Well RTN, the problem is going to be what starts revealing itself in our economy later after they have been in effect over time. There is the initial shock and then the prices, shipping, jobs, etc etc start feeling some effects. It will eventually not be popular even from a political stand point in time. I think, yes, these usually start out as political theater. Then the real results of those decisions start to show up later. That’s why I think it should be done differently. We are manufacturing our own chaos so to speak. For what? A better trade deal? Let”s sit down and negotiate a better deal then. There is no real need to media sensationalize it all. The economy is not going to respond well if a majority of these stick around. It never has on any of them. The policymakers then realize….this is having a negative effect….oh wait a minute. Seems silly to think the result will be different this time. Of course this is just the early stages and who knows. I”m not doing anything different at this point either, but it is just a road we have been down before with no real good results.
To add a bit more….I think our economy is still rolling along. Our jobs are in good shape, inflation has eased in the right direction, company earnings are good and so on. Just my 2 cents….We would still have been racking up ATH”s if this little uncertainty had not been manufactured. We will just have to endure the whole deal until then.
I am in total agreement with you, Smokie. I was being a bit facetious with my statement. Unfortunately, we have a current climate where sitting down and having rational conversations with give and take is seen as a weakness. I do not see that changing any time soon.
Yeah, I caught what you meant and agree as well. I probably did not need to go on a whole sermon about it. I respect others opinions on the topic. I just feel like we are injecting unnecessary risk when there are other ways to go about it.
This earnings was from yesterday on NKE. We have talked about them a few times in this thread, so for anyone that might be interested. NIKE, Inc. Reports Fiscal 2025 Third Quarter Results
OK......I did a little BUYING today. I aint afraid of a little manufactured correction. My sibling had a little money siting around that needed to get invested.....so....at the open today I bought 32 shares of......PLTR. I got them at $85 per share. Any money I can find for any of the accounts that I manage.....WILL.....go into this market dip ASAP.
I think this pretty well sums up my view on where we are right now: "In his 2016 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, legendary investor Warren Buffett wrote, “Every decade or so, dark clouds will fill the economic skies, and they will briefly rain gold. When downpours of that sort occur, it’s imperative that we rush outdoors carrying washtubs, not teaspoons.”" MY COMMENT Although this little correction is not a once in a decade event. It is a once a year or two event. BUT.....my big cap world is ON SALE right now......and I am going to jump in any chance I get. I dont care if this is the bottom or not. If I can buy my stocks at a 20% discount I will do it all day long. I dont care if this is the bottom or not. The TOP.....when it comes back and we hit new all time highs.... is going to be way above where we are right now.
We are seeing BILLIONS and BILLIONS lining up to be invested here is the USA.....actually TRILLIONS. UAE....United Arab Emirats.....is committing to investing.....$1.4TRILLION. WOW. After Trump meeting, UAE commits to 10-year, $1.4 trillion investment framework in US, White House official says https://www.reuters.com/world/after...-trillion-investment-framework-us-2025-03-21/ "The United Arab Emirates has committed to a 10-year, $1.4 trillion investment framework in the United States after top UAE officials met President Donald Trump this week, a White House official said on Friday. The new framework will "substantially increase the UAE’s existing investments in the U.S. economy" in AI infrastructure, semiconductors, energy, and American manufacturing, the official told Reuters." AND....yesterday we were seeing this news: Nvidia to invest billions in US chip production over four years, FT reports https://www.reuters.com/technology/...uction-over-four-years-ft-reports-2025-03-20/ "Nvidia plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S.-made chips and electronics over the next four years, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, quoting CEO Jensen Huang. The artificial intelligence chip giant expects to spend around half-a-trillion dollars on electronics during the four-year period, according to the report." MY COMMENT THIS represents REAL future growth for our economy.....and...very good news for investors.
To continue: J&J boosts investments in US to more than $55 billion amid looming tariff threats https://www.reuters.com/business/jj...5-billion-us-over-next-four-years-2025-03-21/ "Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), opens new tab plans to spend more than $55 billion to build four plants in the U.S. over the next four years, it said on Friday, as the threat of drug import duties by the Trump administration compels companies to expand their manufacturing operations domestically. J&J said one of the new plants will be built in Wilson, North Carolina, where the pharmaceutical giant officially broke ground on Friday, but did not reveal where the others would be set up. The drug and medical device maker said the investment represents a 25% increase compared to the last four years."
Some of the WORST investors I have seen in my life are......Doctors, Engineers, and accountants. I like this little article. Mindset Shift to Analyze Markets The mindset you bring to your profession or hobbies may not get you far in markets. https://www.fisherinvestments.com/en-us/insights/market-commentary/mindset-shift-to-analyze-markets (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Some conversations just stick with you. Like this one, nearly a year and a half ago, on one of those sunny, warm November afternoons Northern California gives us now and then. I was having coffee with a dear friend who asked, as people often do, if I ever saw myself switching career paths and opening a bakery. Nah, I said, much as I like the thought of being the gal with the pie shop, I have no desire to run the business, manage inventory or make cakes and pies at scale. If I turned my hobby into my job, I surmised, I’d probably have to start analyzing the stock market for fun. He laughed, and I think I was joking. But this week, while working on a project, I realized I wasn’t joking. And it gets at the heart of why investing is so darned hard for many people. Ken Fisher, the illustrious founder, Executive Chairman and Co-CIO of Fisher Investments, has long observed that people tend to treat investing like a craft. A trade. Like cobblery, woodworking, a sport, even engineering. Something they can practice over and over again, always improving and gaining mastery because what works always works. The vast majority of financial curriculum takes this approach. Newcomers are taught the same methods, tools and tactics as those preceding them … and those before them. And so on. But there is a philosophical flaw with all of this: The market evolves as it prices in widely known information. Tactics work for a spell, then lose their edge as everyone uses them. Events that were negative for stocks in one environment become benign in others. And when everyone is convinced it is now benign, it has negative power once again. Therefore, investing is more science than craft. Not the unquestioning kind of science some people seem to blindly “trust,” but the actual scientific method in a constant search for new wisdom and knowledge, new understanding about how and why markets have done X and what, therefore, is likely to happen from here. That afternoon, my intended point was probably something about letting your hobbies stay your hobbies and your work stay your work, lest your hobby stop being fun. Maybe there is some truth to that, but the thing is, I think my job is also pretty fun. I like reading and thinking about the stock market! I like channeling all that reading and thinking into articles! I like bantering with my team and the friendships and ideas that result! And as for my hobbies? The baking and the sewing? They are fun, but they aren’t relaxing. They are work. But I enjoy doing them in my off hours because they exercise a mental muscle group I don’t get to use much at work and don’t want to atrophy. The real difference here is that baking and sewing are crafts. I know the more I practice them, the better I can get. I know when I fail, there are always concrete reasons and actionable solutions. If my coat fabric comes out of alignment while I’m sewing, I know it is because my machine can’t feed all the layers evenly and I need to use a walking foot instead. If silk puckers, I know I need to adjust the tension and add a layer of tissue paper. If a jacket doesn’t drape properly, I know I need to add interfacing with a specific hand stitch. If a bodice pulls, I know I need to adjust the shoulders. If a cake collapses, I know I overmixed it. If my pumpkin pie cracks, I know it is because I overcooked it and the egg proteins began to shrink. At every turn, I know I can test, iterate, take notes, test again and find the right solution. These mental muscles aren’t much use in investing. For that, I need to exercise a different muscle group: My scientific method muscles. There are no certainties here, only probabilities. In my role as one of your friendly MarketMinder editors, it is a constant journey of testing people’s claims about what A, B and C mean for stocks and helping you, dear readers, know what to do with the information. A lot of the time, my laboratory is market history. Like: Right now, everyone says the UK’s upcoming payroll tax hike is going to knock the country’s economic growth and markets. I don’t have a time machine or crystal ball to look into the future and tell you what will happen. But I do have the entire history of UK payroll tax hikes to show that, the vast majority of the time, UK GDP grew, UK stocks rose and inflation didn’t surge in the aftermath. That gives me a probability to share with you in hopes it will help you avoid knee-jerk reactions to bad moves. It is no ironclad assurance, naturally. But a reality of the stock market is that those don’t ever exist. I work one set of mental muscles at work and another outside, in my “hobbies.” I like being well-rounded, so if I started working my craft muscles in my profession, then my brain would gravitate to working its scientific muscles in my off hours. Maybe you are like this, too, maybe not. But it is important to recognize the difference. In my experience, a lot of investors don’t do this, to their detriment. Outside academia and research-oriented professions, many jobs are crafts or trades. And the people who practice these crafts tend to take the same mindset to investing. Not to pick on anyone, but I have seen it vividly with engineers. Not all, but many, expect the market to behave in a systematic fashion, with B always following A, because that is how things work in their world. My grandfather, who I hope wouldn’t mind my saying this, was a prime example. When he retired, the stock market became his hobby. He would pass the days carefully charting stocks by hand, jotting down prices as they flew by on CNBC’s ticker. He plotted them, sought patterns and perfect entry points and because it was the mid to late 1990s, everything went up and he mistook serendipity and right-place-right-timing for skill. So when it all stopped working as the Tech bubble imploded, he decided the market was broken forever, it was impossible for retail investors to make money, and bonds and CDs were the answer. But the problem wasn’t the market—the problem was his approach and its failure to account for the market’s ever-changing nature. My grandfather was applying his craftsman tools, filtered through his engineering mindset, to an endeavor that requires constant learning and discovery as the market adapts and evolves. He was using a skillset that depends on certainty in an endeavor riddled with ambiguity, where probabilities are the best you will have. The market is so full of contradictions and complexities! Sometimes stocks with high price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios outperform. Sometimes they lag. Sometimes high-P/E markets rise. Sometimes they fall. Sometimes returns after Fed rate cuts are bad. Sometimes they are good. Inflation isn’t inherently bearish, but inflation fears contributed to stocks’ bad 2022. High oil prices have sometimes coincided with rising stock markets, sometimes falling. Ditto low oil prices. At all turns, we have to look at the whole landscape, what else is going on, what people broadly think about what is going on, how it all intersects and what history can teach us about the probabilities. In most endeavors, when things fall apart, we go back to basics, back to what we know, and get back on our feet. If I fail in the kitchen, I can always make a batch of chocolate cupcakes to remind myself baking soda still reacts with buttermilk to make cake rise. A tennis pro who gets the yips can practice their ball toss and footwork. With investing, it is different. The best we can do is return to first principles, like markets’ being efficient and incorporating all widely known information. Stocks’ moving on fundamentals in the longer term but sentiment in the short term. Once you understand this, you can lean into the ambiguity and learn how it generates opportunities you can exploit. Ken Fisher has written entire books about this—The Only Three Questions That Count and, shameless plug alert, Beat the Crowd. So to all the engineers, pilots, doctors, accountants, bakers, sewists and other craftspeople who read this: You are very smart! And good at what you do! But you will probably have to shift your mindset away from what you do day-to-day to analyze markets. Success will require exercising the muscles that don’t get much use in your day-to-day life, the scientific discovery muscles. Investing isn’t about building a skill. It is about cultivating a mindset and then exercising the relevant mental muscles to get stronger. It is about failing, learning and trying again. It is about staying calm and even, not getting hung up on the highs or the lows. Hypothesize. Observe. Analyze. Test. Deduce. Have fun." MY COMMENT YES.....it can be summed up in one word.....PROBABILITY.
As you can see today....I DONT CARE about what the markets are doing right now. It is ALL irrelevant NOISE......the markets, the commentary, the media story-lines. My TOTAL focus is the longer term. SO.....I have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to say about the market today. I think we are near a bottom......but...that does not mean the short driven volatility will end anytime soon. Although i did see yesterday that the little.....retail investors.....are BUYING. They do NOT represent the SHORT-SPECULATORS or the big selling HEDGE FUNDS.
For example: Tesla’s Retail Fans Buy the Stock at a Pace Never Seen Before https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-retail-fans-buy-stock-144151015.html "Individual investors have been net buyers of Tesla shares for 13 straight sessions through Thursday, pumping $8 billion into the stock, retail trading data from JPMorgan Chase’s global equity derivatives strategist Emma Wu shows. That’s the biggest inflow over any buying streak since 2015, which is as far back as the data goes."
Have no fear.....we will be hearing from the FED again....over, and over, and over. Talk about NOISE. "Here's the Fed's full meeting schedule for 2025: January 28-29 March 18-19* May 6-7 June 17-18* July 29-30 September 16-17* October 28-29 December 9-10*" https://finance.yahoo.com/personal-...e/when-is-the-next-fed-meeting-150709150.html
To Continue: "Bank of America equity strategists wrote on Tuesday that as the market entered correction territory last week, clients poured into US equities, targeting single stocks. Energy and tech were the sectors leading the inflow. And as strategists Jill Carey Hall and Nicolas Woods noted, more investments came into cyclical sectors than defensive ones, suggesting that clients aren't preparing for a recession." https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dip-...ariff-volatility-morning-brief-100034148.html I see other headlines like this that I cant read because I dont....pay. Retail Investors Are Buying the Dip as Stocks Slide https://www.bloomberg.com/news/news...-investors-are-buying-the-dip-as-stocks-slide BUT at the same time I see THIS: Retail investors ditch buy-the-dip mentality during the market correction https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/18/inv...t-as-market-corrects-but-dont-capitulate.html MY COMMENT I guess in the modern world.....it is all about......"YOUR TRUTH".......which usually means....."YOUR AGENDA"........and....."YOUR BIAS".
That is funny and a good example. Totally opposite articles about investors. I tend to see this as well pretty often. What is even more comical, is sometimes it is the same media outlet, just putting out a different story....only to print the complete opposite a day later. Who's on first??
WOW.....my little 32 shares of PLTR that I bought at the open today are up by 3%....in just.....two hours. Now that is short term investing.......and......market timing. NO.....simply RANDOM and not relevant to anything. What I want to see is where those 32 shares are in 2, 3, 4, 5, or more years down the road.
US Treasury Rates The US treasury yield curve rates are updated at the end of each trading day. All data is sourced from the Daily Treasury Par Yield Curve Rates data provided by the Treasury.gov website. Treasury Current Yield Change Previous Yield 1 Month Treasury 4.36% -0.01 4.37% 1.5 Monthnth Treasury 4.34% 0.00 4.34% 2 Month Treasury 4.34% 0.02 4.32% 3 Month Treasury 4.33% 0.00 4.33% 4 Month Treasury 4.29% -0.01 4.30% 6 Month Treasury 4.27% -0.02 4.29% 1 Year Treasury 4.06% -0.04 4.10% 2 Year Treasury 3.95% -0.04 3.99% 3 Year Treasury 3.93% -0.02 3.95% 5 Year Treasury 4.01% -0.02 4.03% 7 Year Treasury 4.12% -0.02 4.14% 10 Year Treasury 4.24% -0.01 4.25% 20 Year Treasury 4.57% -0.01 4.58% 30 Year Treasury 4.55% -0.01 4.56% Treasury rates updated on 2025-03-20 with data sourced from Treasury.gov.
Actually sounds good to me. The Magnificent 7′s lousy year, by the numbers https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/21/the-magnificent-7s-lousy-year-by-the-numbers-meta-tesla.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points Meta Platforms is the only Magnificent Seven stock in positive territory for 2025. Macroeconomic uncertainty, recession fears and concerns over the impact of tariffs have fueled a market selloff that’s pushed all the major averages into negative territory for the year. Tesla is the worst performer this year, with shares down more than 40%. It’s been a painful year so far for megacap technology giants and 2025 is only getting started. Six members of the group are already tracking for significant year-to-date losses, led by a 40% drop in shares of Tesla. Meta Platforms is the only exception, holding on to a slim gain. The drop in technology stocks comes just two months after leaders flocked to Washington for President Donald Trump’s inauguration and after many megacaps powered to new highs in the post-election rally after his November victory. Now, macroeconomic uncertainty, recession fears and concerns over the impact of tariffs have fueled a market selloff that’s pushed all the major averages into negative territory for 2025. Earlier this month, the megacaps lost more than $750 billion in market value in the worst day for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite since 2022. Artificial intelligence leaders such as chip darling Nvidia haven’t been spared from the turmoil. The chipmaker has dropped nearly 14% in 2025, shedding nearly a fifth in value since its record high in January. The company, once in the $3 trillion market capitalization club, has lost $767 billion in market value since then, with shares headed for a negative week even after its annual GTC Conference. Alphabet— another key leader in the AI race — is down more than 14% this year and has lost about a fifth of its value since its record close last month. Microsoft is on pace for its eighth straight negative week and its worst losing streak since February 2008. Tesla has suffered the most significant losses, shedding about $780 billion in market value since its record close in December. CEO Elon Musk’s close ties to Trump haven’t shielded the stock, with shares on pace for their ninth straight negative week. Apple has lost nearly $700 billion in market value since its record close in December and dropped 17% in that timeframe, while Amazon is down 18%. The e-commerce giant is on pace for its longest weekly losing streak since May 2022, when it fell seven consecutive weeks. While Meta has held on to slight gains, the stock has suffered its fair share of turbulence. The stock is headed for a fifth straight negative week, which would match its five-week decline from October 2022. Shares have lost a fifth of their value since their record close on Feb. 14. MY COMMENT I know where I see the.....PROBABILITIES. There is a reason that I remain FULLY INVESTED for the long term as usual. Of the stocks above....I have NO interest in TSLA or META. As to TSLA.....I am not into auto companies and their constant up and down action. As to META......they are to me the WORST of the big cap tech companies. I will point out that MICROSOFT is now NEGATIVE for......5 days.....1 month.....6 months....YTD....and.....1 year. You have to go back about 1.2 years to find MSFT in the green. TOTAL INSANITY.
