Some nice earnings above from GOOG yesterday. Next week: MSFT, META (Wednesday, April 30) AAPL,AMZN (Thursday, May 1) BRK-B(A) (Friday, May 2)---WB has had a positive year in all the noise at +17.85% Not making any endorsements on BRK, just noting the positive performance so far this year.
Some posts back there was a brief discussion on TSLA and India. I probably wouldn't have even noticed this story if it weren't for that brief discussion. The below was a recent earnings report on TaTa Technologies. India has Tata Technologies and TaTa Motor. That could be some of the reason they might want to protect some of their market from TSLA entering. Although, they could work out something according to some earlier reports. I think I had seen a line or two where Elon had mentioned it. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/indias-tata-technologies-misses-revenue-123310154.html
Siting and watching and waiting. We are seeing the usual profit taking off the recent gains today. No doubt in the general markets and also in GOOGL. We will know in about an hour or two what the real market direction is today.
EXACTLY what you would expect. My question is......where were all the so called "experts" quoted in the media and elsewhere....calling this report? I dont remember very many speaking out....compared to the dire predictions. Google stock rises after it beats on earnings, raises dividend, and authorizes $70 billion in buybacks https://finance.yahoo.com/news/goog...horizes-70-billion-in-buybacks-192027323.html
WELL...being about half way through my market open review of content and articles....I see that much of the fear-mongering has disappeared today. Much of the content that I am seeing so far today is actually focused on investing, earnings, and other actual fundamental based topics. A THROWBACK to how the financial media used to be.....at least for one day. How refreshing.
Well having just skimmed CNBC....I may have spoken too soon above. BUT.....whatever. In the end......especially beyond the short term.....the markets dont care what the opinion media thinks.
I am starting the day with only three stocks in the GREEN.....but....they are big drivers for my portfolio....NVDA, PLTR, and GOOGL. I have not looked but I believe my entire stock portfolio is in the green thanks to those three holdings. Now lets add a few more as the day progresses.
IBM....still a big company....but not one that particularly matters. They are a great example of how a TOTALLY DOMINANT company can quickly lose relevance. In the 1970's and 1980's IBM was KING. They totally dominated the tech field as well as consumer and business electronics......from typewriters to computers. Every business used the IBM Selectric typewriter. In my business we had numerous IBM Selectric typewriters as well as a TWO $25,000 IBM Displaywriter word processing systems. This was state of the art stuff in the early 1980's. I went with this system partly due to the fact that it had one of the only printers that held different sizes of paper and envelopes all at once with no changing of paper being necessary. So it was a big productivity driver in business. I bought the system in about 1981. It was a great system but by about 1990....at the latest.... was totally obsolete. We switched to PC's for word processing in about 1990. "The IBM 6580 Displaywriter System is a 16-bit microcomputer that was marketed and sold by IBM's Office Products Division primarily as a word processor. Announced on June 17, 1980[1][2] and effectively withdrawn from marketing on July 2, 1986,[3] the system was sold with a 5 MHz Intel 8086, 128 KB to 448 KB of RAM, a swivel-mounted monochrome CRT monitor, a detached keyboard, a detached 8" floppy disk drive enclosure with one or two drives, and a detached daisy wheel printer, or Selectric typewriter printer." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Displaywriter_System A single business decision changed everything. The management at IBM TOTALLY misunderstood what would drive and control the PC business when they gave the operating system contract to an unknown company......if you can even call them a company at that point....MSFT. Within 10 years MSFT was KING and IBM was kicked to the curb. A perfect example of how a single decision by management can gut a business....even one of the most dominant business in the USA. IBM Stock Falls. Earnings Just Weren’t Strong Enough. https://finance.yahoo.com/m/4c51392d-c710-349a-9e32-a4228f0c936e/ibm-stock-falls-earnings.html Like a lot of people....I HATED IBM.....their sales people were so ARROGANT. When we were shopping for the Displaywriters....they would hardly give us the time of day. That was a $50,000 sale in 1981.....but to them we were hardly worth the effort. NO discounts from them....it was take it or leave it.....we dont care. BUT....I bought from them because their equipment and printers were the best.....by far.
STILL waiting for market direction today. Not much content out there....everyone may have burned themselves out in the media with the FRENZY of the past few weeks. We may simply see a NOTHING day today.....as the market sits back and evaluates what happened over the past four days and pauses for a day heading into the weekend and a new week.
I LIKE what I am seeing in the SP500 and NASDAQ right now....nicely green. We now have the West Coast fully awake and on board for the day.....I am talking about the little people......the retail investors out West. LETS GO.......SOMEONE MOVE THESE MARKETS FURTHER UP.
My TECH companies are making a move right now. I have improved to FIVE green stocks. COST, HD, WMT.....are all red as is AAPL.
This is really FANTASY stuff with no real basis in economic reality.....but.....it is out there today so here you go. US consumer sentiment remains weak in April on tariffs concerns https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-consumer-sentiment-remains-weak-144618115.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) :WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. consumer sentiment ebbed for a fourth straight month in April amid concerns about the economic impact of tariffs. The University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said on Friday its Consumer Sentiment Index came in at 52.2 this month. While that was an improvement from a reading of 50.8 two weeks ago, the index was down sharply from 57.0 in March. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the final index reading unchanged at 50.8. "Consumers perceived risks to multiple aspects of the economy, in large part due to ongoing uncertainty around trade policy and the potential for a resurgence of inflation looming ahead," said Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu. "Labor market expectations remained bleak. Even more concerning for the path of the economy, consumers anticipated weaker income growth for themselves in the year ahead." Consumers' 12-month inflation expectations came in at 6.5%, down from 6.7% earlier this month and up from 5.0% in March. Inflation expectations were still the highest since 1981 and April marked the fourth consecutive month of unusually large rises of 0.5 percentage points or more. "Inflation expectations evolved with major trade policy announcements this month," said Hsu. "After the April 9 partial pause in tariff increases, inflation expectations ebbed but remained substantially elevated relative to March." Long-run inflation expectations increased to 4.4%, unchanged from two weeks ago but up from 4.1% in March. The jump in expectations was among Independents." MY COMMENT A meaningless survey. Probably one of the last things I would ever consider as an investor. I note that this result is actually an.....IMPROVEMENT. I also note that this survey weakness has been happening for four months now....starting way before the current tariff drama. I will also note that the last CPI and PPI inflation data a few weeks ago......did NOT support these survey results at all. Inflation dropped.......confusing all the "experts and predictictors".
My take on politics is that it matters a whole lot for trading and matters very little for a long term investor. I understand it's a hot button for a majority of people but talking about price fluctuations every day while actively avoiding all things political strikes me foolish. Do you suppose recent market swings have any relation to tariffs? Do you suppose the tariffs have anything to do with politics? St some point, the emperor is swinging pipe. As best I can tell, being a successful trader would require being objective about politics. Nearly no one is objective about politics. Not all market swings are political but it's a massive factor. On the other hand, it's a whole lot easier to be objective about the politics in another country. This is why I've been looking at overseas markets, lately. That, and I've lost confidence in North American markets on the long term. NA markets could well be great for the rest of my life. It wouldn't surprise me at all. It's just a matter of no longer being certain of market prosperity.
I am going to add a link to an interview that was conducted by TIME titled "100 Days" which was conducted on April 22nd at the White House. However, I wanted to make some points before doing so. The link contains a transcript of that interview and I believe the audio as well. The interview was obviously with our president and covered a wide range of topics as they near his first "100" days in office. Very soon within the transcript they began asking directly about information regarding the tariffs. This portion is what I was interested in. Fair warning....there are a wide variety of issues discussed a bit later in this interview....none of which have anything to do with tariffs. It would not be appropriate, in my opinion, to copy and paste the whole interview in this thread. My purpose was the conversation/answers to the tariffs only. Since our president is the author of this plan, I am interested in what he had to say about that and if any insight was offered about what we are doing. The rest of the "stuff" would be for another place and time....not here. I figured others might be interested in some of the questions and answers. I know it gave me some insight into why consumers, companies, and other countries are dealing with uncertainty and unpredictability in regards to the tariffs. https://time.com/7280114/donald-trump-2025-interview-transcript/
All that transcript told me is we have a man who has no idea how tariffs, global trade, and business supply chains work. He's had decades to figure out the errors in his rhetoric, and he won't evolve. It's sad. Again, if he wants to take the victim stance, he better start looking at the global conglomerates who pushed for this in the first place. He then needs to start looking at the average American consumer who is addicted to upgrading, overspending, and flat out refuses to pay extra for stuff not made in China. We are a consumer and services economy. THAT IS WHY WE HAVE TRADE IMBALANCE!!! We have the IP and they have the grunt work. Whether or not he likes the result is immaterial. We did this to ourselves. I read a comment that I found to be very profound but kind of inflammatory to a site like this: Many of the problems we face are a result of profit chasing in the stock market. We, as a nation, only care one quarterly report at a time, long term implications be damned. I suspect that many of us long term investors find a lot of truth in this. We are not the drivers of economic policy however. Tough situations call for tough evaluation and not a political scapegoat.
Amen, RtN. Amen. It's not surprising that Trump doesn't understand but people controlling fiscal policy don't seem to understand. They make big moves, it causes big problems, and they are surprised when their ideas fail. But hey, they've got that PhD on the wall... I consider global and national economic policy to be as objectively taught at Universities as any genre under the umbrella of religion. The subject is not knowable in it's entirety and yet, everyone believes they have full knowledge and they know they are right. The thing that baffles me more than anything is, how do things work as well as they do?
You know, when you think about it. It is amazing and quite possibly nothing short of a miracle....or magic...something.
A very good day to end a very good week in the markets. I was up nicely most of the day......and....also got a nice late day SURG in my account in the last 20 to 30 minutes of the day. I ended with seven of nine stocks UP. the downers were HD and WMT. I also got in a very nice beat on the SP500 today by 1.47%. KILLER day and week for me.
The week that was: DOW year to date (-5.71%) DOW five days +2.48% SP500 year to date (-6.06%) SP500 five days +4.59% NASDAQ 100 year to date (-7.56%) NASDAQ 100 five days +6.41% NASDAQ year to date (-9.98%) NASDAQ five days +6.73% RUSSELL 2000 year to date (-12.16%) RUSSELL 2000 five days +4.06% As I said a KILLER week. For my entire portfolio I am now at year to date.....(-8.22%). A significant improvement from the last week or two. I did not post weekly results last Friday but I see from a post that I was in fact at (-13.8%) for my entire portfolio on last Friday.
