The Long Term Investor

The only real story that I am interested in today is the PLTR earnings.

 

OK EVERYONE.....RELAX.

This tariff news freak-out is simply BS. Does anyone have a memory of more than a year or two anymore? This is exactly what the government did during the first Trump term. This is how you negotiate. Put out a tariff and over the next few weeks or month or two....you negotiate a great trade deal.

This is how you leverage your power when you are the BIG DOG.

You use that power to negotiate a bit here and a bit there and within a short time....BINGO.....you have a BOOMING economy. RIGHT.....does anyone remember that? It was only 4-6 years ago. I guess it is simply too much in the modern world to expect anyone to have any memory that stretches back more than a few weeks.

AND....this is how you create FAIR TRADE. Much of the drama and bitching is going to simply be......POLITICS.

AND....yes....the same thing is going on with the panama Canal and with Greenland. Within a very short time we will have deals with both.

BOTTOM LINE....with all our AI and all our tech......we....modern humans in the USA.....are MORONS. The level of IDIOCY and STUPIDITY is at an all time high. I will hate to see how DUMB we are going to be in 10-20-30 years.

One simple proof.....our education system is pumping out students with test scores at record levels of IDIOCY. If you want a real lesson....go back and look at the readers and other educational materials used in the past....especially the distant past. We are simply NOT able to educate kids anymore so what do we do......change the testing to lower the standards.

 

So true TireSmoke.....how PATHETIC. What does it show about the us as a country?

 

So I will:

RELAX.....ENJOY (the circus).....ENDURE........and have........PATIENCE

 

For example.....this is a little lesson in how it happens and how quick it happens:

Panama pledges to end key canal deal with China, work with US after Rubio visit
State Department estimates around 72% of all vessels that travel through the Panama Canal are coming from or going to a US port

https://www.foxnews.com/world/panama-pledges-end-key-canal-deal-china-work-us-after-rubio-visit

"Panama's president vowed Sunday to end a key development deal with China after meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and after complaints from President Donald Trump that the Latin American country had ceded control over its critical shipping canal to Beijing.

José Raúl Mulino, Panama's president, said his nation's sovereignty over the 51-mile waterway, which connects the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, will remain unchanged. But he said he would not renew a 2017 memorandum of understanding to join China’s Belt and Road global development initiative and that Panama would instead look to work more closely with the U.S."

 

Ok....that is about it for me on the DRAMA of the Tariffs. It is not worth wasting the skin cells on my fingers typing.

Wake me up in about 2-4 weeks.

 

EVERYTHING.....I am seeing...is negativity today. Articles on.....tariffs, earnings, TSLA, NVDA, PLTR, etc, etc, etc. So I am just going to IGNORE them all. I am simply going to.......NOT......post any of it. I refuse to condone STUPIDITY. AND.....I refuse to support this media driven BS.

I have better things to do with my time.....like vacuum the house.

 

Before I drag out the vacuum......GOSH.....we are off to a good start to the year. At this moment....GASP....... YES, TODAY, AT 9:33 Central Time......here is where we are....in spite of three or four market Freak-Outs today and in January.

DOW......YTD.....after open and at this very minute in the trading day......+4.35%

SP500.....YTD....after the open today and at this very minute in the trading day.....+1.96%

NASDAQ.....YTD.....after the open today and at this very minute in the trading day.....+0.47%

 

YEP......a master negotiator at work.

Trump pauses Mexico tariffs for one month after agreement on border troops

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/03/trump-tariffs-mexico-canada-china-sheinbaum-responds.html

"Key Points

• President Donald Trump said that he is pausing for one month a new 25% tariff on goods entering the United States from Mexico after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to immediately send 10,000 soldiers to her country’s border to prevent drug trafficking.
• The announcement of the pause came two days after Trump slapped 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, as well as a 10% tariff on goods imported from China."

NOW....with leverage and credibility established....you send in the hard nosed clean up crew to do stage two of the negotiations....with....little pushes here and there by the master...as needed. These negotiations will be far reaching and very broad......with the other side totally off balance from the start.

 

In my former life as a small business owner.......I was often involved in high level and big money negotiations. I was very good at it. I could negotiate anything with anyone. For a while I negotiated everything in my business and personal life. After a while I got bored and tired of doing it.....and now I dont negotiate too much. I will still do big purchases....houses, appliances, tires, cars, etc, etc.

NOW....it amazes me how few people really do a hard nosed negotiation when buying a car. And....hard-nosed.....does not mean nasty or obnoxious. The last car we bought....a SUV hybrid....I negotiated about $5000 off the car......and....refused to pay for ANY extras, dealer costs, add-ons, etc, etc. At the end I was negotiating against two sales people and directly with the sales manager. They CAVED on everything in the end.

One of the sales people doing the delivery of the car said he had never seen anything like it before. Same thing last time I bought tires.....the young new employee I was dealing with as a go-between while negotiating was blown away....he had never seen a deal like that before.

It is an ebb and flow process....you cant just go in RAGING and SCORCHED EARTH.....you have to know when to push and when to back off a bit and establish a bit of a common bond.....it is an ART. You have to prepare and be very good at reading people and the room.

 

AND.....regarding Mexico....if my memory is right the tariffs......actually..... never even happened....they were set to take place tonight. it is ALL a big TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT.

BUT....now the power dynamic for the real negotiations is established. We got some quick concessions from them on the border troops and probably a few other issues.....and that is how we enter the next....more comprehensive...talks.

NOW....we will use the Mexico delay to.....leverage more from Canada......for a short halt. We got concessions and targeted the lesser one of the two first....now we focus on the second one. That is how a master negotiator works.

It is a BEAUTIFUL thing to watch....if you have the GUTS and UNDERSTANDING to realize how it works and what is happening.

AND.....as to GUTS and UNDERSTANDING......that totally leaves out the media. They have absolutely ZERO idea how successful negotiations actually work.

We are subjected to the opinions of people writing in the media every day...that have NEVER owned or run a private business. They are all BLATHERING about something they have NO CLUE about.....because they have never done it.

 

As to the ART of negotiation.....this is CLASSIC.....on top of the rest of what we are seeing today. A lesson in how to negotiate when you are not even negotiating.

In a switch, Trump approves of the Fed’s decision to hold interest rates steady

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/03/in-...-decision-to-hold-interest-rates-steady-.html

"Key Points

• President Donald Trump commended the Federal Reserve for its decision last week to leave interest rates unchanged.
• “Holding the rates at this point was the right thing to do,” he told reporters."

 

Here is a nice....."win"....for people today.

Vanguard slashes fees; expects its investors will save $350 million in 2025

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vanguard-slashes-fees-expects-investors-164635421.html

 

Well I did my little rehearsal/audition last week. It went well. We will be doing it again this Wednesday. Step by step....it is a process. It is all......a function of time.

 

Well the DRAMA of the day is dissipated. We are still moderately down....but FAR BETTER than this morning. After the PANIC and fear-mongering this morning it is impossible for the big averages to get green. I will take a moderate loss and....be happy.

 

All in all....another "win"....if you disregard the fear-mongering content.....that is MANDATORY to include in any investing or business article.

US Manufacturing Activity Expands for First Time Since 2022

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-manufacturing-activity-expands-first-153610520.html

 

We seem to now be STUCK in a pattern:

STEP ONE - On Sunday night the media latches onto a fear mongering story and ramps up the amplification, tanking the futures.

STEP TWO - By the open on Monday, the fear and panic being pushed, reaches a crescendo.

STEP THREE - As more information and REALITY comes out the DRAMA moderates.

STEP FOUR - Repeat over, and over, and over.

 

My bank....you have got to love them. They have been caught up in.....alleged..... turmoil and dishonesty for well over a decade....perhaps two decades. What a bunch of lovable rascals. (Kind of like Johnny Depp in Pirates of The Caribbean.)

Wells Fargo Executives Plot Life After $36 Billion Punishment

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wells-fargo-executives-plot-life-120000165.html