I like......my own......phrase a few posts above as a description of what is driving the markets right now. The phrase is a contradiction. "OPAQUE NOISE" Sounds like a band name. ( I see that there is a long time band "Opaque" that is UK based and does......indie alternative gypsy swing. Now that is a real musical mouthful........Indie....Alternative....Gypsy....Swing. Sounds interesting.) YES......still IGNORING the markets today as they continue to make a come-back. I continue to make progress with NOW......FIVE.....yes....FIVE.....stocks in the green.....HD, WMT, GOOGL, AAPL, and MSFT.
I am looking forward to my COSTCO earnings later today. They do actually matter....in spite of how the market reacts to even earnings good earnings BEATS.
An easy report for me today.....ALL RED. Plus a loss to the SP500 by 1.68%. The IDIOCY continues as the market continues to take my money....on paper.
No doubt this will lead to PUNISHMENT tomorrow. Costco reports mixed second-quarter earnings https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/06/costco-cost-q2-2025-earnings.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points Costco’s fiscal second-quarter results missed on earnings but beat on revenue. Net sales for the quarter totaled $62.53 billion. Comparable sales for the quarter rose 6.8% year over year. Costco on Thursday reported an earnings miss, but beat expectations for revenue for the second quarter. Here’s how the wholesale company did compared with what Wall Street was expecting for the quarter ended Feb. 16, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: Earnings per share: $4.02 vs. $4.11 expected Revenue: $63.72 billion vs. $63.13 billion expected Second-quarter revenue increased 9% to $63.72 billion, from $58.44 billion during the same quarter in fiscal 2024. Net sales for the quarter rose 9.1% to $62.53 billion, compared to $57.33 billion in the year-ago period. Costco reported a net income for the second quarter of $1.79 billion, or $4.02 per share, compared with a net income of $1.74 billion, or $3.92 per share, during the second quarter of fiscal 2024. Quarterly comparable sales, which Costco defines as sales from warehouses and e-commerce sites open for more than a year, rose 6.8% year over year, and 8.3% in the U.S. Comparable sales for e-commerce rose 20.9% year over year." HERE is more Costco beats quarterly sales estimates on bulk buying surge, misses profit estimates https://finance.yahoo.com/news/costco-beats-quarterly-sales-estimates-212141652.html MY COMMENT I would call this a MILD MISS or a general BEAT since everything but EPS was a BEAT. EVERYONE MUST......BE PUNISHED.
If you care to review the past......and the insanity....here you go. Having just liv3ed it I dont care to comment one way or another.....since I have nothing nice to say about the current markets. Nasdaq enters correction, S&P 500 sinks to lowest since November as stocks get clobbered on Trump tariff whiplash https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live...bered-on-trump-tariff-whiplash-210544344.html
A little reminder for long term investors. KEEP IN MIND.....we are NOT currently in a market crash. We are simply in a typical correction. What We’ve Learned From 150 Years of Stock Market Crashes Though they varied in length and severity, the market always recovered and went on to new highs. https://www.morningstar.com/economy/what-weve-learned-150-years-stock-market-crashes (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "This month marks five years since the covid market downturn. Though the initial downturn on March 9, 2020, was dramatic—the US stock market lost nearly 8% in one day—the US stock market ultimately recovered from that crash in just four months, making it the fastest recovery of any market crash over the past 150 years. Not even two years later, the stock market experienced a worse downturn: The market took 4 times as long (18 months) to recover from the crash of December 2021, spurred by the Russia-Ukraine war, intense inflation, and supply shortages. So, with these recent market crashes behind us, what have we learned? It’s impossible to predict how long a stock market recovery will take. If you don’t panic and sell your stock holdings when the market crashes, you will be rewarded in the long run. The covid crash and the Ukraine/inflation downturn may be the freshest memories, but these lessons also ring true when it comes to all other historical market crashes: Though they had varying lengths and levels of severity, the market always recovered and went on to new highs. Here’s what we’ve learned from the market declines of the past 150 years. How Frequent Are Market Crashes? The number of market crashes depends on how far back we go in history and how we identify them. Paul Kaplan compiled for the book Insights into the Global Financial Crisis. Kaplan’s data includes monthly US stock market returns going back to January 1886 and annual returns over the period from 1871-1885. In the chart below, each bear-market episode is indicated with a horizontal line, which starts at the episode’s peak cumulative value and ends when the cumulative value recovers to the previous peak. (Note that we use the term “market crash” interchangeably with bear market, which is generally defined as a decline of 20% or more.) When you incorporate the effect of inflation, one dollar (in 1870 US dollars) invested in a hypothetical US stock market index in 1871 would have grown to $31,255 by the end of January 2025. The substantial growth of that $1 highlights the enormous benefits of staying invested for the long term. Still, it was far from a steady increase over that period. There were 19 market crashes along the way, with varying levels of severity. Some of the most severe market crashes have included: The Great Depression, which began with the crash of 1929. This 79% stock market loss was the worst drop of the past 150 years. The Lost Decade, which included both the dot-com bubble burst and the Great Recession. Though the market began recovering after the dot-com bubble burst, it didn’t climb back to its previous level before the crash of 2007-09. It didn’t reach that level until May 2013—more than 12 years after the initial crash. This period, the second-worst drop of the past 150 years, ultimately included a stock market loss of 54%. Inflation, Vietnam, and Watergate, which began in early 1973 and ultimately led to a stock market decline of 51.9%. Factors that contributed to this bear market include civil unrest related to the war in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal, in addition to high inflation from the OPEC oil embargo. This market downturn is particularly relevant to today’s environment, given issues like the recent inflation surge and the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars. These examples demonstrate the frequency of market crashes. Though these events are significant at the moment, they are indeed regularly occurring events that happen approximately once a decade. What does this history tell us about navigating volatile markets? Mainly, that they’re worth navigating. How to Measure the Pain of a Market Crash How do you evaluate a market crash’s severity? That’s what Kaplan’s “pain index” measures. This framework considers both the degree of the decline and how long it took to get back to the prior level of cumulative value. Here’s how it works: The pain index is the ratio of the area between the cumulative value line and the peak-to-recovery line, compared with that area for the worst market decline since 1870. That is, the crash of 1929/first part of the Great Depression has a pain index of 100%, and the other market crashes’ percentages represent how closely they matched that level of severity. For example, consider that the market suffered a 22.8% drop around the Cuban missile crisis. The crash of 1929 led to a 79% drop, which is 3.5 times greater. That’s already significant, but also consider that the market took four and a half years to recover after that trough, while it took less than a year to recover after the trough of the Cuban missile crisis. So, taking this time frame into account, the pain index conveys that the first part of the Great Depression was 28.2 times worse than the Cuban missile crisis downturn. The table below lists the bear markets of the past 150 years, sorted by the severity of market decline, and including its pain index. As you can see, the market downturn of December 2021 (resulting from the Russia-Ukraine war, intense inflation, and supply shortages) ranks 11th on this list. By comparing this market crash to the other ones on the table, we see that the 28.5% stock market decline over that nine-month period was more painful for the stock market than the Cuban missile crisis and several downturns of the late 1800s/early 1900s. And the covid crash of March 2020 was actually the least painful of these 19 crashes, due to the quick subsequent recovery. Though the downturn was sharp and severe (a 19.6% decline over roughly a month), the stock market ultimately recovered to its previous level a mere four months later. 5 Most Severe Market Crashes of the Past 150 Years To better evaluate the impact of some of the most severe downturns of the past 150 years, let’s follow the path of $100 at the beginning of each market crash. World War I and Influenza. After peaking in June 1911, markets soon started falling due to the breakups of conglomerates like the Standard Oil Company and the American Tobacco Company—and the worst part of this downturn began when World War I broke out in July 1914. The stock market continued to decline over the next few years (bringing that $100 investment down to a value of $49.04) and didn’t recover until after the 1918 influenza pandemic. 1929 Crash and Great Depression. If you invested $100 in the stock market at the time of the 1929 crash, it would have declined in value to $21 by May 1932. This crash occurred when the post-World War I economic boom (which led to overconfidence, overspending, and overinflation of prices) was eventually no longer sustainable—a downturn from which the market took more than four years to recover. Great Depression and World War II. The recovery from the first part of the Great Depression didn’t last long. Though the stock market recovered to its 1929 high by November 1936 (meaning that our investment had recovered to its $100 value, and even slightly ticked up to $100.23), it started declining again in February 1937. This next decline was largely owed to President Franklin Roosevelt’s changes in fiscal policy, including factors like the contraction in banks’ reserve levels and the Social Security tax, which compounded with the impact of World War II. The investment sank to $52.49 in March 1938, and eventually recovered to $104.88 by February 1945. Inflation, Vietnam, and Watergate. In 1973, Middle Eastern members of OPEC imposed an oil embargo on the US, which led to severe inflation. On top of turmoil around the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam and political uncertainty after the Watergate scandal, this period saw a 51.9% stock market decline—which would have brought a $100 investment down to $48.13. It took more than nine years to recover from this downturn. Lost Decade (Dot-Com Bust and Global Financial Crisis). The dot-com bust began when overinflated prices in Internet and technology companies hit a breaking point, losing nearly all the gains they had previously made. A $100 investment in August 2000 would have declined in value to $52.76. Seven years later, the stock market had almost gotten back to its previous level ($95.25) when the housing bubble burst and mortgage-backed securities began experiencing losses, leading to the Great Recession (in which the investment declined in value to $46). Altogether, this 12-year period included a 54% decline. The market ultimately recovered from the Great Recession in May 2013, but still to come was the covid market crash and the downturn of late 2021. There were also several shorter, less severe market declines over these 150 years. Consider the Rich Man’s Panic, caused by President Theodore Roosevelt’s attempt to break up large companies. Or the Baring Brothers Crisis: Barings Bank’s numerous investments in Argentina suffered when the nation faced a coup in 1891. Yet even with those blips along the way, $100 invested at the beginning of the new millennium would be worth more than $300 as of January 2025. If that $100 had been invested back in 1870, it would be worth $3,125,500 today. Lessons Learned About Navigating Stock Market Volatility So, what does this history tell us about navigating volatile markets? Mainly, that they’re worth navigating. After a couple stressful months in the first half of 2020, the markets recovered—just as they did after a 79% decline in the early 1930s. And that’s the point: Market crashes always feel scary when they happen, but there’s no way to know in the moment if you’re encountering a minor correction or looking down the barrel of the next Great Depression. Still, even if you are looking down the barrel of the next Great Depression, history shows us that the market eventually recovers. But since the path to recovery is so uncertain, the best way to be prepared is by owning a well-diversified portfolio that fits your time horizon and risk tolerance. Investors who stay invested in the market in the long run will reap rewards that make the turmoil worthwhile." MY COMMENT There are some really good charts in this article that make it worth clicking on the link. No......I do NOT think we are anywhere near a market crash right now. What we are now seeing is a little correction....that i think "could" generally last till perhaps April or May. BUT....who knows.....it is simply impossible to anticipate how long any correction will last. Many of us on this thread invested through COVID and the 2021 bear market......so....this little blip is no big deal. As for me.......I have held through EVERY market crash since the early 1970's......except for the 2008/2009 potential world wide banking collapse event. Every event I have held through has sooner or later resulted in new all time highs. So.....I will simply do nothing during this little correction and stick with......PROBABILITY.
Here is the economic news of the day.....as usual lately the data is SOFT......hopefully the FED is paying attention. February jobs report: US labor market adds 151,000 jobs, unemployment rate ticks up to 4.1% https://finance.yahoo.com/news/febr...employment-rate-ticks-up-to-41-205159005.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "The February jobs report out Friday offered few surprises for investors, with job gains increasing slightly and the unemployment rate rising to 4.1% amid heightened investor fears over the trajectory of the US labor market and the broader economy. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday showed 151,000 new jobs were created in February, less than the 160,000 expected by economists but more than the 125,000 seen in January. The unemployment rate rose to 4.1% from 4% in the prior month. January's monthly job gains were revised lower from a previous reading of 143,000. With the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) job cuts in focus, federal government employment declined by 10,000 in February. RSM chief economist Joe Brusuelas told Yahoo Finance the February jobs report was a "Goldilocks" print. "We know that over the next three to six months, we're going to see some of the disruptive effects in Washington start to show up in both the economy and in the labor market," Brusuelas said. "But for now, what this tells us is that we really only need to add about 100,000 to 150,000 jobs a month to keep employment stable. That's exactly what happened." Wage growth, an important measure for gauging inflation pressures, rose 4% over the prior year in February, down from the 4.1% seen in January. On a monthly basis, wages increased 0.3%, below the 0.4% seen the prior month. Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate fell to 62.4% from the 62.6% seen in January. "The upshot is that the labour market remains in decent shape and should be able to weather the DOGE-related cull of federal government employees, although we will have to wait until next month to assess the damage," Capital Economics North America economist Thomas Ryan wrote in a note to clients. The report comes during a week full of whipsaw market action, as investors have digested a string of weaker-than-expected economic data and a consistent flow of tariff headlines from President Trump that have muddled the growth outlook. On Thursday, the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) officially entered a correction, as the index is now more than 10% off its mid-December record close, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) closed at its lowest level of the year. Market bets on Federal Reserve interest cuts moved little following Friday's release while the three major stock indexes were up slightly. Investors are still pricing in three interest rate cuts for this year, above the range of one or two seen last month, per Bloomberg Data." MY COMMENT Lets hope the FED does their job....even though they have a history of actually causing recessions ratheer than preventing them. As an investor.....i dont really care about this sort of data. it is something that I NEVER consider in picking a stock or fund for the long term.
Here is a nice little basic...but important....article. With the many baby boomers now in or near retirement creating an income from a lifetime of saving and investing is a very important topic......and a very difficult one for many people. The Best Ways to Generate Income in Retirement How does an income-centric approach compare with a total return strategy? https://www.morningstar.com/retirement/best-ways-generate-income-retirement
If you are more into historical and academic discussion here you go. Economic insights https://scottsumner.substack.com/p/economic-insights
I see a LOT of politics behind many of the little day to day articles in the financial media. Much of it is very subtle....but it is still there. It is hard at the moment to find much about investing that does NOT include content about short term political events and the government. We now live in the world of constant politics and constant political posturing and spin disguised as fact. Why it pays to keep your political opinions away from your money Even skilled stock-fund managers lose when politics and investing mix https://www.marketwatch.com/story/k...nions-away-from-your-money-cdaf3e91?st=myxYwj (BOLD is my opinion ORR what I consider important content) "You have to try especially hard these days not to let your political affiliation impact your portfolio. But it’s worth the effort. When the presidency is held by a member of your favored political party, you most likely will have great confidence in the economy’s health and the stock market’s outlook, and accordingly you will tend to have a high equity exposure level. Just the opposite is the case when your political party is not in the White House. The difference is stark, as you can see from the chart above. Notice that prior to the November 2020 election, Republicans on average were far more optimistic about the U.S. economy than Democrats. This reversed dramatically after that election, and over the subsequent four years the Democrats consistently were more optimistic. After last November’s election the pattern reversed itself yet again. Recently the University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment among Republicans stood at 86.7, versus 51.3 among Democrats. It was the mirror opposite last October, the month before the election, when among Republicans the index stood at 53.6 and among Democrats it was 91.4. The truth presumably is somewhere in the middle. I’ve made this point before when writing about political polarization’s impact on our investment decisions, and my observations were widely misunderstood. So let me be clear. I’m not saying that different economic policies don’t have differential impacts. Nor am I saying that the economy and the stock market will perform no differently under President Donald Trump than if his Democratic challenger Kalama Harris had won. What I am saying is subtly different: If investors were objective rather than biased by our political polarization, there would be no average difference between the forecasts of Democrats and Republicans. In this world of political objectivity, there still would be wide disagreements about the likely impacts of different policies. But those differences would not be systematically related to political affiliation. The investment antidote to political polarization is to engage with financial analysts and commentators from both political parties. Consider the results of research that Blair Vorsatz conducted for his 2022 Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago. He found that equity mutual funds performed better, on average, to the extent their management teams included both Democrats and Republicans. Homogenous teams, regardless of party affiliation, performed more poorly on average. The reason that the politically diverse teams performed better, on average, was that they were both ideologically and cognitively more flexible, according to Vorsatz. He had in mind “the absence of ideological preferences that constrain portfolio choice” and the ability “to adapt to novel or changing environments and to switch between modes of thinking.” So your goal should be to keep your economic and stock market forecast independent of your politics. The way to prevent that from happening is to get out of your echo chamber and engage with other investors and analysts of both political parties." MY COMMENT As a long term investor I do not allow ANY politics to creep into my investing. It is a killer of returns and makes people BLIND to business and financial truth. A good example......the way politics has recently impacted the purchase or a TESLA vehicle or TESLA stock.
As you can see I am generally IGNORING the short term markets again today. We opened in the green but are now moving to the red side of the scale. Typical early day.....flailing around.....by stocks, and traders. I see it in my nine stocks....with four UP and five DOWN right now. At the moment the big tech WHIPPING BOYS.....PLTR and NVDA are in the green. But.....we have a long Friday ahead of us and are no doubt looking at LOSING results this week for the markets in general. PATIENCE.....IGNORE......TRUST.
AND.....with the blink of an eye all the big averages are now green......this is the type of day we are in for......confusion and volatility and turmoil in the short term markets as they look for direction and try to overcome the massive impact of AI TRADING.
And....now we are back to a mixes market in the big averages. TOO crazy for me to even keep up. YAWN.....the insanity of the short term is just so.....BORING. Unfortunately with the overwhelming number of articles I am seeing today with political content.....the markets are disconnected from any fundamental investing data or basis. SO.....I dont have much hope for a good close today. We will probably follow along with what has been the theme this week.....RED. I hope I am wrong....but at this point....really dont actually care. I am in......sit-it-out.....mode right now. YES.....I am still riding the wave....but at the moment am caught up in a little rip tide.....that is pulling me the wrong way. No reason to struggle or try to paddle.......I just have to drift along with it all....and.....IGNORE IT ALL.
Here are a number of typical headlines that are indications of the markets being obsessed with politics lately. Well.....make that the financial writers being obsessed with politics lately. ALL of these came from the opening page of a major financial and investing site......NOT....from a general news site. If I wanted to waste my time....I could have put up a list of many, many, many, many, many, more of these sorts of headlines today. Trump's week of tariff whiplash reminds Wall Street of key lesson. Trump threatens to hit Russia with new banking sanction. Bessent: Economy may slow in 'detox' from public spending. Trump’s On-Again, Off-Again Tariff Strategy Sows Confusion. Trump creates bitcoin reserve ahead of 'crypto summit'. Breaking down president's trade moves. US trade deficit surges to new record ahead of tariff impacts.
AND.....we now have a pretty solid indication of the market direction early today.....RED......as is typical lately.
Hopefully we are settling in on a bottom here. NVDA is down roughly 28% from it's ATH. From my observation tech usually is the first to pull back but also the first to go back up in general. Time will tell.
One last comment before I give up on the markets today. To complete the circle....COST....is down by 6.3% today following the earnings mild-BEAT yesterday. The markets reflect the short term RED bias.....while analysts are much more positive. ".....the retailer reported worse-than-expected profits for the second quarter due to rising merchandising costs. Revenue beat estimates, however, and the equity still attracted no fewer than five price-target hikes, including one from Jefferies to $1,180 from $1,145. " https://www.schaeffersresearch.com/...tock-brushes-off-bull-notes-after-profit-miss
OK.....I managed to squeeze out a small GAIN today....thanks to PLTR, NVDA, GOOGL, and AAPL. BUT...I still got beat by the SP500 by....0.44%.
Another week done and gone. DOW year to date +0.97% DOW five days (-2.50%) SP500 year to date (-1.68%) SP500 five days (-3.32%) NASDAQ 100 year to date (-3.61%) NASDAQ 100 five days (-3.84%) NASDAQ year to date (-5.63%) NASDAQ five days (-5.63%) RUSSELL year to date (-7.00%) RUSSELL five days (-4.27%) OK...for me a losing week. I am not year to date for my entire portfolio.....(-6.35%). Last week I was at year to date for my entire portfolio.....(-1.41%). BUMMER.....but moving forward.
