AND....if you have any doubt about the general bull market....here you go. US Firms Racing Through $1 Trillion Buyback Spree in Record Time https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-firms-racing-1-trillion-210828252.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "(Bloomberg) -- US companies are planning to buy back shares at a historic pace, a sign of Corporate America’s confidence in the economy, with Nvidia Corp. being the latest to add its name to the long list of repurchase plans. Announced buybacks surpassed $1 trillion on Aug. 20, marking the shortest amount of time needed to reach that level, according to data compiled by Birinyi Associates. The previous record was in October last year. Over the last few months, corporate heavyweights — particularly in financials and technology — have given the green light to large share-repurchasing programs. On Wednesday, Nvidia announced plans to buy back $60 billion worth of stock following its quarterly results after the market closed. Back in May, Apple Inc. announced it would buy back $100 billion in stock. Alphabet Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. have also announced buybacks of at least $40 billion. “There is going to be a continuation of the ultimate dip buyer in the market, which is the company themselves,” said Jeffrey Yale Rubin, president of Birinyi Associates. “Earnings are good, they have enough money for capital expenditures, and this is a nice way to reward investors and owners of the company.” Last month, announced share repurchases totaled $166 billion, the highest dollar value on record for July as buyback plans from the largest American financial and technology companies kicked in. Buybacks offer a crucial pillar of support for the US stock market, which has seen the S&P 500 Index return to all-time highs in recent weeks. A pipeline of stock repurchase programs indicates rising confidence among corporate executives. Rubin expects the momentum to continue through to the end of the year, forecasting announced buybacks to reach $1.3 trillion and completed repurchases to reach a record. “Absent a dramatic slowdown in the economy, we forecast that 2026 completed buybacks will reach $1.2 trillion which would be a new record,” Rubin wrote in a note published on August 26. Buybacks have drawn the ire of some members of the Trump administration, having been a topic in the wrangling over President Donald Trump’s signature tax bill. Speaking on Fox Business on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took aim at Boeing Co. for a “massive” share buyback the company did instead of investing in research and development." MY COMMENT I have my issues with buy-backs versus dividends and investing money in capital assets and company growth. BUT....the above is very telling when it comes to where the expectations of the business world are regarding confidence in the future. The above translates into a nice little indication of.........PROBABILITY.
I say......no one should care about the analyst earnings projections and opinions anymore. This system of setting a bar for earnings to meet or beat is broken and a joke. The current system of analysts....most of whom have a conflict of interest......and the media click seekers.....is a joke. "We" now have access as investors to ALL the information they have and perhaps more thanks to the internet, AI, and other resources. So....."we"....the little retail investors dont need them at all. "We" can think for ourselves and "we" are the guts of the markets. "We" set the bar based on what we are buying and holding. The analyst system supports and works for the.....traders, speculators, big investment houses, hedge funds, and brokers. It does NOTHING for us retail investors. It is all focused on and working for the short term side of the market. Unfortunately for too long "we" have allowed this system to thrive and control the story-line of earnings season. It has become a self perpetuating industry.......with absolutely NO focus on or use to the long term investor. For a long time now the retail investor community which represents the VAST MAJORITY of long term investors......has been leading the way for the markets. Take us out of the markets and take our money out of the markets and there would be no markets left. It would ALL be speculative short term gambling. In reality "we"...have the power. That power is exercised by simply....IGNORING.....and making irrelevant the analysts, the crazy media, and others that do not in the slightest represent our interests or our investing money. SCREW THEM ALL.
What NVDA put up for earnings was HISTORIC and EPIC. AND...it was with ZERO sales to China. Contrary to the short term speculators after hours driven dip after earnings yesterday.....the stock is up at the open today. This reflects the true.....opinion....of the earnings and the company by REAL INVESTORS. Where we go from here....short term....who knows and who cares. YOU know I can remember earlier in my investing life when we did not have this obsessive focus on analyst predictions and earnings. We also did not have all the BS media telling us what to believe. Investing was done based on numbers and fundamentals. It was done based on annual reports and comparison of those numbers to prior years and results. this is STILL the basis for long term investing and long term gains. TRUST the process that has been proven to work over many decades.
The good news for investors and the economy....continues to pile up. Think back to how often we have been told the opposite over the past six months...over the past year....over your investing life. US economy grows 3.3% in second quarter, government says, in second estimate of April-June growth https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-e...NjkhKeeD921JNsfT7Iwaj_I5aN1VhcSltGk41SkL6KN6I US corporate profits rebound in second quarter; GDP growth revised higher https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-corporate-profits-rebound-second-131704132.html
EVEN the analysts dont believe their own BS.......and/or....the media BS. Note the use of the word "tepid" in this headline.....a JOKE. Nvidia Analysts Look Past Tepid Outlook, Lift Price Targets https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-analysts-look-past-tepid-131504742.html
HERE is the markets today. S&P 500 rises to record as Nvidia results validate AI trade https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/27/stock-market-today-live-updates.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "The S&P 500 rose on Thursday as traders pored over Nvidia’s earnings results and forecast. Investors largely looked at the numbers as affirming the AI boom. The broad market index rose 0.1% and had hit a new all-time intraday high, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded below the flatline. Nvidia – which makes up about 8% of the S&P 500, per FactSet – reported second-quarter results that beat Wall Street’s estimates with booming revenue growth of 56%. There were a couple initial concerns: first, revenue for its data center business was a hair under estimates. Second, the company guided overall revenue for this quarter of $54 billion, only slightly above expectations of $53.1 billion of analysts polled by LSEG. The stock initially saw declines but came back by the open. It was last trading almost 1% lower, recouping losses seen overnight. Many traders and analysts noted that the revenue guide does not assume any H20 chip sales to China. If a deal can be worked out involving China and the Trump administration on those sales, then revenue this quarter could be much better than forecast. “They didn’t include China in their guide, and some people were hoping there were some China sales in there, maybe a little firmer stance that China sales could get going,” Ben Reitzes, head of technology research at Melius, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “The core growth outside of China was really good,” he added. “There should be more great growth in the fourth quarter, so I think we’re all systems go.” Several analysts covering Nvidia became even more bullish on Nvidia after the report, raising their price targets on the stock. JPMorgan, Citi and Bernstein were among the Wall Street firms that now see even greater upside for the chipmaker. Other chipmakers that initially fell began recovering as well. Broadcom traded slightly higher, signaling that many investors believe Nvidia’s results gave the greenlight for the AI trade to continue. AMD was higher by almost 2%. “The negative stock reaction feels like a bit of an incorrect knee-jerk reaction,” said David Wagner, head of equity at Aptus Capital Advisors, adding that investors should be “buying the pullback.” “The company is still growing over 50% on their guidance at a $50B quarterly revenue run rate – that’s remarkable, even for the current valuation,” he said. Meanwhile, shares of AI play Snowflake jumped 12% after its second-quarter results surpassed expectations. The market is coming off a winning session Wednesday with the S&P 500 notching a record in anticipation of strong Nvidia results. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are each up more than 2% for August, while the 30-stock Dow is up more than 3% in the period. Investors have been shrugging off threats to the Federal Reserve’s independence from the Trump administration after President Donald Trump told Fed Board Governor Lisa Cook that she’s fired earlier this week, a move that Cook has officially challenged after filing a lawsuit Thursday. The market’s next obstacle will be an inflation report Friday. Economists polled by Dow Jones are forecasting that the personal consumption expenditures price index’s reading for July will show a rise of 0.2% for the month and 2.6% for the year." MY COMMENT How refreshing to see this little article. Once in a while the truth is recognized.
Time for me to go.....early. The markets today are too short term dominated....so NOTHING for me to see or do. A waste of my time. I will check back later as the dust settles.
Everyone will be back at work on Wall Street after Monday....Labor day. We are now basically at the end of earnings. I have one more stock left to report near the end of September....COSTCO. I dont know if they are always late to report or early to report.....but they are never in step with when the majority of companies report. Earnings this time around have been HUGE. We are now all set up for a run at record highs to year end. After this week we start the final four months of 2025. It has been a very good year so far for retail investors and long term investors. We are looking at an expanding and escalating economy....the first FED rate cut somewhere in there......and a very good earnings season. The economy is picking up steam as are the markets. The earnings that we just posted will be drivers of the markets over the next four months.....as will the earnings reports that we get for the third quarter starting in late October. ALL SYSTEMS GO.....for now......looking forward to the end of the year and the final results for 2025. BUT......I dont want to get ahead of the markets....four months is a long time in the short term history of the markets. Plenty of time for some good old fashioned fear-mongering and even a little correction. Whatever we are handed by the markets....we will muddle through it all.....and pop out the other side as usual. Month by month, year by year.....the short term will become the long term.
NVDA in the red right now is comical. I agree that the 'professionals' are just noise and self validating. Just this little group of investors on this thread is most likely beating out the vast majority of them with our returns. Just some short term static that will all be ironed out over time. As W mentioned there is a very high probability of future upside in NVDA. I feel as comfortable holding that stock as I do the S&P500 or any other 'safe' choice.
Looks like some dip buyers took advantage of the weakness in NVDA....starting about 45 minutes ago. On the TV....morning business show....VARNEY....what I am hearing about NVDA is UNIFORMLY very positive....of course. I agree TireSmoke......I see NVDA as one of the safest investments in the markets.....especially the big cap markets....which to me are the safest area to invest. Now PLTR....that is a different story. It will be very erratic and will continue to have to climb a huge wall of worry put up by the doubters. There is more risk in PLTR....that has to be considered if you are thinking of buying into this stock. BUT...even PLTR is now in the process of putting together a nice run of quarters that are big beats of the irrelevant expectations. It continues to fight off all the professional doubters on Wall Street and reward the retail investors that support the company. I have no plans to add more NVDA. BUT...I will continue to reinvest their tiny dividend into more shares. I added some to three different portfolios over the past week or two. In addition it is....by far....the most dominant position in every portfolio that I manage......WAY dominant. So I am all set with what I own right now. I will participate MASSIVELY in the upside to the stock over the next few years.
One question to you all living in USA: when you receive dividends what is the tax that charged to you by IRS? Here in Portugal gross dividend is charged in 28%. After that you still have to pay a fee to your broker (that of course depends on broker you use).
GOOGL, AAPL, AMZN, and MSFT are supporting my portfolio right now. I have a small loss at this moment. Basically irrelevant...but I do hate to lose money even if it is small and short term. BUS...I am not going to chase returns or follow the short term herd. Long term....for life....and...fully invested as usual. I have not mentioned in a while.....but....I am able to be long term for life because I planned out my retirement years to where I dont rely on ANY of my stock market money for annual living expenses. I have set up my sister the same way. the other accounts that I manage...kids and spouses.....are people that are young enough...early 40's...that they should be fully invested in stocks and the SP500 for at least the next 15-20 years and probably more since their retirement will be taken care of by government.....or....other assets. They will also benefit....at some point a long time from now....by what they inherit from the old generation of the family.....me, my wife, and my sister.
More good news. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage fell to 6.56% this week, Freddie Mac says, a 10-month low https://finance.yahoo.com/news/aver...NjkhKeeD921JNsfT7Iwaj_I5aN1VhcSltGk41SkL6KN6I Great news for buyers. AND.....if yu are a new home buyer.....the big builders are offering huge incentives on mortgage financing. I was in a new build neighborhood yesterday....homes in the $1MILLION to $2MILLION range......they are offering incentive financing at.....4.75%.
Welll....RG. Here in the USA regular dividends are taxed at the same rate as your other income....regular income tax rates. those rates generally top out at 37%. Now if the dividend is a "qualified dividend"....they are taxed at the same rate as "capital gains". Capital gains are taxed at either.....0%....or 15%.....or 20%. Which one applies depends on your "taxable income". To be a qualified dividend: A dividend is qualified if the shareholder held shares of common stock for at least 61 days out of the 121-day period that began 60 days before the ex-dividend date. In general when we get our tax forms from brokers and others at year end....they list the dividends as regular or qualified. So we rarely have to figure out which is which on our investments. My broker....Schwab, for example....does it for me and reports
I am GREEN at this moment and continue to improve....slowly. I now have only three stocks in the red....NVDA, COST and HD. I am pulling for NVDA to get into the green by the close.
Or if held in a Roth account your dividends and growth avoids the above....as long as you abide by withdrawal rules. Nice to have in addition to other accounts if you can.
Yes as SMOKIE noted……..in a 401k, or IRA…or other sort of tax deferred account the dividends are not taxed when you receive them. Same with capital gains. How the taxes work at the end when you withdraw the money from the account varies depending on the specific type of tax deferred account. In all the accounts that I manage there is a single IRA account. It is nice to be able to buy and sell in that account without considering taxes and capital gains.
I had a small gain today.....with NVDA, HD, and COSt in the red. I also got beat by the SP500 by.....0.28%.
