion and......reading yet another article....REHASHING....the same old arguments is a WASTE OF TIME.

A perfect lesson in the danger of getting caught up in the short term media BLATHER.

 

NICE market so far today. On one hand you have the DOW......on the other hand you have all the other Indexes. I believe that the DOW is currently out of step.......and....irrelevant to the current economy. I suspect that the DOW will come back as the day progresses. BUT.....who really cares.

The SP500 has racked up another intra-day all time high.

S&P 500 hits record high on gains in tech-related stocks

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/p-500-nasdaq-set-open-131605360.html

"The benchmark S&P 500 hit a record high on Thursday, helped by gains in tech-related stocks, a day after the Federal Reserve reiterated its pledge to keep interest rates low until the economic recovery is more secure.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 23.6 points, or 0.07%, at the open to 33,469.89. The S&P 500 rose 10.0 points, or 0.25%, at the open to 4,089.95, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 108.0 points, or 0.79%, to 13,796.892 at the opening bell."