I was hoping that my "feelings"....about the markets this week would not be in line with reality. BUT......NOPE.....I had a real CRAP week in the markets. Last week at the Friday close my entire portfolio was at year to date......+28.07%. Today I am at a year to date for my entire portfolio of......+25.77%. AND....the drop and BS market this week happened as the FED gave us another rate cut. Of course....the Ten Year Yield was UP significantly today to.....4.188%. Rate cut....what rate cut. Apparently when the FED is cutting rates...the big banks, credit card companies, etc, etc,etc....dont care and neither do the Treasury yields.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE.....get out there and shop.....only about 1.75 weeks left for that Christmas and Holiday shopping.
The DISMAL close today. At least we now get a break for the next couple of days. S&P 500 retreats from record Friday, closes down for week as investors rush out of AI trade https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/11/stock-market-today-live-updates.html “The same things don’t outperform in markets month after month after month for forever, so this is normal,” Ellerbroek also said. “It’s to be expected, but it is unwarranted.”
I did get a bit of good news today. I have had a pending legal claim for about 3 years now. I got a call from my attorney and it settled for $30,000. SO...I will see about $18,000 after everything is paid for. GREAT....since I was expecting to perhaps clear about $8000. It will take about 30 days to see the money....but my plan....put about $7000 into the SP500 Index.....put about $8000 into 2X LEVERAGE ETF's for NVDA and PLTR for the long term (A WILD and CRAZY gamble with found money). Hold back $3000 for my new tires and vet expenses that we have had recently for the dogs and horses......and for future vet costs that we might have over the next 2-4 months.
DUH.......and i am severely doubting the....."YET"....in this headline. The stock market’s ‘Santa Claus rally’ hasn’t come to town yet — despite what you’re hearing Odds of a rally before Christmas are no better than at any other time of year — and maybe even worse https://www.marketwatch.com/story/t...own-so-ignore-the-caroling-c76d847e?st=JM1RH1 ".....the Dow’s average trailing five-day return is actually negative during the middle of December. We’re just entering this middle-of-the-month period, which means that the seasonal odds point to a down market until just before Christmas. (Don’t blame Santa.)"
This should be a BIG ONE. BUT expectations have a way of just fizzling in the markets when reality hits. SpaceX sets $800 billion valuation, confirms 2026 IPO plans https://finance.yahoo.com/news/spacex-sets-800-billion-valuation-014652886.html "SpaceX is moving ahead with plans for an IPO that would seek to raise significantly more than $30 billion in a transaction that would make it the biggest listing of all time."
READ THIS.....before you consider any single stock ETF. Know the big RISK. Single-stock ETFs can amplify returns, analyst says, but there’s ‘significant risk that the bet goes wrong’ https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/12/single-stock-etfs.html
Trump's Fed pick comes into focus, economic data backlog clears: What to watch this week Stocks closed on Friday in the red, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) down roughly 1.7% while the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) and benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) shed 0.5% and 1%, respectively. For the week, the Nasdaq fell about 1.5% while the Dow gained over 1%. The S&P 500, which shed 0.6% for the week, closed at a record high on Thursday. With another 25 basis point cut in the rearview for the Federal Reserve, attention is likely to focus on machinations around the next Fed chair to replace Jerome Powell, with reports late Friday suggesting Trump sees either Kevin Hassett or Kevin Warsh being named to the post. The week's economic calendar will also continue to work through the backlog of delayed data from the government shutdown, with the November jobs report set for release on Tuesday and November inflation data due out Thursday morning. In the corporate world, Wednesday will see Micron (MU) report quarterly results, while investors on Thursday will get results from Accenture (ACN), NIKE (NKE), FedEx (FDX), and Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants (DRI). 'I think the two Kevins are great' The Federal Open Market Committee's quarter-point rate cut on Wednesday marked the third such rate cut in 2025 and the most divisive of the yearamong the committee, with three dissents split across both sides of the move. Now, market attention is turning to the potential for 2026 cuts — the Fed is projecting only one — and the drama around who President Trump will choose to replace Chair Jay Powell when his term ends in May. Betting markets suggested Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, was the clear favorite, with Polymarket giving him a 73% chance at the nomination as of Friday morning. A Friday afternoon report from the Wall Street Journal put Kevin Warsh, a former member of the Fed's board of Governors, back in play. "I think you have Kevin and Kevin. They’re both — I think the two Kevins are great,” Trump told the Journal. “I think there are a couple of other people that are great.” Following that report, Hassett's and Warsh's odds converged somewhat, with Hassett having closer to a 57% chance of getting the nod while Warsh sat at 39%. Ahead of the report, Warsh was seen as having a roughly 15% shot at the nomination. Warsh and Hassett are both seen as being amenable to Trump's preference for lower interest rates, and these expectations have helped strengthen a basket of international currencies against the dollar as the foreign exchange markets price in the impact of a Trump ally leading the Fed, said Thierry Wizman, global FX & rates strategist at Macquarie. It's not just the Hassett prospects that have USD weakening against other currencies, Wizman said, "but the broad-based nature of the FX rally in the past few days tells us that it is likely also driven by the news around the Fed's next leader." Bond markets are also feeling out the potential for a dovish Fed aligned much more closely with the White House. Bonds have long served as a "ballast against equity volatility" because a credible central bank committed to independence and price stability has made investors feel good about US Treasurys' safe-haven role, Lawrence Gillum, chief fixed income strategist for LPL Financial, said. If Hassett is to pick up the nomination, "the central question is whether that credibility will endure," Gillum said. "Markets appear willing to give him the benefit of the doubt — for now — but any perception that policy will systematically favor growth over price stability could risk unanchoring expectations and potentially impair the reasons why bonds have become an effective portfolio diversifier over the past quarter century." AI's projection problem If the dismal performance of Oracle's(ORCL) stock from its September peak says anything about investor sentiment toward Big Tech, perhaps it is that worries about AI overspending never went away, but may have just been temporarily pushed aside. Oracle stock fell over 10% on Thursday after the company said its AI-related costs would be higher than expected. On Friday, the news got even worse, as Broadcom's stock fell over 11% after its results showed margin pressures at the chipmaker. Bloomberg also reported Friday that Oracle has internally pushed back the timelines on data centers it is contracted to build for tech darling OpenAI (OPAI.PVT). The Nasdaq fell 1.7% on Friday. Microsoft (MSFT) also walked away from data center lease commitmentsworth roughly 2 gigawatts of electricity in the US and Europe after demand projections failed to keep up with the Big Tech company's planned supply. At the same time, debt issuance by hyperscaler companies — which have traditionally funded their exorbitant expenditures with deep pockets of cash — exploded this past fall, according to Bank of America (BAC) analysts. Investment-grade bond market supply from Meta (META), Oracle, and a joint venture between Meta and Blue Owl Capital (OWL) alone totaled $75 billion through September and October — a "dramatic jump from the $37bn average annual pace of supply prior to Covid," the analysts wrote. But what the recent moves could signal, said Capital analyst Kyle Rodda, is a potential "changing of the guard" in the AI trade, which he called "a burgeoning theme in the market given valuation divergences, the AI investment cycle, and the productivity gains hoped for by market participants and projected by the Fed." "The next big beneficiaries of AI may no longer be chip manufacturers or hyperscalers," Rodda wrote, "but businesses which will implement the technology to grow and be more productive." Energy break from oil Shares of energy companies like Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), and Shell (SHEL) typically move in tandem with oil prices. But over the past two months, the two sides of the energy trade have divorced. Prices on Brent crude (BZ=F), the international benchmark, and US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude (CL=F) are down by 12% and 15%, respectively, over the past six months. Meanwhile, the State Street energy sector ETF (XLE) — where Exxon, Chevron, and fellow US major ConocoPhillips (COP) make up more than one-third of the index — is up roughly 6% over the same timeframe. The oil market faces a massive wave of oversupply in 2026, but the majors have been cutting costs and cleaning up their balance sheets so that even if — or when — oil prices drop, free cash flow stays flat or even increases. Most analysts expect the international oil market to face a surplus equal to several million barrels per day next year as OPEC continues to unwind production cuts and US shale operators keep pumping oil at a record pace. Futures prices on Brent crude are predicted to drop into the $50s per barrel, if not further into the $40s or even $30s. But the majors are writing plans for billions more in free cash flow over the next few years. Exxon raised its earnings and free cash flow projections by $5 billion with no increase in capital spending in its latest long-term outlook report. At Chevron, Mike Wirth's company is expecting the same metrics to grow by 10% annually while cutting capex by $3 billion. Stock and commodity prices are a read on future performance, not today's conditions. The Street is predicting a tough next few years as the coming glut properly arrives and prices fall before recovering. But in Houston, investors are seeing better and better numbers for the oil majors to come. Economic and earnings calendar Monday Economic data: Empire State manufacturing, December (10.5 expected, 18.7 previously) Earnings calendar: Navan (NAVN) Tuesday Economic data: Nonfarm payrolls, November (+50,000 expected); Average hourly earnings, month-on-month, November (+0.3% expected); Average hourly earnings, year-on-year, November (+3.6% expected); Unemployment rate, November (4.4% expected); Retail sales, month-on-month, October (+0.3% expected, 0.2% previously); S&P Global US manufacturing PMI, December preliminary reading (52.2 previously); S&P Global US services PMI, December preliminary reading (54.1 previously) Earnings calendar: Lennar Corporation (LEN), Worthington Enterprises (WOR) Wednesday Economic data: MBA mortgage applications, week ended Dec. 12 (4.8% previously) Earnings calendar: Micron Technology (MU) Thursday Economic data: Initial jobless claims, week ended Dec. 13 (236,000 previously); Consumer price index, year-on-year, November (+3.1% expected); Core CPI, year-on-year, November (+3% previously); Philadelphia Federal Reserve business outlook, December (2.1 expected, -1.7 previously); Kansas City Federal Reserve manufacturing activity, December (8 previously) Earnings calendar: Accenture (ACN), NIKE (NKE), Cintas Corporation (CTAS), FedEx (FDX), HEICO Corporation (HEI), Darden Restaurants (DRI), FactSet Research Systems (FDS), Birkenstock (BIRK), CarMax (KMX), KB Home (KBH), BlackBerry Limited (BB), Scholastic Corporation (SCHL), FuelCell Energy (FCEL) Friday Economic data: Existing home sales, November (4.15 million expected, 4.1 million previously); Existing home sales, month-on-month, November (1.1% expected, 1.2% previously); University of Michigan sentiment, December final reading (53.3 previously); Kansas City Federal Reserve services activity, December (-7 previously) Earnings calendar: Paychex (PAYX), Carnival (CCL), Conagra Brands (CAG), Winnebago Industries (WGO)
Looks like we are still chugging along here. I have not been quite in tune with the day-to-day stuff for a couple of weeks. No market or insight from me about any of the daily stuff. I seem a bit behind on doing things to close out the year. Usually, I have begun my review to look things over by now. Although, there is not much likely to do at this point in regard to the plan. Everything seems to be about right, but I will give it the once over as the last few weeks roll by.
A few mentions on the holiday shopping season. Seemed quite busy when I was out and about. Of course, it always seems to be busy this time of year to me anyway. I did notice clothing items were a bit higher. There were a few discounts here and there as the Christmas shopping window draws closer to the end. A few places had less items available or smaller in-stock stuff, but that may be from shoppers already buying those things out from earlier too. Anyway, get out there and get it done. Time is drawing near for Christmas.
Yes, there are about 17 days left until the new year. As mentioned briefly above, the remaining time left is a good time to spend some time reviewing and thinking about the plan ahead. A time to sort of re-center yourself and think about what you can control. There are a number of things that we cannot control. The daily fluctuations in the market, the constant headlines, policy maker drama, FED stuff, an endless supply of information in regard to predictions, and a whole slew of inactionable noise. A good time to turn it off and step away to examine YOUR plan. Go for a nice walk and think about your plan.... not the noise. An end of the year session with just yourself and the plan you have. Savings rate, contribution rates, asset allocation, and debt management are all things you can control. There may be one or more of those where you may want to change something. It could be paying down some debt to get more investment dollars free or adding more to the emergency fund. There could be a path to higher contribution rates or some other goal to set for your future. The idea is to focus on the things that you can readily control. As always, it is important to occasionally review and think about risk tolerance. I always work this into my review. The great thing is none of this needs to be a cumbersome exercise and doesn't take a huge amount of time. Especially, if one commits to spending a bit of time doing so on a set schedule. It doesn't have to be a specific date, but something you can easily remember each year. It is easy to do, and it gives you an opportunity to separate yourself from the noise and think clearly about your own management of the plan. After that nice, quiet walk above, maybe come back and jot down your goals and ideas. Who knows, maybe it will take a week or so of those nice walks of solitude to work out what you plan to set up as some of your goals to work on. A nice health benefit too. The main point is to concentrate on the things you can control. Set up something that works for you and on a schedule that fits your lifestyle. Don't make it difficult to do. An annual review, at any point in the year, has always been enough for me. Once I started this years ago, it has been an easy thing to keep doing yearly. It is a great way to keep goals in front of you and focused on the bigger picture.
30 year mortgages don't exist over here, W. You can get a 10 year deal, but those are almost unheard off. People tend to go for a 2 or a 5 year deal depending on current rates. I've taken a 2 this time in the hope that rates improve.
Just 3 working days remain for me before I break up for Christmas. On Friday this week I am flying to Disney World!! No, I am not coming to the USA - I am heading to France I am going with my parents, sister, brother-in-law and all the children. This was a Christmas gift from my parents to the grandchildren. I am very much looking forward to it. I have never been to Euro Disney (or France) before - I am sure my two-year old will love it. We are only there for a few days. We fly back home early on the 23rd. Will arrive back in London around 10am, and then will be back to the Isle of Wight for around 2pm. Just in time to go food shopping for the big day! If I don't get a chance to post before, I hope everyone here has a fantastic Christmas.
A nice little article about the relevance of the FED......and....free market capitalism. The Herculean Power Of Compounding Runs Roughshod Over The Fed https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnta...r-of-compounding-runs-roughshod-over-the-fed/ ".....the genius of compounding and time requires capital sources to put the funds entrusted to them to work as credibly and quickly as possible. What’s not invested is not compounding."...... "Capital must be put to work, particularly when new commercial advances poised to rewrite how business is done reveal themselves. The Fed’s relevance to investors and those in search of investment recalls the Don Draper line in Mad Men, “I don’t think about you at all.”"
YES.....it is this simple and always has been. But us HUMANS....have a just about total inability to recognize and do the simple thing. How to Become a Moderate Millionaire https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2025/12/how-to-become-a-moderate-millionaire/ "......most people build their wealth over the course of many years by saving, investing and compounding."
FUNNY.....you dont see many positive articles about MSFT lately. I have no idea why. Microsoft's AI advantage isn't all about OpenAI — and Wall Street loves it https://finance.yahoo.com/news/micr...enai--and-wall-street-loves-it-120048687.html
AND speaking of positive articles....here is another. REALITY flies in the face of the MASSIVE negativity we have been seeing lately causing fear and TENTATIVENESS in the markets. Nvidia reportedly weighs ramping up H200 production to meet surging demand in China https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-reportedly-weighs-ramping-h200-142820273.html
STRANGE.....tech companies investing in other tech companies. Something that has been going on for many years.....but....lately the MEDIA turns this positive into a negative. SHAME. Alphabet Poised for Another Paper Gain as SpaceX Valuation Jumps https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alphabet-poised-another-paper-gain-150000982.html "In April, the company disclosed an $8 billion unrealized gain tied to its investment in a private company — widely understood to be SpaceX — after a tender offer late last year valued the company at about $350 billion. That gain helped lift Alphabet’s net income for the March quarter above Wall Street expectations."
