Yep I am seeing the same thing here Zukodany. Seven years ago you could buy a home in our neighborhood of 4200 homes in the $275,000 to $350,000 range on the lower end of the market. A+ rated schools, amenities, close to the lakes and great shopping nearby, etc, etc. NOW.....the ABSOLUTE low end of the market is $600,000 to $650,000. We sold a house for $890,000 two years ago this week. That house is now worth $1.6 to $1.7 MILLION. The house we bought.....two years ago......had a realistic value of about $728,000.....we intentionally overpaid at $800,000 to get this particular house....before it came on the market. It is now worth about $1.3 MILLION. A house near us.......about 400 sq ft larger just sold for $1.6 MILLION. AND....so far these prices seem to be holding very firmly. We have owned 9-10 homes over our lifetime and have NEVER seen price increases like this ever. BUT....I think they are LEGIT. I dont think they will go back down. The area where we are is in the beginning/middle of a BIG BOOM that is going to last for a long time.
So I bought more Facebook today. I just couldn’t resist the price. The stock has dropped nearly 30% off of ATH and if I were to think of what drove it down to its current levels, I simply couldn’t come with any good excuse other than politics and trending hype news. Is the current price drop attributed to some sort of a major shift in the direction of the company? No. Is it because the company lags with earnings? Nope. It’s simply fb being fb… a company with a ceo that historically gets into boiling water with allegations of wrongdoing and manipulation. Which to me translates as - buy the dip! How further more can it drop? Another 10%?? More than that? I can’t see it happen. But that’s just me
I understand what you were saying duckleberry. I agree that your view is a legitimate view. I think we just have a different definition of the phrase "celebrity CEO". He is FAMOUS. AND the media definately follows him and reports on him daily. But, I dont see him as a person that is FOCUSED on celebrity and hungry for and seeking out the HOLLYWOOD celebrity lifestyle......like a lot of the people I would call celebrity CEO types. REGARDLESS......of how any of us see him......he is an exceptional business leader.
I will mention.....on this thread.....it is GOOD and WELCOME for anyone to push back on anything.....politely. This is a place for discussion....and much.......if not the vast majority of stuff on here.......is JUST personal opinion. The more discussion on here the better. The more discussion the more we will ALL learn by participating.
I think that you and W talk about the same thing but call it different names… musk is more like Nikola than he is Thomas. Yet in the 21st century being the underdog has actually led to more popularity than in the 19th it seems. Interestingly enough in some of his interviews Elon had compared himself to Edison more than he did to his companies own moniker, because he understood the business approach that Thomas Edison adapted, not so much his lifestyle.
I see that while I have been BLABBING.......the market averages have now gone GREEN. As usual lately it is going to be a long day for the markets and the close will be a surprise. In other words a normal day to day market. Zukodany.....did you get all your water issues cleaned up and repaired in Queens?
Yes, I think myself and W are not very far apart. It seems I may be more likely to count the fame of a CEO - in and of itself - as a negative. That is, if Elon Musk disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow it would have a stronger negative impact on Tesla than the impact of someone like Satya Nadel of Microsoft disappearing. Both are, in my opinion, excellent CEOs - the difference being one's fame has a more outsized impact upon the valuation and success of their company than the other.
I think you are making good buys Zukodany. If I can buy a sock or fund at a NICE discounted price I am VERY MUCH willing to do so when there is a downside risk of another 10%. You can rarely hit the exact bottom when you buy. For a guy that has not been investing long you are doing a very good job. I think business owners make good investors in general and in particular think that is why you are doing so well as a newer investor. You are used to thinking like a business owner and manager. AND....all successful business owners have an ability to look out into the future and see things based on PROBABILITY.
yeah we are probably saying about the same thing in different ways....duckleberry. Although I cant resist saying.....about Microsoft......I owned that company for a very long time beginning in about 1990. I was very familiar with their management from that time through the 2000's. In fact, I lived about 5 houses down from the MSFT President at one time. Nice guy, but did not seem very competent to me on a personal level. In the later Gates years and into the 2000's their management was TERRIBLE. Steve Ballmer was a disaster. Nadel....has done an exceptional job running that company and getting them back on track. What he did was a big reason that I re-bought the stock and am now a shareholder again. (I sold out my shares INITIAL shares in about 2002)
There’s still work that needs to be done there… the whole city is a mess… we left when we realized that our property manager can overlook the progress being made while were gone and communicate to us daily. Pretty much like it always has been. Our contractor is committed to finishing everything there in 2 weeks, by that time right before, I will head back there and check and see how it’s looking. It turned out to be a big project and we have added many features to that part of the building that will promote safety and water resistance in the future in the event that such an episode will reoccur. We went with porcelain tiles for the floors and porcelain cove base accents to prevent any future water penetrating into the sheet rock walls in the rooms. But we’ve been there for a whole month getting everything started, interviewing contractors and monitoring initial progress. We also jumped on other potential hazards that may promote leaks in other areas of the building such as cracks on the roof, gaps in flashing and cracks on the side of the building. Cost for everything including demolition and repair was 50k. Ouch!
I feel your pain....our little Kitchen countertop and backsplash job.......has now escalated to about $40,000. We ended up having to buy a 5th slab of quartzite. We are now about $10,000 over what I estimated. At least the bleeding is over now.....everything is locked in in terms of cost.
It is amazing how people can be in positions of power and be so incompetent. I knew a guy that was a law school Dean.....a really nice guy.....but a bumbling idiot. Another attorney friend of mine told me that he saw the Dean in Commissioners court one day trying to handle an eviction on a rental that he owned. He was totally screwed up on his paper work and as usual was a bumbling idiot. The Commissioner told him......."Sir, you need to hire an attorney to handle this for you". The Commissioner did not know that he WAS an attorney and the law school Dean. I guess it is "THE PETER PRINCIPLE"......for those of you too young.....that is the name of a book about people rising up in their job till they hit their level of INCOMPETENCE. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/peter-principle.asp "What Is the Peter Principle? The Peter Principle is an observation that the tendency in most organizational hierarchies, such as that of a corporation, is for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach a level of respective incompetence. In other words, a front-office secretary who is quite good at her job may thus be promoted to executive assistant to the CEO for which she is not trained or prepared for—meaning that she would be more productive for the company (and likely herself) if she had not been promoted. The Peter Principle is thus based on the paradoxical idea that competent employees will continue to be promoted, but at some point will be promoted into positions for which they are incompetent, and they will then remain in those positions because of the fact that they do not demonstrate any further competence that would get them recognized for additional promotion. According to the Peter Principle, every position in a given hierarchy will eventually be filled by employees who are incompetent to fulfill the job duties of their respective positions."
Funny - law school deans and incompetence seem to go hand in hand. I won't name the law school I attended (I think it's a better school than this little anecdote implies) but I can say when I graduated we had 12 deans (each with a title of the "Dean of _____"). 12 deans at my school meant 1 dean per 37.5 students. With each of these 12 deans making 6 figures, our school wasted a nonsensical amount of money. BUT the head dean (who's official Dean of ___ title is escaping me at the moment) failed the bar in his state 3 times before somehow getting a job in academia. To at least mention investing once today - it's been a choppy day and I will end up essentially breaking even - up 0.05% for the day right now.
YES......the recent market action continues for the short term.......same fears.....same excuses. Stock market news live updates: Stocks fall for a third straight session, with inflation concerns lingering https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-updates-october-12-2021-221510345.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Stocks fell on Tuesday in another choppy session, with investors eyeing elevated commodity prices and other signs of inflation heading into corporate earnings season. The S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq each posted a third consecutive day of declines. U.S. West Texas intermediate crude oil futures hovered near a seven-year high, with supply constraints and elevated fuel demand pushing prices higher over the past seven consecutive weeks. Outside of oil, aluminum prices also edged lower after reaching their highest level since 2008 on Monday, and copper prices turned lower after a near 2% jump. For investors, the recent, broad rise in commodity prices has threatened to exert further pressure on corporate margins. Companies have already been grappling with a host of supply-side challenges, including port congestion and labor scarcities, that are expected to drag on profit growth heading into third-quarter earnings season later this week and over the next month. The Labor Department's August Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey — due for release Tuesday morning — showed workplace vacancies held near a record high at the end of the summer. And rising interest rates have also raised the specter of higher borrowing costs for companies, with the 10-year yield holding near its highest level since June. "We're definitely freaked out about crude oil prices ... [and] about slightly higher interest rates," David Bailin, Citi Private Bank chief investment officer, told Yahoo Finance. "But we have to put all of this in context. First of all, interest rates have been abnormally low. Energy prices are high due to excessive demand right now and delivery shortages across Europe and now in China ... These things will abate. We think it'll take somewhere between three and nine months for energy supplies and for the shipping issues to abate." Other strategists also suggested that investors look through the near-term supply-related challenges facing the markets. "We're going to have supply issues for a little bit longer here, but I think that'll just work its way through," Jeremy Bryan, portfolio manager for Gradient Investments, told Yahoo Finance Live on Monday. "The nice part about the U.S. economy and markets in general is they usually follow what the U.S. consumer does, and the U.S. consumer wants to spend. And that's why we're still positive on the markets."" MY COMMENT Same issues....same fears. ALL this stuff will continue for months if not for a year. It is a MASSIVE undertaking to re-open an economy after it has been disrupted and distorted. Patience......PATIENCE.......is the word of the day and the rest of the year.
Sounds about right duckleberry. the Dean that I knew was the #1 Dean. I realize that being in that position does not take any particular skill in practicing law. It is basically a FUNDRAISING job.
POOR CHINA. Well they get what they deserve. Unfortunately they tend to pull the rest of the world down with them. ARK Invest's Wood warns upcoming economic downturn in China 'obvious' https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ark-invests-wood-warns-upcoming-184031859.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "NEW YORK, Oct 12 (Reuters) - An economic slowdown in China could ripple through the global economy and weigh on commodity prices and growth, star stock picker Cathie Wood of ARK Invest warned in a webinar on Tuesday. Wood, whose flagship $19.7 billion Ark Innovation fund was the top-performing U.S. equity fund in 2020, said that China's recent steps to crack down on sectors ranging from gaming to education to financial firms are increasing the likelihood of a policy mistake that leads to a sharp slowdown. "I really do think that the policy makers in China are beginning to play with fire," she said, adding "We will look back at this period in six months and say 'Wasn’t it obvious there will be a major and unexpected slowdown in China?'" Wood reiterated her bullishness on electric car maker Tesla Inc, citing its strong September https://www.reuters.com/business/au...-made-vehicles-september-cpca-2021-10-12sales in China despite a 17% drop in passenger vehicles sales from the year earlier. The ARK Innovation fund rallied last year due to its outsized bets on companies such as Tesla and Teledoc Health Inc that surged during the pandemic. Yet increasing concerns about inflation have weighed on the fund, leaving it down 11.4% for the year compared with a roughly 17% gain for the benchmark S&P 500. Shares of ARK Innovation rose 1.5% in Tuesday afternoon trading, helped by a 2.4% gain in top-holding Tesla." MY COMMENT As usual....you know what I think about China. Unfortunately the rest of the world has tied themselves to that country.......very foolish.
We start to get into some of the earnings that might count tomorrow. Delta Air......JP Morgan Chase......Charles Schwab.
