The Long Term Investor

YES.....we are living in a world where many in power are willing to foster INSANITY. It is amazing the LACK of medical data that exists on Covid, treatment, and its impact on the world.....after TWO YEARS. HERE is a typical article......it goes on and on and on with the FEAR MONGERING. YET.......it NEVER gives any information about the severity of the new variant or the symptoms that people experience with it. Well....I say "never"......but....there is one "little sentence" that is the truth and exposes the absolute STUPIDITY of what we are currently seeing the the media and the resulting actions of world leaders.

COVID variant spreads to more countries as world on alert

https://apnews.com/article/omicron-...-netherlands-1b344a86ff359a552aa5a64899a57ff7

"The variant’s swift spread among young people in South Africa has alarmed health professionals even though there was no immediate indication whether the variant causes more severe disease."

MY COMMENT

Buried far into this little TYPICAL fear mongering article is the above.....the ONLY information on the potential impact of this so called "variation". In the end......some day.....ten.....thirty.....fifty...years from now there MIGHT be some actual TRUTH. At that point I suspect we will see that ALL of the current STUFF.........is simply happening in response to a disease that is no more critical than the seasonal Flu.......at least at this point now that we have some protection with the so called vaccines and are learning how to deal with it.......and....producing medications that cut the symptoms.

YES......I have strong opinions on this issue and the politicization of science.........and.......the corruption of the media system.......and.......the BLATANT CENSORSHIP that is being imposed on the public by business giants and governments...........after all I am a LIBERTARIAN. BUT....this is not something that I am going to get into in this forum.....or......any forum. It is a waste of time and effort.....everyone's thinking is set in stone at this point in time.

SO......I focus....as usual on making money through investing, especially long term investing, and providing for the future generations of my immediate family.

 

AND.....speaking of investing.......for those that are not fully invested all the time as I am for the long term.......what about the DIP last Friday?

Market strategists split on 'buying opportunity' after post-Thanksgiving selloff

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/market-selloff-buying-opportunity-191226809.html

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

"The Dow Jones Industrial Average's (^DJI) worst daily plunge of the year sparked a split among market strategists on wether Friday was a good buying opportunity.

The index closed down more than 900 points, while the broader S&P 500 (^GSPC) average declined 2.27%.

Energy, financials and industrial stocks led the markets lower amid concerns of a new COVID variant first detected in southern Africa.

"To the extent this is not as big as Delta was ultimately, then I think maybe it's a little bit of a buying opportunity," Simeon Hyman, ProShares Global Investment Strategist told Yahoo Finance Live on Friday. "All the economic data of the last month or so was really, really strong—I mean, an all-time high ISM Services... Manufacturing was also high. And retail sales was up 1.7%."


The Down Jones Industrial Index year-to-date. Friday's selloff was they year's largest single-day drop despite a holiday-shortened session. (Yahoo Finance)
Other strategists are sounding off warning signs of trouble ahead.

"I don’t see it as a buying opportunity. I see this as the first leg of a multistep downward move in the S&P ", Ed Budowsky, a Chapwood Investments managing partner, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "This new variant is an excuse to sell off the market, because the market is so overpriced."

Chapwood added that the market "has been 31% overvalued for a number of months. It's definitely going to be a downward move going into 2022. ... You just can not support and justify for a long period of time, this kind of valuation." said the strategist.

The Dow Jones Industrial average declined more than 1,000 points at one point during Friday's shortened trading session.

Travel-related stocks were among the sectors that slid on Friday over concerns of renewed lockdowns and tighter restrictions. Stay-at-home trades, meanwhile, rebounded: Video calling software-maker Zoom (ZM) was up more than 7%. At-home-fitness company Peloton Interactive (PTON) gained more than 5% during the shortened trading session.

“I think it’s a reaction to the uncertainty,” BNP Paribas Asset Management Chief Market Strategist and Co-Head Investment Insights Centre Daniel Morris said on Yahoo Finance Live, later adding: "We clearly are going into the winter and it does seem, at this point, anticipating the potential problems as opposed to waiting to see if they're confirmed."

Vaccine maker Pfizer (PFE) hit an all-time-high on Friday after a Citi analyst highlighted the company is capable of producing a variant shot in 100 days."

MY COMMENT

As a long term investor.....I actually dont care if this is a buying opportunity or not. After the first of the year, I WILL simply invest the new money.....about $20,000.....that I will have available for 2022 savings. My time horizon is long enough that I have no interest in trying to market time the short term.........or......GUESS where the markets are going. One thing I do not have to GUESS.....is the long term direction of the markets.

 

JUST for fun and a touch of REALITY:

Don't panic: Omicron symptoms seem to be mild — Doctor

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/so...anic-omicron-symptoms-seem-to-be-mild-doctor/

Suspected Omicron cases mild: leading S.Africa doctor

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-11-omicron-cases-mild-safrica-doctor.html

Chair of South African Medical Association says Omicron cases are mild so far, but it's too soon to the determine risk of severe disease

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/ne...e-determine-risk-of-severe-disease/ar-AARbrTh

 

AND.....as to the investing climate.......once again:

Here’s what the Black Friday carnage may mean for the stock market’s trade Monday, analysts say

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/h...monday-analysts-say-11638021516?siteid=yhoof2

"OMG, omicron!

The new, fast-spreading B.1.1.529 strain of coronavirus declared a variant of concern by the World Health Organization roiled global markets on Black Friday, raising concerns about how the economy and Wall Street may perform in the coming week, following a selloff that wiped out November gains for the S&P 500 index SPX, -2.27% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, -2.23% and sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -2.53% down by the most in a day since Oct. 28, 2020.

WHO said that the omicron variant, which has been detected in Belgium, Israel, and Hong Kong and was first identified in southern parts of Africa, is more transmissible than the delta strain that is currently dominant world-wide, and other variants.

The emergence of the new strain led to the White House announcing restrictions, starting on Monday, on travel for non-U.S. citizens and residents from South Africa, as well as from Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Malawi, joining the European Union, the U.K., Singapore and Japan, which also announced similar travel bans.

The market selloff during the abbreviated Black Friday session and the commensurate flight to assets that investors hope will perform better amid fresh mobility restrictions, helped to overshadow the usual focus on retail, on a day associated with heavy consumer spending ahead of the Christmas holiday. Friday’s downturn also offered a crystal clear reminder that the path of the market and economy hinges on the course of COVID.

What isn’t clear is whether the latest coronavirus development will do lasting harm to the complexion of the market. Omicron comes at a fragile time for optimistic investors, with bears pointing to lofty stock market valuations, inflation worries and global economic growth concerns as reasons to expect a drawdown in equities that have managed to avoid a decline from a peak of more than 5%.

In theory, Friday’s post-Thanksgiving environment is traditionally lightly traded and therefore more susceptible to outsize price swings.

The Nasdaq saw its lowest volume of the year on Black Friday, with 3.479 billion shares trading hands, well below the year-to-date average of 5.099 billion. The total composite volume, including trading on Intercontinental Exchange ICE, -1.96% -owned NYSE platforms, was 8.760 billion, compared with an year-to-date average of 11.196 billion, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Still, only time will tell whether the reaction to omicron is a textbook, knee-jerk selloff or something more sinister.

MarketWatch’s Bill Watts wrote, citing Friday research from Mark Arbeter of Arbeter Investments, that the next level of support to watch for the S&P 500 after closing at 4,594,62 on Friday is at 4,570, the 50-day exponential average; 4,566, the 38.2% retracement of the rally; and 4,550, a previous high from early September.

“It is too early to know to what extent the new variant will affect economies and markets, and Friday’s market moves have probably been exacerbated by reduced liquidity owing to the US Thanksgiving holiday, and the risk that further bad news emerges over the weekend,” writes Jonas Goltermann senior markets economist at Capital Economics, in a Friday research note.

J.C. Parets of the All Star Charts blog writes that things could get dicey if the S&P 500 is driven below 4,500, with little support beneath that point.

“You know how parents always tell you nothing good ever happens after midnight? Well in the S&P 500, nothing good happens below 4500,” he writes in a Friday blog.


All Star Charts
“If we’re below that then there is a probably a much bigger problem out there, and the heaviest cash positions in 18 months would be warranted,” Parets writes.

Some analysts say that there are legitimate reasons for unease, on the public health front.

“The fact that this variant seems to be spreading much faster than previous versions (including the Delta variant) bears very careful monitoring,” wrote Michael Strobaek, global chief investment officer at Credit Suisse, in a research note. There are some questions about the effectiveness of existing COVID vaccines from Pfizer PFE, +6.11% and Moderna MRNA, +20.57% due to the number of mutations that the omicron variant bears on the spike protein. The spike protein is the part of the virus targeted by COVID-19 vaccines.

Analyst at Jefferies led by analyst Sean Darby note that risk-appetite was already edging lower before Black Friday and the selloff may have been a “tipping point” in favor of caution and risk moderation.

“The news of a new or not so new COVID variant spreading in Southern Africa
appears to have been the tipping point in altering risk appetite in the past 24 hours,” the Jefferies analyst wrote.

“However, there has been a sea change in risk variables over the past month – an
increasing number of ‘tailed treasury auctions’, declining equity market breadth and
the imperceptible change in US retail appetite that seems to have gone unnoticed.
Positioning in global equities is one of the most aggressive in US history,” according to Darby and his colleagues.

Jefferies research suggests that investors are now expecting that the Federal Reserve, under renominated Chairman Jerome Powell, will hasten the pace of reductions in the central bank’s asset purchases, which will lead to tighter financial conditions that could prove unfavorable to risky assets. Goldman Sachs sees the Fed stepping up tapering to $30 billion a month from a reduction of $15 billion, and estimates three policy interest rate increases in 2022, up from two.

“Ultimately the Sharpe ratio – a measure of return per unit of risk – is
turning for global equities. We expect the gap between the performance of risky and safe haven assets to diminish,” Jefferies wrote.


via Jefferies
The situation could still prove a buying opportunity for bold investors, however.

Strobaek wrote that “risk assets such as equities are likely to give back some strength, but we would see this as an opportunity in selective and specific areas.”

“At this point, we reiterate our assessment from the latest Investment Committee report, i.e. keeping equities at a small overweight in portfolios and government bonds at an underweight,” the Credit Suisse CIO writes.

Analysts at Citigroup also said that “we would buy into any dip,” noting that its bearish checklist doesn’t indicate significant red flags. “Valuations look stretched, but other factors (credit spreads, fund flows) are not yet especially extended,” Citi writes, with 7.5 out of 18 red flags triggered in its measures of global markets while the U.S. is seeing 9.5 of 18.


Citi Research
Greg Bassuk, CEO at AXS Investments in Port Chester, NY says that the end-of-week selling may have resulted in a Black Friday sale for stock-market investors.

“Black Friday is typically the unofficial kick-off to the annual holiday shopping season. But we believe the real shopping is for stocks that are beaten-down from Covid infection spikes, inflation fears, and supply chain woes, but that still possess strong fundamentals that will drive their gains as the economy ultimately reopens,” he wrote

That said, some analysts note that the lockdowns playing out in Europe and the spread of COVID, even before the omicron declaration, were reasons to be cautious since they will impact the global growth outlook.

Either way, it seems that a degree of caveat emptor may be in force next week and could color trading for the remainder of the 2021.

Trading on Monday will help determine whether bullishness persists or if a bearish phase is crystallizing.

It will be a week focused on the state of employment, with the November U.S. jobs report due at the end of the week and Powell and others offering their final thoughts before a media blackout period starting ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee’s final meeting of 2021 on Dec. 14-15."

MY COMMENT

As I said.........I dont care......but it is fun to watch the INSANITY.

 

WELCOME......Gridsmasher.

YES......do discuss your reallocation choices and experience. You sound like a sharp person. NEW participants are always welcome here.....the more the better. SO.....post away....jump right in. Same message for anyone else that is not posting yet.

 

I DO NOT EVER invest according to the "news".......assuming there is any actual news anymore. This......"STUFF"......is out of control and dishonest.........shame, shame, shame.

Doctor Who Discovered Omicron Slams 'Hype,' Travel Bans

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/omicron-media-travel-covid/2021/11/28/id/1046466/

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

"National Chair of the South African Medical Association, Dr. Angelique Coetzee, who made an early discovery of the Omicron variant amongst patients, says "the hype" that's been created surrounding the variant is unwarranted.

According to Reuters, "the variant was detected and announced by South Africa's National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) on Nov. 25 from samples taken from a laboratory from Nov. 14 to Nov. 16."

Coetzee told Reuters that in one of the "biggest hospitals" in her "area" and country of South Africa, there is only one patient who is COVID-positive on ventilation, and there has been no confirmation, as of Sunday, that Omicron is the cause.

"The hype," Coetzee says, "that's been created currently out there in the media and worldwide doesn't correlate with the clinical picture. And it doesn't warrant to just cut us off from any traveling, and bans South Africa as if we are the villains in the whole process — should not be like that."

Coetzee, who is also on the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Vaccines, says, "looking at the mildness of the symptoms we are seeing currently, there’s no reason for panicking as we don’t see severely ill patients."

"I also checked with the hospital, some of the hospitals in my area, and one of the biggest hospitals they only have one patient currently that's COVID-positive on a ventilator, and they don't even know whether it's COVID — you know it's Delta- or whether it is Omicron-related."

Reports of the new variant have since resulted in several European countries, such as the United Kingdom, issuing travel bans on southern African countries, a ban that South Africa has strongly contested. Since Friday, the United States and some Asian nations have also banned travel from South Africa."

MY COMMENT

Simply......INSANITY.......driven by an out of control media. The traders LOVE IT......and I am sure they help to spread the fear and rumor to help their trades. I am sure the AI and program traders ALSO love this sort of news driven STUPIDITY.

 

HERE.....is the perfect example of what I am talking about:

WHO: Omicron Poses Very High Global Risk, World Must Prepare

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/who-omicron-covid-risk/2021/11/29/id/1046494/

MY COMMENT

This headline says it all. Powerful people in responsible positions.......FEAR MONGERING......this variant when they should absolutely know better. AND.......the media goes along for the ride. SIMPLY RIDICULOUS.

 

SOMETHING that ACTUALLY will impact the shorter term markets......the retail season this year from now to year end.

Black Friday bounces back from 2020. Shoppers hit stores again

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/26/business/holiday-shopping-retail-friday/index.html

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

"Black Friday doesn't carry the significance it once did for many US shoppers — blame the rise of online shopping holiday "Cyber Monday" and then Covid-19's impact on retail.

But customers are still dishing out more money for clothing, electronics and other items this Black Friday as they return to visit stores in person and keep up their spending online.

Sales on Black Friday increased 29.8% from a year ago, according to estimates through 3 p.m. ET from Mastercard, which tracks payment data in stores and online, excluding car sales. E-commerce sales grew 10.6% from last year, while in-store sales increased 42.9%.

"Retail spending has been on the rise throughout the day and it speaks to the strength of the consumer," said Steve Sadove, senior advisor for Mastercard. "We anticipate a positive holiday season well beyond Black Friday."
Clothing sales led the growth, increasing 86.4% on Black Friday from a year ago when shoppers were mostly at home and didn't have much reason to spruce up their wardrobes.

These trends mark a reversal from 2020, when retailers limited their doorbuster deals to prevent overcrowding in stores and pushed shoppers to buy online instead. Online sales on Black Friday surged 85% in 2020 from the year prior, but overall sales dipped 16.1%.

This year, retailers bet on a strong holiday.

Retail sales in November and December are expected to grow between 8.5% and 10.5% this year compared with the 2020 holiday season, to a record of up to $859 billion, projected the National Retail Federation, a trade group for retailers. The figure excludes car dealers, gas stations and restaurants.

Federal stimulus payments to households and families since the onset of the pandemic elevated savings rates, and rising wages are expected to propel consumer demand during the holidays, NRF predicted.

Retailers kicked off their holiday deals in October to try to spread out the holiday season. They did this in part to prevent a crush of demand on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which can strain stores and logistics networks.

Chains also encouraged shoppers to buy early and avoid waiting in case the product they want sells out. Retailers have been navigating high demand from consumers, as well as delays and shortages getting goods to shelves due to ongoing supply chain hurdles.

Deborah Weinswig, CEO of retail research and advisory firm Coresight Research, visited stores in Boston and Providence Friday. Out-of-stock items were most noticeable in furniture and for clothing basics such as denim jeans, khakis, underwear and socks, she said in a report.

Still, Weinswig said traffic was strong at home goods and department stores and projected strong profits for retailers this holiday because they were offering fewer discounts."

MY COMMENT

This data and these sales WILL show up in future earnings. I STILL expect a very strong shopping season all the way to year end. this is the sort of......REAL......news and data that can drive the markets short to medium term.....and.....over the longer term is another small data point that contributes to the EXTENSION of the BULL MARKET.

 

Markets are open and doing ok. The DOW has backed off some but the SP500 and NASDAQ are doing just fine. the Ten Year Treasury yield is back down in the mid 1.5% range and is stable at historic 100 year lows. A GOOD BEGINNING.

 

This little commentary is so true.

What Am I Most Thankful For? The Rich. The Richer the Better.

https://www.realclearmarkets.com/ar...or_the_rich_the_richer_the_better_805422.html

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

"We Smiths are a large clan. We are # 1 in the English-speaking world. We declared jihad on the Joneses and the Johnsons a long time ago. They are chumps. We didn’t get to be the most prolific clan by sitting around eating Doritos and watching General Hospital. We are doers. Who was the greatest personality in the history of Miller Light commercials? Bubba SMITH! The most enterprising vixen of all time? Anna Nicole SMITH. The greatest lover of all time? Joseph SMITH. He had more wives than Carter’s has little pills. The guy was a stud.

Getting to the top of the pyramid and eliminating our enemies is no easy task. It takes great physical endurance, cunning, daring and trickery, but most of all it takes wisdom. As paterfamilias of the worldwide Smith empire, my primary job (besides issuing fatwas against the Jones and Johnson infidels), is to dispense wisdom. Every moment is a teaching moment, but some moments are more opportune and salient than others. Thanksgiving is one of them.

Our family and extended clan has a tradition. After saying grace, we all tell each other what we are thankful for. When it is my turn, it is much like the Queen’s Christmas Day broadcast. Smiths tune in from all over the English-speaking world. In some areas, I am on the Jumbotron in football stadiums in heavily populated Smith provinces. When it was my turn this past Thursday, I stated that I was thankful for RICH PEOPLE. You could hear the gasps and groans for miles around Pasadena (Rose Bowl), Knoxville (Neyland Stadium) and Ann Arbor ( the Big House). “How crass! Did he really say that?” This was a teaching moment for me.

Rich people are generally rich because they have provided goods and services that others want to buy. They serve humanity by enriching our lives and allowing us to have things that would simply not be affordable or plentiful but for their efforts. Rich people love us and want to serve us. There’s nothing they like more than pleasing the customer. But for rich people and their capital, you would be living in utter squalor and likely would have a life expectancy of 29 years old. You would not have attended a fancy university, nor would you even have a job. Your house would at most be made of mud and grass. Where do you think sheetrock, bricks, roofing materials and copper wire comes from? Rich people. Look around you. Everything you see exists because of rich people. As I write this, I am looking out the window at my mahogany stained back yard fence. I see lumber. I think of timber land, chain saws, sawmills, treatment plants, chemical processors, trucking, pallet manufacturers, distribution centers, nails, stain producers and dozens of other real live industries owned by rich people.

No product or service ever existed simply because someone wanted it. It existed because someone had the energy and drive to create it. Demand does not create things, the supply of capital to the driven and industrious creates things. Once again, look around you. On my desk is an Alexa device, a cell phone and a computer loaded with software applications. None of these products came into existence because there was great clamoring among the masses for them. They exist because someone risked capital to create them. Once created, people wanted these products. Let’s dig deeper. I also have a 20 oz bottle of Zero Sugar Vitamin Water on my desk. Water is essential to sustain life. One could say quite fairly that there is universal demand for water, and therefore Smith, you are wrong that demand didn’t create that bottle of water. But that bottle of Vitamin Water didn’t poof out of an ether of nothingness, it came into being because someone risked capital to create it, bottle it, market and distribute it. Where does the capital come from to create these things and supply others? Rich people.

How about rich people who inherited all their money? Should we be thankful for them too? Yes, we should. Rich people don’t stick their money in a mattress. Their money is at work all the time. In fact, their money works harder than we do because it never rests, and it always flows to its most productive ends. Money in the bank creates liquidity for the banks to lend to businesses, not to mention to improve the lives of all us by allowing us to buy houses and cars on credit. Public companies and their shareholders receive rewards from rich people for jobs well done. These rewards are called “investments.” Likewise, rich people tell these companies and shareholders when they are doing a poor job by selling their investments. This free flow of capital provides a kinetic dynamism to markets allowing capital to flow to where it will do the most good to produce benefits for you and me.

Housing, office buildings, shopping centers, industrial complexes, virtually everything you see while driving your car is a result of rich people. What about infrastructure? Most infrastructure is built by rich people who then give the infrastructure to the government. Infrastructure paid for by the government is funded through the bonds that rich people buy or the taxes they pay.

Rich people are generally smart or else they would not be rich. They commit less crimes than any other sector or demographic group. They don’t drain the public coffers because they don’t use public resources. Most of them are very nice people because they can afford to be nice. Virtually all philanthropy comes from rich people. A good many of them devote their time and expertise to help others.

The government produces nothing. It cannot provide any benefits without first taking from those who produce. It is the activities of the rich that fund the federal government; income tax, capital gains tax, payroll tax, excise taxes, etc. The rich buy the treasury bonds that allow the federal government to spend more than it takes in. So if the rich and their capital have supplied us with virtually everything worthwhile in the world, why does our government treat them so poorly? Whenever the government burdens productivity, the result is less productivity and advancement. The poorest among us suffer the most.

To truly understand economics and failed fiscal policies, one merely needs to read a certain book. The author is not Adam Smith, F. A. Hayek or George Gilder. While one could say it is a “divine” read, it is not known as an economics treatise, but yet, it is jammed packed with economic lessons. All economic activity is predicated on human behavior. In the opening chapters, mankind falls from grace. The result is our imperfect human nature. Human nature never changes, and part of the duality of man are elements of our personality that make for bad economic decisions and misery, all stemming from jealousy. How many of us covet what others have? How many of us want to see the rich and mighty fall? There’s no logical reason for us to feel this way, other than we are imperfect beings. With me, the schadenfreude is visceral, then I must summon the left side of my brain to remind me that this feeling is unhealthy and counterproductive. I then struggle with the guilt of having such feelings in the first place.

If we were all like Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, it would never cross our minds to hate or be jealous of the rich. They provide us with everything. Contrast their societal contributions to the low life “so called” social justice warriors destroying our cities and debasing our culture. They are totally driven by hatred and jealousy. They produce nothing and are a terrible tax and burden on the rest of us. Which group deserves respect? Which group deserves government policies that foster and promote their societal contributions? Without the rich, we cannot become rich ourselves. Most of the economic evil perpetrated against mankind is a result of tyrants using jealousy and hatred as weapons to consolidate raw political power unto themselves. History teaches us that this just leads to misery, poverty and death.

I am thankful that the good Lord has blessed my county with such abundance, and I am also thankful for the wisdom to understand what creates wealth and what destroys it."

MY COMMENT

So BLUNT and so TRUE. The above is the basis of our economy and success. Unfortunately....many in society are determined to undermine the very economic system and process that makes us such a success as a country and an economy. I hope people never have to find out the HORRIBLE lesson that once you DESTROY the current system.....It will NEVER come back.

 

I dont expect this little Covid blip or the.......GASP.......new variant.....to have any impact at all. BIG investors......have the capability, and resources, and experts to see and know that this variation is NOTHING from a medical standpoint. LITTLE investors......will simply sit though anything that happens. The end result....NOTHING.

Although I have NO DOUBT that those in power and all sorts of world wide agencies WILL use it for everything they can.

In FACT.....I have nearly earned back all my Friday losses in one day. I was solidly green today and BEAT the SP500 by 0.87%. Another day or two and I will be right back to an all time high.......again. That is what is nice about this sort of PANIC drop. By the time the averages get back to where they started the dollar amount of my account will be well above where it was when the panic started.

 

What we saw Friday.......is NOTHING more than CHAFF......NOISE........GARBAGE........for the markets. There was NOTHING inherent in what happened Friday that will correlate to stock returns going forward........no matter how much those that benefit from fear mongering try to PUSH it. Unfortunately for them......people......investors.....do have access to good gut level information on the internet without having to go through.....or rely on...... the FEAR MONGERS.

This variant is EXACTLY what you would expect considering medicine and science. It is well known that variations of existing viruses like Covid.....usually......are less severe in terms of symptoms as the virus becomes more mainstream and evolves.

 

Last Friday was a market day about......NOTHING. The TOTALITY of the markets reaction and sell off was based on NOTHING. There was NO FACT that applied to what happened. It was simply PANIC. Contrast that day with today. TODAY we had a market day about the TRUTH. Over the weekend people like myself had time to do some research for themselves and discover that the Covid variation that was the BIG PANIC on Friday.......was simply a media HOAX. Yes....covid is still out there and yes the variation appears to be easier to catch and spread.....BUT......the symptoms when you do get it are EXTREMELY MILD. Sounds like a good way to get IMMUNITY and only suffer very mild symptoms while doing so. So.....the end result.......one market day later we are right back to NORMAL.

Stock market news live updates: Stock futures extend gains as virus fears ease

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-updates-november-30-2021-231704968.html

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

"Stock futures opened higher on Monday to hold onto gains after a recovery rally, with investors at least temporarily shaking off concerns over a new coronavirus variant and looking ahead to new market catalysts.

Contracts on the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq rose. Each of the three major indexes had ended the regular trading day solidly in the green, with technology stocks leading the way higher and helping pull the Nasdaq up by nearly 2%.

Investors were heartened by remarks from the White House, when President Joe Biden said the newly discovered Omicron coronavirus variant was "not a cause for panic." Biden said he intended to announce on Thursday the White House's strategy for addressing coronavirus this winter, and that this plan would not include lockdowns, but would instead emphasize vaccinations, boosters and testing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday updated its guidance to say all individuals aged 18 and older "should" get a booster coronavirus vaccine, strengthening this from previous language primarily aimed at getting those considered most at risk an additional dose of the shots.

Prospects that widespread lockdowns would likely not come to the U.S. in the face of the latest variant helped fuel a broad risk-on rally on Monday. This came in sharp contrast with Friday's moves immediately following the World Health Organization's announcement of Omicron as a "variant of concern," which sparked the Dow's worst plunge since Oct. 2020.

"This is not a repeat of March 2020," Paul Schatz, Heritage Capital President, told Yahoo Finance Live on Monday. "This looks nothing like March of 2020, yet it's so recent in our history, people immediately think, 'Omicron is here, oh my gosh this is going to be a 30% decline, we're going to go straight down' ... You need to equally weigh history, not weigh it based on how recent it was in your memory."

Still, the sectors and individual stocks that outperformed on Monday were largely technology names, which have served as defensive trades throughout the pandemic as investors bet on more stay-in-place behavior among consumers.

But at the same time, the emergence of the latest variant has also led a number of pundits to speculate that the Federal Reserve might take a more dovish approach to monetary policy to continue supporting the economy as it deals with ongoing virus-related concerns. That could in turn keep interest rates low for longer and support longer-duration growth stocks.

"To take a step back, I think you had a global economy that in the fourth quarter [of 2020] through last week was looking incredibly strong ... and then a new variant comes along," Andrew Sheets, Morgan Stanley chief cross-assets strategist, told Yahoo Finance Live. "That would seem to work against a lot of the trades that work in that high-growth environment, and also seemed to disrupt this 'do central banks need to act more aggressively' narrative, because if there's a new variant, then maybe we should be more cautious."

Major vaccine-makers including Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna have already said they were collecting data on the Omicron variant and determining whether and how they would need to rework their existing vaccines to address it. Researchers have also not yet determined whether the new variant is definitively more easily transmitted, or responsible for more severe illness, than previous versions of the virus.

"Information is coming rapidly, it's evolving in real-time. You can understand why investors [last week] were taking a little bit of a pause, particularly given the liquidity situation we had going into the U.S. holiday season," Vivek Paul, BlackRock investment institution U.K. chief investment strategist, told Yahoo Finance Live on Monday. "I think the reaction you see today puts it in a little bit of context. We've seen more information come out, clearly we have to await the science and a bit more detail with regards to the longevity of how Omicron plays out."

"But we would be in-line with the market reaction today: We think on balance, it would make sense to be invested in the markets at this moment in time," he added. "It's all about understanding whether or not this is a delay, or a derailment, of the restart that we've seen. And it seems most likely at this moment — not withstanding more information to come— that it looks like a delay."

MY COMMENT

I saw this JOKE commentary in a number of places today....the line about how Biden speaking reassured the markets. BALONEY. The day started STRONG and stayed there all day till the open. UNFORTUNATELY we are seeing more and more politics seeping into the markets through the financial press and opinion reporting. NOT a good thing. Interjecting political opinion and PR into the day to day markets is just going to continue the VOLATILE short term markets that are now the norm. UNFORTUNATELY many investors think this day to day stuff IS how you invest.

 

YEP......it is all a shame.

BUT.....from a simple investment perspective.....you have to REALLY appreciate the STRENGTH and staying power of the markets. Week after week the markets somehow POWER through the constant CRAP from the FED, celebrity politicians, the government, etc, etc, etc. Hit after hit....yet the market keep trudging forward and upward.

Today is a perfect example. We have the FED releasing the soon to be made comments. You have the head of the government BLABBING yesterday and again this Wednesday. You have Moderna and other companies trying to set up cover for their products that are FAILING to do what was expected. Investors should be more afraid of the reaction to Covid by those in positions of power with the ability to SCREW UP the economy......than....Covid itself.

How do the markets do it.....because in the end what SIMPLY matters is the fundamentals of business. Now.....looking forward 5 or 10 or 20 years will this always be the case? I dont know. We may reach the point eventually where the volume and level of constant daily CRAP just overwhelms the markets and becomes the driving force that NOTHING can cut through.

BUT......for now....I will live in REALITY and sit and watch the daily CLOWNS (sorry Emmett)........and laugh to myself.

I see that the NASDAQ has now turned green.......cutting through the CRAP of the day. There is a good probability of a turn around today and I STILL expect a nice close to the year. I ALSO STILL expect a nice year next year.

 

Hang in there Ragin Cajun.......as if you have a choice.....it will somehow work out. So sorry for what you are going through.

 

The four percent rule was all the RAGE earlier in my retirement years. I NEVER used it or actually believed it was valid. It was simply a media creation.....a FANTASY......retirement plan. In fact I thought it was a danger for people nearing retirement to BLINDLY think they could follow such a path over the course of a 5-30 year retirement time period. Here is some info on the issue.

Digging Deeper Into the 4% Rule’s Alleged Demise
Is a long-running rule of retirement investing about to go extinct?

https://www.fisherinvestments.com/en-us/marketminder/digging-deeper-into-the-4-rules-alleged-demise

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

"Is the long-running 4% retirement rule about to go the way of the dodo bird? Some industry experts think so, pointing to stocks’ high valuations today as cause for lower market returns tomorrow, thus requiring retirees to update their spending plans. But we think this makes an awful lot out of one academic exercise—and falls prey to classic fallacies. We think planning retirement cash flows requires more nuance than simply using rules, but the general premise is well worth exploring.

The 4% rule holds that a diversified portfolio can support withdrawals of 4% of the starting value annually, adjusted for inflation, without premature depletion. Yet a recent Morningstar analysis purportedly called this into question. When running Monte Carlo simulations (which combine thousands of results across stocks and bonds to calculate the probability that a given asset allocation will support a given cash flow rate), they found that in a quarter of simulations, a half-stock, half-bond portfolio depleted within 30 years if withdrawals stayed at 4%. Most coverage attached some alarm bells to this, but we see a few caveats.

One, if a quarter of simulations ran out of money, that means three-fourths of them didn’t, rendering a roughly 75% probability of not outliving the assets. Two, a modest failure rate isn’t exactly a breaking development. You can see this for yourself in Fisher Investments Founder and Executive Chair Ken Fisher’s 2013 book, Plan Your Prosperity. In it, there are a handful of similar simulations modeling how different asset allocations could support various withdrawal rates over 30 years—at a time when stock valuations were theoretically more favorable than they are now. There was no 4% simulation, but there was one for 5%, and it showed a 78.2% probability of avoiding depletion within 30 years—and, on average, portfolios supported 28.8 years of withdrawals. There are always risks and unknowns in investing, but we aren’t inclined to buy the this time is different argument we have seen since this report broke.

The Morningstar report also states, “Because of the confluence of low starting yields on bonds and equity valuations that are high relative to historical norms, retirees are unlikely to receive returns that match those in the past.”[ii] This advances the fallacy that high valuations imply stocks are “expensive” and may be nearing a peak, raising the risk of portfolio depletion due largely to the sequencing of returns. If you have cash flow needs, taking out money during a bear market means having less invested in stocks when a new bull market begins, potentially handicapping long-term returns. This is a common concern and one that has inspired some seemingly clever approaches—most of which ignore the time value of money—but we digress.

However, valuations aren’t market peak signals. They are backward-looking and reflect what just happened, not what is to come. Consider: Some widely watched valuation metrics (e.g., the trailing 12-month price-to-earnings [P/E] ratio) have actually come down in recent months, due largely to the denominator (earnings) growing faster than the numerator (price). Earnings skew can lead to extreme readings, but it isn’t telling about stocks’ direction. Go back 12 years, near the end of the 2007 – 2009 bear market. The financial crisis decimated earnings, which started showing up in the denominator in late 2008—and remained there for the next year or so. When a new bull market began in March 2009, rising prices sent the P/E skyrocketing. It was a math quirk, not an omen. (Exhibit 1)

Exhibit 1: Valuations Aren’t Leading Indicators


Source: Global Financial Data, Inc., as of 11/16/2021. S&P 500 12-Month Trailing P/E, monthly, January 1925 – October 2021.

There also isn’t much evidence weak long-term returns follow high valuations. October’s trailing P/E was 28.63, a level seen only in the late 1990s and early 1930s—not a huge data sample.[iii] But that 1931 breach happened when stocks were already well into the 1929 – 1932 bear market, again illustrating the denominator’s impact on the P/E calculation. Moreover, the S&P 500’s 30-year forward total return was 1543.7% cumulative, or 9.8% annualized—in line with the index’s long-term average annualized return of 10.2%.[iv] Obviously, we don’t have 30-year returns from 1998 yet, but thus far, the S&P 500’s cumulative return from 1998 to 2021 is 484.9% (8.0% annualized)—lower than average, but not alarmingly so, in our view.[v] Broadening the data sample, there are 290 months since good S&P 500 data begin in 1925 when the S&P 500’s trailing P/E exceeded 20. The median forward 30-year return is 1809.8% (10.3% annualized) while the median forward 20-year return is 356.5% (7.9% annualized).[vi] While past returns aren’t predictive, history suggests “expensive” stocks don’t automatically signal trouble looms for those seeking modest regular cash flows.

Which brings us to the second big hole: basing a projection on a 50/50 portfolio. Regardless of valuations, a 50/50 portfolio will generally have a lower expected long-term return than a 70/30 portfolio—or one 100% allocated to stocks. Exhibit 2 shows the cumulative growth of $1 million in three different asset allocations (50% stocks/50% bonds, 70% stocks/30% bonds and 100% stocks) from 1990 – 2020, a period that included the 1990s boom, two brutal bear markets and one of history’s best expansions in the 2010s. This projection also includes annual withdrawals of 4% of the starting portfolio value, adjusted annually for inflation.

Exhibit 2: Cumulative Growth of $1 Million With 4% Annual Withdrawals, 1990 – 2020


Source: Global Financial Data, Inc., as of 11/18/2021. Average annualized rate of return for S&P 500 Total Return Index and USA 10-Year Government Bond Index, based on monthly returns and rebalanced annually, 12/31/1990 – 12/31/2020. Annual inflation rate of 3.0% based on US CPI, January 1926 – December 2020.

In our view, a 50/50 portfolio isn’t right for everyone, as investors’ asset allocation depends on their specific investment goals, time horizon, cash flow needs, comfort with volatility and other personal factors. Bonds are less volatile in the short term but have lower long-term returns. Stocks are more volatile in the short run but have higher long-term returns that vary less from long-term averages than bonds’. There is a tradeoff between the two. More bonds means less expected short-term volatility, but it comes at the expense of limited return potential. In Plan Your Prosperity, that same 5% simulation showed a 50/50 portfolio had a 44.3% probability of having a balance greater than $1 million past 30 years—lower than the 54.5% for 70/30 and 58.7% for 100% equity.[vii]

A 50/50 portfolio might be most beneficial for those who require cash flow now to fund daily needs and have a shorter time horizon. For them, equity-like short-term volatility may be counterproductive. People with longer time horizons have more time to reap stocks’ long-term returns, and that growth can be key to supporting cash flow needs over time. Portfolio growth can help offset money you take out, buttressing your principal. It also can prepare you financially for the greater cash flow needs that can loom late in life, when medical expenses often soar.

What is right for you personally will depend on your circumstances. If you are age 65 today and have even just an average life expectancy—which is presently about 17 additional years for males and nearly 20 more years for females—along with modest cash flow needs in the neighborhood of 4%, then you will probably find that a 50% weighting in bonds is counterproductive for you.[viii] If a bear market strikes, you remain invested and your once-modest cash flow needs risk representing a larger share of your portfolio value, there are steps you can take on the fly to mitigate the impact. Reducing non-discretionary expenses is one. Keeping some projected distributions in cash, insulated from market volatility, is another. You can also prepare in advance by resisting the temptation to increase your withdrawals during big positive bull market years, as we think it is important to stay disciplined and keep future needs in mind.

There is no silver bullet for investors, and no one investing approach is foolproof. However, we think you can increase your probability of success by identifying the strategy with the highest likelihood of helping you reach your investing goals—and accepting the tradeoffs—while maintaining as much flexibility as your situation allows. Rather than marry general rules of thumb like the 4% rule, we think investors must dive deeper to figure out the plan that works best for them."

MY COMMENT

AMEN...to the last paragraph. the key no matter what you do in retirement will be......DISCIPLINE. Unfortunately....very few people will be able to pull off money management in retirement. But...they will get by....just like people always have. They will adapt to what they have. I believe it would be an EXTREMELY RARE person that can.......actually......follow the 4% rule through retirement. Especially, the adjusting for inflation and sticking with and not exceeding the 4%.

The main thing for those nearing retirement is to start thinking and planing at least FIVE YEARS before it happens.