With the start of the new year it might be a good time for.....some investors.....to evaluate the risk inherent in their portfolio mix and their risk tolerance. What 2022 Taught Us About Risk https://blog.commonwealth.com/independent-market-observer/what-2022-taught-us-about-risk (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "For investors, 2022 has been a tough year. We had bear markets in both stocks, which is fairly common, and bonds, which is not common at all. They both happened at the same time, so rather than being saved by diversification, portfolios got hit twice. Even portfolios that were designed to weather market storms, such as a typical 60 percent stocks and 40 percent bond allocation, were hit harder than anyone expected. 2022 was an exceptional year and not in a good way. What made the year so difficult was that risk popped up in a way that no one really foresaw. With all of the worries at the start of the year—Covid-19, the Ukraine war, and everything else—the spike in inflation and the consequent rise in interest rates are what shook markets. As usual, the bus that hits you is not the one you are watching. Reflecting on 2022 So what can we learn from 2022 and take into 2023? I strongly suspect inflation and interest rates won’t be the surprising story of next year. It's not because the data is improving, although it is, but because those expectations are already thoroughly incorporated in the markets. It also won’t be a recession, if we get one, because everyone is expecting that. Instead, it will be something on the back pages of the paper that no one sees as a major factor at the moment. We don’t know what could knock markets, but we know something might. Given that, what are the lessons of 2022? First is that bear markets happen. Not to be flip, but this is something investors regularly forget, especially after a couple of good years. We will see sustained market pullbacks from time to time, and last year will not be the last. In 2022, after some good years, investors were shocked by the market pullback. This should not have been a surprise, as pullbacks happen regularly. So, remember to expect a downturn. Second, on a related point, when you plan your portfolio, there is nothing wrong with cash or cash-like assets. Cash is a missed opportunity when the market goes up, but it is both a cushion and an option to buy more when the market goes down. Having some cash in the portfolio is not a bad thing, especially in 2023 when you will be getting paid to wait. Third, and perhaps most important, is that one year—no matter how good or bad—doesn’t achieve or derail your goals. It’s a multiyear process, and if your plan incorporates the fact that bear markets happen and is designed to survive them, then one year really doesn’t matter. This too will pass. Knowing Your Risk Tolerance The final point to take away from 2022 is that it has been a valuable lesson for us all. Once again, investors have had a chance to learn how much risk tolerance they really have. If 2022 shook you, then there is no shame in derisking—it may be the smart thing to do over time. It’s better to go slower and get there than to go faster and crash. When you look at your end-of-the-year statements, ask yourself whether you are comfortable with the outcome. If not, talk with your advisor and make changes. MY COMMENT I agree with the above.....even the part about there being nothing wrong with cash like assets. I say I am fully invested all the time.....on here all the time. AND.....it is true. BUT.....at the same time.....I have a lifetime guarantied income that is totally independent from my stock account. That is the ultimate.....cash like asset. I set up my finances and life in that way.....intentionally. It cost me a big chunk of money......$1.9MILLION....to put that income in place. I spent my entire life as a self employed business person/owner and investor. I NEVER had a pay check to count on......my income was always from my own efforts in business or investing.......and....basically out of my own pocket. After a lifetime of paying myself from my own assets.....I was ready in retirement to have an income from other sources......my lifetime income annuities and Social Security. I like the security of this arrangement in my......older.....life.
Well.....I have not looked.......but seeing the averages in the red.....I assume there is a god chance that I am now RED.....year to date. At least I got to be GREEN for about an hour of the year. Lets hope this is not the LAST TIME I will be able to say I am.....positive year to date.....this year.
The markets today.....so far. Stocks fall in first trading day of 2023 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-updates-january-3-2023-111400576.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "U.S. stocks turned lower Tuesday morning as a busy first trading week of 2023 got underway. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) dropped 0.5% after opening higher, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) declined 0.4%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) also fell 0.7%. The moves early Tuesday come after broad-based declines on Friday in a fitting end to Wall Street’s worst year since the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. U.S. stock and bond markets were closed on Monday in observance of New Year’s Day. The S&P 500 tumbled 19.4% in 2022, while the Nasdaq Composite wiped out one-third of its value, dropping 33% and closing out its first four-quarter decline since the 2000 dot-com bubble. The Dow fell a comparably modest 9%, holding up better than its index peers but still capping a three-year winning streak for the major averages. Optimism around China's recovery after researchers in Shanghai reported COVID cases in major Chinese cities may have peaked helped boost sentiment early Tuesday morning. Shares of Chinese companies trading on U.S. exchanges pushed forward, with Alibaba Group (BABA) and Baidu (BIDU) each rising at least 5%. Block's (SQ) stock rose 2% following an upgrade from Baird analysts to Outperform, with a new price target of $78 per share, up from the prior $62. Tesla (TSLA) remained in the limelight to start the year after the electric carmaker on Monday reported record production and deliveries for vehicles in the fourth quarter, but still missed Wall Street’s estimates. Shares of Tesla plunged nearly 10%. The company closed out its worst year on record in 2022, shedding 65% or about $700 billion in market value. In December, growing concerns around production delays in China and CEO Elon Musk’s management of Twitter drove the stock down 36%, its biggest monthly drop since Tesla went public in 2010. In other markets early Tuesday, U.S. Treasury yields retreated. In 2022, the yield on the benchmark 10-year note surged from around 1.5% at the beginning of the year to settle at 3.88% on Friday. Oil prices slumped, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures falling 1.7% to trade just below $79 per barrel. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar index gained Tuesday morning. A new year may not be a fresh start for investors, with strategists warning that many of the headwinds that plagued markets in 2022 will persist into the new year: inflation, continued monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve, and the risk of a hard landing as further rate hikes permeate the U.S. economy. “The story in 2022 was the Fed hiking interest rates and choking off the equities and bond markets, and by indication a bunch of other markets in the process as well,” Opimas CEO Octavio Marenzi told Yahoo Finance Live on Friday, adding that market expectations for a terminal rate of 5% were “mindlessly optimistic.” “I don’t think the peak interest rate is only 75 basis points away if you look at where inflation is,” Marenzi said. “I think there’s more pain to come in 2023 – I think basically we're going to see a replay of 2022 – the same kind of pressures, the same direction.” Economic data will pick up in the shortened first trading week of the year, with the Labor Department set to release its first jobs report of 2023 Friday morning. Economists expect a payroll gain of 200,000 jobs for December, per Bloomberg consensus estimates. Investors will get three additional updates on the labor market, with the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (or JOLTS report), ADP’s private payrolls data, and the Challenger Job Cuts report all due out. Investors will also tune in for the Fed’s release of minutes from its December policy meeting, which investors will pore over for clues on the central bank's next move." MY COMMENT A new start for investors.....but....same conditions in place......short term..... as all year last year. It will take all year for us to see how it all sorts out. That is just the reality of living in a short term world.....as a long term investor.
This is how you write an.....accurate.....story and headline in the financial media. A rare thing in the era of media sensationalism. Tesla reports 1.31 million deliveries in 2022, growth of 40% over last year https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/02/tesla-tsla-q4-2022-vehicle-delivery-and-production-numbers.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points Tesla just reported 2022 year-end vehicle production and delivery numbers. In the fourth quarter, Tesla reported deliveries of 405,278 vehicles and production of 439,701 vehicles. That brings Tesla’s 2022 full year deliveries to around 1.31 million vehicles. In 2021, Tesla reported 308,600 vehicle deliveries in the fourth quarter, and full-year deliveries of around 936,172 vehicles. Tesla just published its fourth-quarter vehicle production and delivery report for 2022. Here are the key numbers. Total deliveries Q4 2022: 405,278 Total production Q4 2022: 439,701 Total annual deliveries 2022: 1.31 million Total annual production 2022: 1.37 million Deliveries are the closest approximation of sales disclosed by Tesla. These numbers represented a record for the Elon Musk-led automaker and growth of 40%in deliveries year over year. However, the fourth-quarter numbers fell shy of analysts’ expectations. According to a consensus of analysts’ estimates compiled by FactSet, as of Dec. 31, 2022, Wall Street was expecting Tesla to report deliveries around 427,000 for the final quarter of the year. Estimates updated in December, and included in the FactSet consensus, ranged from 409,000 to 433,000. Those more recent estimates were in line with a company-compiled consensus distributed by Tesla investor relations Vice President Martin Viecha. That consensus, published by electric vehicle industry researcher @TroyTeslike, said that 24 sell-side analysts expected Tesla deliveries of about 417,957 on average for the quarter (and about 1.33 million deliveries for the full year). Tesla started production at two new factories this year — in Austin, Texas, and Brandenburg, Germany — and ramped up production in Fremont, California, and in Shanghai, but it does not disclose production and delivery numbers by region. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Tesla said deliveries of its entry-level Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover amounted to 388,131, while deliveries of its higher-end Model S sedan and Model X SUV amounted to 17,147. In its third-quarter shareholder presentation, Tesla wrote: “Over a multi-year horizon we expect to achieve 50% average annual growth in vehicle deliveries. The rate of growth will depend on our equipment capacity, factory uptime, operational efficiency and the capacity and stability of the supply chain.” The period ended Dec. 31, 2022, was marked by challenges for Tesla, including Covid outbreaks in China, which caused the company to temporarily suspend and reduce production at its Shanghai factory. During the fourth quarter, Tesla also offered steep price cuts and other promotions in the U.S., China and elsewhere in order to spur demand, even though doing so could put pressure on its margins. In a recent email to Tesla staff, Musk asked employees to “volunteer” to deliver as many cars to customers as possible before the end of 2022. In his email, Musk also encouraged employees not to be “bothered” by what he characterized as “stock market craziness.” Shares of Tesla plunged by more than 45% over the last six months. In December, several analysts expressed concern about weakening demand for Tesla electric vehicles, which are relatively expensive compared with an increasing number of hybrid and fully electric products from competitors. Along with competitors ranging from industry veterans Ford and GM to upstart Rivian, Tesla is poised to reap the benefits of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act this year, which includes incentives for domestic production and purchases of fully electric cars. Retail shareholders and analysts alike attributed some of Tesla’s falling share price in 2022 to a so-called Twitter overhang. Musk sold billions of dollars worth of his Tesla holdings last year to finance a leveraged buyout of the social media business Twitter. That deal closed in late October. Musk appointed himself CEO of Twitter and has stirred controversy by making sweeping changes to the company and its social media platform. Shares of Tesla started to rise again in the final days of December 2022, in anticipation of record fourth-quarter and full-year deliveries." MY COMMENT I nearly fainted.........when I saw this little article. It is so rare to see a financial article....these days.....that is not full of speculative opinion and the judgement of the writer......not to mention actual FACTS. SO......there you have a little context on the TESLA numbers......the reality......a 40% increase in a single year.
HERE is my doom and gloom of the week....may as well get it out of the way early in the week. For you young investors......especially those under about age 45. You know, there is NO GUARANTEE inherent in the current capitalistic system and markets that we all enjoy and benefit from. It is totally....."possible" (not "probable".....yet)....that the markets as we know them will be destroyed at some point in the future. We are one of the very few countries in the world that enjoys our form of capitalism and has relatively successful stock markets. I do see RISK to our economic system......and as a result our stock markets.......with all the SOCIALISTIC stuff that I see and hear expressed by people every day. It would not take much to PERMANENTLY DESTROY our system. I can see that it would only take about 10 years of the wrong policies, wrong government, wrong regulations, a continued screwed up school system, and wrong thinking by the public to......PERMANENTLY.....undo our free market system and our stock markets. AND......once it is gone....it will be gone for good. Once broken.....like Humpty Dumpty.....it will not be possible to put it back together again. Case in point.....the screwed up economies and economics of the EU......or worse. The BIG dangers......stakeholder capitalism, ESG investing, investing and business cancel culture, socially responsible investing, etc, etc, etc. These things all sound good in theory.....but the devil is in the details and their ultimate impact on our business and economic system. People.....especially investors.....need to think.....and not just sit by fat, dumb, and happy. The future is not as set in stone as you think it is.
Well I am going to start the first week of the new year off doing the same thing I did last month. I plan on adding some more contributions this week and will likely do so a few more times this month. I am not bothered by the extra shares I am picking up along the way at a lower price.
OH NOOOOOO.....(Mr Bill)......I am year to date negative. Like the markets I was down today. I even got beat by the SP500 by 0.19% to start the new year. My loss was minimal today. Stocks in my account that were UP today are......AMZN, NKE, HD, GOOGL,.......and HON was unchanged.
INSANITY.....I bet good old Cathie Wood......is going crazy buying shares. Tesla stock tanks on delivery whiff, JPMorgan note https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-stock-tanks-on-delivery-whiff-jp-morgan-note-160657347.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Tesla stock is picking right up where it left off in 2022: Lacking juice. Shares of the EV maker fell more than 12% on Tuesday, the biggest one-day drop in more than two years. The stock at one point hit its lowest level since August 2020, with investors reacting to a lackluster fourth-quarter delivery figure released on New Year's Day. Tesla was the top-trending ticker on the Yahoo Finance platform. Tesla saw fourth-quarter deliveries rise 18% sequentially to 405,000, missing consensus forecasts of 418,000. The figure brought Tesla's 2022 total deliveries to 1.3 million units, up 40% year over year but below the company's guidance for 50%. The delivery miss only fueled further concern on the Street on the demand for Tesla's vehicles — a key factor in sending shares spiraling 65% lower in 2022. JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman cut his profit estimates and price target on Tesla in the wake of the soft results. Brinkman sees Tesla missing fourth-quarter earnings estimates ($1.19) when it reports later in January. For 2023, Brinkman is now modeling for earnings of $4.60 a share, down from $4.84 previously. The analyst's price target moved down to $125 from $150. He continues to rate the stock underweight (sell equivalent). "Beyond the impact to near-term financials, another implication we see from 4Q’s combination of softer than consensus volume and pricing is the impact on the stock’s growth narrative which has allowed many investors to believe the company is likely to grow unit volume at upwards of a ~+50% CAGR [compound annual growth rate] until such time as it is the world’s largest automaker (management outlook is for “Over a multi-year horizon, we expect to achieve 50% average annual growth in vehicle deliveries”)," Brinkman explained. "We have questioned the company’s ability to sustain this rate of growth."" MY COMMENT I dont buy it. This is the mst dominant EV company in the world with massive production ability. Many of the other EV companies are really nothing more than....talk....with little to no production. This is a prefect example of Wall Street....HERD BEHAVIOR.
AND.... Apple's stock market value falls below $2 trillion https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apples-market-value-falls-below-174028646.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) Apple's stock market value falls below $2 trillion "(Reuters) -Apple Inc's stock market value shrank sharply on Tuesday following its steep drop last year, leaving it below $2 trillion for the first time since March 2021. The sell-off came a year after the iPhone maker became the first company to reach the $3 trillion market capitalization milestone. Apple's shares declined 3.7% to $125.07 after Exane BNP Paribas analyst Jerome Ramel downgraded the company to "neutral" from "outperform," slashing his price target to $140 from $180, according to Refinitiv Eikon. Also exacerbating investors' worries that a slowing global economy and high inflation may be hurting demand for Apple devices, Nikkei reported, citing unnamed suppliers, that Apple has told suppliers to manufacture fewer parts for its ear buds, watches and laptops. The drop in Apple's share price put its market capitalization at $1.99 trillion. Ramel cut his iPhone shipment targets for fiscal 2023 to 224 million units from 245 million units, reflecting supply chain issues from manufacturer Foxconn and consumers cutting back spending on high-end phones. At Apple's current stock price, the company's value is just ahead of Microsoft Corp, valued at about $1.8 trillion. With investors worried about consumer demand, analysts on average expect the Cupertino, California company to report a 1% drop in December-quarter revenue in the coming weeks, according to Refinitiv. That would mark Apple's first quarterly revenue decline since the March quarter of 2019. "They (Apple) tend to skew to the high-end consumer device customer but even that demographic might be being affected by the high price of everything," Bokeh Capital Partners' Kim Forrest said. Last year's steep sell-off on Wall Street punished tech-related heavyweights as investors worried about rising interest rates dumped stocks with high valuations. The combined stock market value of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc and Meta Platforms now accounts for about 18% of the S&P 500, down from as much as 24% in 2020. Even after its 27% drop last year, Apple has provided stellar returns to long-term shareholders. Investors who bought and held Apple shares when cofounder Steve Jobs launched the iPhone in 2007 have enjoyed a gain of over 4,000%, not including dividends, compared to a 180% gain in the S&P 500 over the same period." MY COMMENT You got to love the short term....."stuff". I will CERTAINLY continue to own this company for the long term. This is simply a news driven bump in the road.
Got to go......off to a show tonight. The word for tomorrow.......well two actually.....COURAGE........ENDURE. I used to have an architect that signed all his correspondence......"in struggle".......I dont think he was a Spanish revolutionary....simply describing his day to day work.
Get them to short Musk, I don’t buy any of it, much like 99 percent of the stocks last year that sank for NO REASON in one session, teslas time has come. I think that just about the only big tech stock that didn’t plunge to a large degree is Apple. What does it mean? Absolutely nothing. just sit back and enjoy the drama and the meltdown. Let the idiots think that they are “punishing” Tesla - ONCE AGAIN. I’m in the Tesla-Twitter-spacex-boring project-robo taxi-cybertruck-antiwoke train ALL DAY LONG
For those that hold AMZN and are keeping an eye on them. Not much info about it other than it is being used for "corporate purposes." The thing that stood out to me was the bank....a China bank. Of course a large portion of their third party sellers are from there as well. A lot of US companies continue to do this I'm sure to a greater extent than we realize probably. Sort of like when AAPL had the fiasco with the i-phone plant. Then we all wonder why things continue to effect us from far away places. Amazon secures $8B loan as it braces for more economic headwinds. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) said Tuesday it has reached an agreement with lenders for an $8 billion unsecured loan. The loan is being provided by DBS Bank, Mizuho Bank, the Bank of China, among other lenders, and will mature in 364 days with an option to be extended another 364 days, the e-commerce giant said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Amazon said the funds would be used for “general corporate purposes.”
Lets ramp up the negativity. Great News! Consumer Sentiment Is Awful! https://alhambrapartners.com/2023/01/03/great-news-consumer-sentiment-is-awful/ (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) I don’t know how many times I’ve seen blog posts or articles or Tweets about negative consumer sentiment over the last year. These articles rightly point out that the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey is sitting near (or at a few months ago) 50 year lows. This fact is taken as a negative for the economy and therefore stocks. The only problem is that sentiment today tells you only how people view things today – and investing is about the future. If markets are even a little efficient – and that’s exactly how I’d describe them – then current stock prices should already reflect the poor sentiment. Future stock prices will reflect consumer sentiment when it is measured then. And if you are near a 50 year low, future sentiment almost has to improve and so too will stock prices. History bears this out. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey has a pretty long history dating back to 1952. The survey was conducted quarterly from inception to 1978 when it went to monthly. The quarterly data wasn’t as useful as the monthly but in the table below I do include the 1974 data which was quarterly. I looked at every quarter/month from 1974 to present when the survey value was less than 65. Purchasing the S&P 500 in the following month produced the following results: Some observations: The 1 year performance is better than the long term annual average return of the index with an 80% hit rate. The only real exceptions are early in the 1974 bear market and 2008. Once sentiment falls below 65, you don’t need to be in a rush to buy but you certainly want to be more inclined to buy than sell. A six month wait time eliminates most of the bad performance metrics from 2008. In 2022, the sixth month after the initial fall below 65 was August. The market is down about 3.5% from 9/1/22 to 12/31/22. The only negative 3 year returns are from 2008. Stock markets bottom when things look awful. Consumer sentiment is merely one way to measure that awfulness. But poor sentiment isn’t a reason to shy away from making good investments. It is when sentiment is most negative that you will find the greatest bargains. Everyone knows Warren Buffett’s admonishment to “be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful” but few have the fortitude to pull it off. It is hard to buy when everyone is telling you how awful things are but that is exactly what great investors do. The consumer sentiment survey gives you a way to quantify the fear. We haven’t had many readings below 65 in the history of the survey, but they were all buying opportunities. I can’t tell you for sure that this year’s sub-65 readings will prove as profitable as most of the past instances. But the odds are certainly in the optimists favor. Pay no attention to the pessimists, the fear mongers." MY COMMENT PERSONALLY......I am not ever inclined to use this sort of data as the basis for an investment. It is simply a.....general poll.....and has nothing to do with buying an actual business. BUT.....the more negative the better.....is good with me.
Yes Smokie. Here is what Amazon will use the funds for.....very vague: "Given the uncertain macroeconomic environment, over the last few months we have used different financing options to support capital expenditures, debt repayments, acquisitions, and working capital needs," Here is the current Amazon cash and debt: "Amazon had about $35 billion in cash and cash equivalents and long-term debt of about $59 billion at the end of the third quarter ended Sept. 30." https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-secures-8-billion-loan-2023-01-03/ MY COMMENT Bottom line for me....I dont trust the current Amazon management. Perhaps they will prove themselves over the coming years....but so far I have not seen anything out of them to give me much confidence. Time will tell if they have the ability to successfully run this massive company. Until there is CLARITY....I will continue to simply hold my Amazon stock as usual.
You think. Tesla stock is 'way oversold on fears of the unknown,' Wedbush's Ives says https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-stock-is-way-oversold-wedbushs-ives-says-120658695.html
Today....same old stuff.....as usual. Stocks wobble as investors mull economic releases https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-updates-january-4-2023-123720379.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "U.S. stocks lost their footing Wednesday after economic data showed higher-than-expected job openings and a contraction in manufacturing activity. Investors also await minutes from the central bank's December policy meeting for clues on its next rate decision. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) hovered around the flatline as of 10:35 a.m. ET, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dropped 0.3%. The latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed a 10.5 million job vacancies in November — more than forecast — pointing to continued labor market momentum despite monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, the ISM Manufacturing PMI fell for a second consecutive month to 48.4 in December from 49 in November, the biggest decline since May 2020. The moves Wednesday extend a bleak start to 2023 trading as many of last year’s pressures follow investors into the new year. On Tuesday, all three major averages closed lower. All eyes were on Tesla (TSLA) again Wednesday after shares plunged 12% in the first trading day of 2023 Tuesday. It marked Tesla's biggest drop in more than two years and erased all the recovery gains made in the final three sessions of 2022 last week. Shares rose 2.9% at the open on Wednesday. The electric carmaker earlier this week reported vehicle production and delivery figures for the fourth quarter that disappointed Wall Street, piling on another woe for investors already weighing concerns over production at Tesla's China plant and CEO Elon Musk's management of Twitter. Shares of Alibaba Group (BABA) soared 8% after billionaire co-founder Jack Ma won approval from Chinese regulators to raise 10.5 billion yuan — or $1.5 billion — for subsidiary Ant Group's consumer finance business. Other U.S.-listed Chinese stocks also gained. Salesforce (CRM) on Wednesday announced restructuring plans that included cutting about 10% of its workforce and closing some of its offices, joining a growing list of technology companies laying off workers to cut costs after overhiring during the post-pandemic boom in 2021. Shares advanced 2.5%. Elsewhere in other markets, U.S. Treasury yields fell, with the benchmark 10-year note dropping 7 basis points to yield around 3.70%, while the 2-year yield was down about 4 basis points to 4.37%. The U.S. dollar index also fell. And oil prices continued to sink, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures — the U.S. benchmark — dropping 4% below $74 per barrel. Investors are in for a busy week of economic data this shortened first trading week of the year. Minutes from the FOMC's December meeting are due out at 2 p.m. ET. The readout is likely to show the thinking behind the central bank’s “slower but higher” regime after Fed Chair Powell last month signaled that he and colleagues will switch to smaller rate hikes but likely a higher terminal rate. Financial markets capped their worst year since 2008 on Friday, as aggressive central bank actions to quell inflation and war in Eastern Europe battered stocks and bonds. Even as investors turn the page on 2022, much of Wall Street expects more pain remains ahead. “What we’ve picked up from our modeling is there’s a bit of a regime change taking place under the surface, and what we mean by that is 2022 was all about the Fed as they tightened financial conditions to fight inflation” Huw Roberts, head of analytics at Quant Insight, told Yahoo Finance Live on Tuesday. “But what we’re picking up on now, is more sensitivity to the real economy – greater sensitivity to growth, to inflation expectations, to industrial metals, and to the credit cycle – and what that says to us is markets will be spending the early part of 2023 really getting nervous about a hard landing.”" MY COMMENT Markets have now turned green.....again. A back and forth battle in the markets today....where we end nobody knows. I would think that the yield on the Ten Year Treasury being nicely down today would be a good indicator.
That is the thing about times like this (bear markets) that has somewhat always puzzled me as an investor. There are some really good companies out there that have a decent sale going on. It is the direct opposite of what folks normally do when there is a prolonged sale. It would seem obvious to me to want to buy some of these companies at a cheaper rate than at some future high price. Yet, many wait or ignore some of the opportunities until things "feel safe." Sure, research and evaluate the particular companies as always, but there are definitely some out there that are sound and reasonable long term investments.
Well Smokie....as we all know....people have a very difficult time trusting their instincts and going against all the doom and gloom....when it comes to money. If they are not sure what to do or not confident....they do nothing. The fear factor.....and....human nature....two of the greatest impediments to rational investing throughout history. The key word in the last sentence being......RATIONAL
