The Long Term Investor

As to the above I will note.....ONE EDIT....in re-posting this information on my Portfolio Model.

The stock side of the portfolio has now grown to about 70% of the total. The fund side is now about 30% of the total. This is because the stock side is significantly outperforming the fund side.

BUT.......I do like having the SP500 and Fidelity Contra funds and will continue to hold them. I want and need the diversification that they provide......even though they triple up on the nine BIG CAP stocks that I hold as individual stocks.

I have ZERO plans to correct this or re-balance.....I try to always.....LET WINNERS RUN.

 

I am STILL showing a significant gain today....even though I only have two stocks in the GREEN....PLTR and NVDA. I am also significantly beating the SP500 early today.

I would definately like to see a few of my other stocks get to the green before the close. BUT....if I can make money on just a couple of stocks....i will take it. That is why I own a....."portfolio".......it is all about the performance of the ......"whole"..... over the long term.

 

WOW.....a nice bump up in the market in the last FIVE MINUTES of the day today.....at least for me.

I ended with five stocks RED......three GREEN.......HD, PLTR, and NVDA.......and one dead FLAT at 0.00%....GOOGL. So a very good improvement by the end of the day. I also beat the SP500 today by........YES......1.30%.

Moving on to the end of the week......and the BIG DEAL.....(yeah right)....economic news tomorrow.

 

Looks like the general markets did not do near as well as I did today.

Dow leads declines ahead of jobs report, oil surges 5% as Mideast focus intensifies

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live...5-as-mideast-focus-intensifies-200102775.html

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

"Stocks slipped on Thursday as Wall Street awaited the key jobs report and dissected a slew of economic data ahead of it. Meanwhile, the possibility of an Israeli retaliatory attack against Iran's oil facilities sent oil soaring for a third day.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) dropped almost 0.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell about 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) finished just below the flatline.

Some calm has returned to a market rattled by escalating Mideast tensions that have driven sharp gains in oil prices. Israel has yet to launch its promised retaliation to Iran's missile strike on Tuesday amid efforts by Western and regional leaders to stabilize the situation.

But the burgeoning crisis helped drive oil prices higher for a third day. Brent crude (BZ=F) and West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) futures both gained more than 5% following comments from President Biden regarding the possibility of an Israeli retaliatory attack against Iran's oil facilities.

In the US, investors are bracing for the highly anticipated September jobs report on Friday after a surprise uptick in private payrolls came alongside signs the labor market is loosening up.

The market received more signs of general cooling in the labor market on Thursday. Weekly jobless claims ticked up slightly from the prior week. Meanwhile, planned layoffs in the US dipped from a five-month high, according to a report from Challenger, Gray and Christmas. But the firm's vice president said the data showed the labor market is at an "inflection point."

Any new signs of deterioration in the labor market could prompt the Federal Reserve to follow up its 0.5% interest rate cut last month with another jumbo move, despite policymakers' expectation of a 0.25% cut in November.

On the corporate front, Tesla (TSLA) stock continued to slide in the wake of downbeat delivery figures, as Reuters reported the EV maker has halted US online orders for its cheapest Model 3. Shares declined more than 3% on Thursday."

MY COMMENT

I call BS on a 0.50% rate cut in November.

As to the economic data tomorrow.....it will simply be a....YAWNER. It will be about as expected and will be meaningless. BUT....all the turmoil and drama pushed this week about investors WAITING for the jobs data......will not disappear. It will end up as yet another week of.....constant daily fear-mongering of the markets.....true or not.

As a side point.....the economic data is meaningless anyway....since it will all be revised massively over the next six months.

I think I can count on one hand the number of weeks this year that the media has been generally POSITIVE abut the markets. T

They are one of the most significant drags on the markets week after week....and...very little of what they talk about and push is actual fact. It is ALL uneducated OPINION.

 

This is an interesting story that I had no awareness of.

How a tiny town hit by Helene could upend the global semiconductor chip industry

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/03/helene-quartz-mine-semiconductor-north-carolina.html

Key Information

• All of the world’s supply of high-purity quartz.......needed to produce semiconductors......is mined in a tiny North Carolina town that was trashed by Hurricane Helen.

• “.......it can put the entire industry on its ear, period,” (industry expert).

• The two companies operating mines have paused operations since Thursday. They have “no visibility” as to when mining will resume.

 

Actually....one of the accounts that I manage....not my own....hit a new all time high today. SHOCKING.

 

BOOM......looks like the Port strike is over. Another issue off the table for investors.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy...e-agreement-suspend-port-strike-until-january

 

AMEN....TireSmoke. Personally.....there are very few people in my life that are not close......that have any idea what my politics or social views are....especially in Music/work.

In BUSINESS.....it is extremely foolish to piss off any customer segment. There is one goal.....make as much money as possible in a legal fashion and grow the business as much as possible.

If you have a smart business Board Of Directors....you would never hire a CEO that spouts politics and social opinions. It is a BAD SIGN for your business.....when they are more concerned with these types of issues.....it means that they are not totally obsessively focused on the business.....they want to be a "celebrity".

 

HERE is the economic data. As you read it keep in mind that......these same figures were......"revised".....DOWN for the past year by over 800,000 jobs. You cant trust any of this data.....it is totally corrupted.

U.S. job creation roared higher in September as payrolls surged by 254,000

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/04/september-2024-us-jobs-report.html

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

"Key Points

• Nonfarm payrolls surged by 254,000 in September, up from a revised 159,000 in August and better than the 150,000 Dow Jones consensus forecast.
• The unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, down 0.1 percentage point as the survey of household employment showed an even stronger picture, with a gain of 430,000.
• Average hourly earnings increased 0.4% on the month and were up 4% from a year ago. Both figures were ahead of respective estimates.

The U.S. economy added far more jobs than expected in September, pointing to a vital employment picture as the unemployment rate edged lower, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Nonfarm payrolls surged by 254,000 for the month, up from a revised 159,000 in August and better than the 150,000 Dow Jones consensus forecast. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, down 0.1 percentage point.

With upward revisions from previous months, the report eases concerns about the state of the labor market and likely locks in the Federal Reserve to a more gradual pace of interest rate reductions. August’s total was revised up by 17,000 while July saw a much larger addition of 55,000, taking the monthly growth up to 144,000.

Strength in job creation spilled over to wages, as average hourly earnings increased 0.4% on the month and were up 4% from a year ago. Both figures were ahead of respective estimates for gains of 0.3% and 3.8%. The average work week nudged lower to 34.2 hours, down 0.1 hour.

“It was ‘wow’ across the board, much stronger than expected,” Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist at Charles Schwab, said of the report. “The bottom line is it was a very good report. You get upward revisions and it tells you the job market continues to be healthy, and that means the economy is healthy.”

Stock market futures added to gains following the report while Treasury yields moved sharply higher.

Restaurants and bars led job creation for the month, with the hospitality industry adding 69,000 positions in September after averaging just 14,000 over the previous 12 months.

Health care, a consistent leader in job growth, contributed 45,000, while government grew by 31,000. Other gainers included social assistance (27,000) and construction (25,000).

A more encompassing measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons dropped to 7.7%. The share of the workforce either working or looking for work, known as the labor force participation rate, held steady at 62.7%.

The survey of household employment, which is used to calculate the unemployment rate, showed an even stronger picture, with a gain of 430,000 as the employment-to-population ratio increasing to 60.2%, an increase of 0.2 percentage point.

Job creation tilted strongly to full-time positions, which were up 414,000, while those reporting part-time work fell by 95,000.

Futures market pricing shifted sharply after the report, with traders now assigning a strong chance of consecutive quarter percentage point interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve in November and December.

The report comes with questions over the labor market’s strength and how that will impact the Fed’s approach to lowering interest rates.

Earlier this week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell characterized the jobs picture as “solid” but said it has “clearly cooled” over the past year.

There have been scant signs of a stepped-up pace of layoffs, as new claims for unemployment benefits have held steady but hiring rates have cooled. Business surveys, including the Fed’s own “Beige Book” summary of business conditions, indicate that companies are holding head counts fairly steady.

Powell and other Fed officials have indicated a willingness to continue lowering interest rates following last month’s half percentage point cut in the overnight borrowing level. However, there’s considerable debate within the market about how quickly the central bank will move, and Powell said Monday he expects the Fed to move in quarter-point increments at least through the end of the year."

MY COMMENT

The last thing I use or want to use as an investor is government economic data. It is simply corrupt. It is always revised and often significantly as we saw for the last year......revised down by over 800,000 jobs.

I note that the August figure that they are using for comparison in this article is a......"revised"....number.

In my world.....for the past 55 years.....I NEVER invest based on economic generalities put out by the......always wrong.....economists.

BUT....if the market likes it and goes up short term......I will take the gains.

 

I definately consider it a good thing if the FED now does a series of 0.25% rate cuts. There is no need for larger cuts. There is no need to rush them. Take your time and evaluate the impact of what you are doing.

 

I can tell without looking....that I am probably FLAT today. About half my stocks up and half down with NVDA basically flat. Reminds me of every day this week at the open. I am not seeing any BUMP at all today

I also see that the gains of the futures and the open are basically dissipating fairly quickly and steadily.

It is a perfect sort of day for the AI SPEED TRADERS.....as sentiment over the jobs numbers will change up and down during the day as rumor and opinion take over the news headlines and content. It is exactly the sort of day that AI trading can overwhelm with their massive, short term, legal, market manipulation.

 

OMG....the Ten Year Yield is up to 3.942%.

YAWN....who cares. There is no way this will hold with all the rate cuts on deck. BUT...it does make for a few SHOCKING headlines that I am seeing today.

 

How are you doing lately LORI? What stocks are currently in your portfolio?

 

Because the headlines are.....FEAR-MONGERING BS? Probably.....but the answer is in the last two paragraphs of this little article.

Why stocks have hardly blinked despite 2 weeks of rocky headlines

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-...-rocky-headlines-morning-brief-100015034.html

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

"It's been a rough week for headlines in the mainstream news.

Conflict in the Middle East is heating up further, with Iran launching missiles at Israel amid the latter's campaign in Lebanon and many wondering if there will be a response. Hurricane Helene decimated the Southeast. And roughly 45,000 dockworkers walked out on the job at ports across the country, though that one appears to have concluded successfully.

It's not hard to reason that things feel far more unsteady than they did a week ago. But the markets are telling a different story.

Through the four trading days this week, the S&P 500 (^GSPC), the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC), and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) are all off about 1% or less, with the latter two still in striking distance of their all-time highs.

The market resilience is an example of how Wall Street equity strategists and economists are assessing the rising risks to the bull market rally.

"While the latest escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran is worrying, our view remains that it would take a significant further widening of the war, including actual disruption to energy supply chains, to make a material difference to the outlook for the global economy and financial markets," Capital Economics deputy chief markets economist Jonas Goltermann wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.

The same could be said for how economists assessed the dockworkers strike.

"The strike could hit economic growth and boost inflation, but only if it is long-lasting," Morgan Stanley economist Diego Anzoategui wrote in a note to clients this week, before a resolution emerged. Markets, it seems, learned not to presuffer — and it paid off.

To be clear, any of these issues escalating could (or could have) weighed on stocks. Fundstrat head of research Tom Lee, who's typically viewed as one of Wall Street's more bullish strategists, has been saying he's cautious about the month ahead for stocks.

Lee highlighted in a video to clients on Wednesday night that the ongoing port strike could have been "economically damaging" and was something to "keep in mind." He also pointed to escalating tensions in the Middle East as a "short-term" risk. And even though the ports will come back online, they could have just as easily not have.

Still, Lee made the case for the S&P 500 to end the year higher, with a "dovish Fed" cutting interest rates while the US economy continues to grow as a key driver of that market prediction, despite the instability.

This brings to mind a key concept when thinking about what concerning headlines could mean for the markets: There's always a reason to sell. At the end of the day, it's a question about the expectations for future cash flows of American corporates and how any one of those reasons to sell could impact the ultimate driver of stock prices: earnings.

At this point, it seems Lee believes the "powerful" tailwinds backing the market rally, including the Fed cutting, are more important to the market's trajectory than the near-term headwinds catching headlines.

MY COMMENT

The strong....."PROBABILITY"....is that the markets will move higher over the last quarter. Headlines are golden for AI PROGRAM TRADING. BUT....for anyone else....simply irrelevant GARBAGE. Ignore it all.

 

Today is simply an investing.....tempest in a teapot.....day. The irrelevant economic data....on center stage.

It will be forgotten in just a day or two. A CACOPHONY of NOISE and lots of BALONEY being sliced today.....but in reality.....nothing happening at all. It is basically a no-news day....at least news that counts.

I see that we have now basically lost all the gains and momentum. We are basically in a flat market.....same as the last few days at this time of the day.

 

I just did my mid-morning look at my account. I have a nice medium level gain at this moment. Seven stocks UP and two stocks DOWN. the DOWN stocks are....AAPL (slightly) and HD by 1.72%.

I see that PLTR is right on the edge of breaching $40 per share. The stock has been on fire al week and over the past month. It is up by 8.44% over the past five days and up by a whopping 30.91% over the past one month.

Looking good so far today.....now I just have to survive the next FIVE HOURS......to lock in the gain for the day.

I am exhausted....it is so much work doing NOTHING.

 

I am especially interested in young and/or new investors and what they think and what they are doing.

Anyone on here that is a relatively new or young investor? If so.....how are you doing? What is your strategy? What is your portfolio? How are you handling all the day to day drama psychologically? Is the market scaring you often?

 

"I don't pay much attention to financial news, don't see any point trying to keep up with all the day to day drama."

Sounds like you are very smart with the above philosophy.....Strathmore.