Here is how we ended the week. S&P 500 notches 5-day win streak, Nasdaq gains 7% for week as Wall Street shakes off trade war worries https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live...t-shakes-off-trade-war-worries-200047210.html
Well my trades for 100 shares of WMT and 100 shares of NVDA yesterday morning (5-15-25).....at about the low of the day.... are doing just fine. WMT shares up by....4.86%. NVDA shares up by....1.22%. Now I set those shares free....they are kicked out of the nest....now they have to fly on their own. Fly little birds fly.....go out and bring me back some money.
This is why I rarely believe anything with the media or financial media anymore. They are all too busy serving some type of narrative. I am in the same boat as W....I really could not care less, but when I see or hear the claims and narrative, sometimes it sparks me to seek the truth. The above "Business Show" must be in some sort of business, but it is apparently not serving viewers with a unbiased view and have some other motive of serving. Here is a link and break down of the "Michigan Surveys" from U of M if interested. https://data.sca.isr.umich.edu/fetchdoc.php?docid=78607 I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would allow "politics" as a whole determine their investing. Secondly, why anyone would believe that any politician, regardless of party, is the sole determining factor in whether they were going to be successful or on the short end of the stick in life. Saving, living within your means, maintaining good employment, steady contributions, and a reasonable long term financial plan is the source and foundation of a comfortable retirement. None of the morons in political office....past, present, or future are the key to any of your success or failure. They serve one group.....lobbyists. It still amazes me to this day how many people give credit or disdain for their personal situations to politicians. Sure, their are some dumb policies out there, but this is true at any given time and any "party." I personally, have survived them all, and there have been some really dumb ones throughout history. I owe absolutely nothing to politicians in regard to my own plan or place in life. Okay, I am giving another sermon and did not mean to get off the topic. The point is....be careful out there. The news media and financial media are not serving the long term folks. It is essential rat poison to long term success. Politicians....well, if you need me to convince you that they are not serving your interests....it is simply too late and you likely should throw in the towel at this point. And sorry W...my message is attached to your post, I am not referring to you personally....I just went off on a sermon at the same time.
On another topic that does matter. We had a solid week and a clean sweep. I added to the green side that I had crossed over from earlier and am building to the positive side nicely. I'm sure others are too. It is nice to be positive YTD. It has a nice effect not only to our portfolio's, but also just in the mind game of investing....LOL. We just keep slugging it out against the odds. That is about all we can do and sometimes....that is simply enough.
Yup. It's all propaganda to serve the interests of those at the top. Regular Joe: Panic, sell, lose. Oligarch: Instill panic, buy, win.
Yes, for sure. We are surrounded by it. There is a reason that financial media has taken over and is very popular. It is so easy to spot anymore. I often wonder just how many folks fall for it and ruin their journey to wealth. The constant articles are either fear and panic or pumping a particular stock or stocks. It’s both of those narratives that are simply just taking people to the cleaners. Some of the articles in this thread are so blatantly obvious pumping, fear, or just mind numbing dumb in investing. WXYZ puts many of them up as examples to also expose them. It is amazing how much of it is out there. Most are not keys to long term success, but are continually encouraging people to do something. Often this is the worst possible thing to do, but it makes the big boys very wealthy.
Although we now that the little retail investor.....the regular Joe.... does NOT panic, does NOT trade or market time, is long term.......they have been buying the dips for a long, long, time. See the article that I posted a few pages back.
I just EDITED my total portfolio year to date in my Friday market summary post. I looked at my account and it was actually......+2.35%.
I....."think"...I finally found some info on the make up of the Michigan Consumer Sentiment poll. This is for April 2025: "“Partisan views now dominate consumers’ economic expectations,” states a UMich survey report issued in January 2022. “Unfortunately, the size of the partisan divide in expectations has completely dominated rational assessments of ongoing economic trends. This situation is likely to encourage poor decisions by consumers and policy makers alike.”" The quote above is from the January 2022 Michigan Survey "report"....my "quotation" marks are the second ones. This is from the article regarding April 2025: "In the latest report for April, the sentiment index (on a scale of 100, set in 1966) was at 81.9 for Republicans and at only 34.1 for Democrats; the “index of consumer expectations” was even more widely divergent, at 86.3 for Republicans and a lowly 24.0 for Democrats."...... "In the April survey, consumers said their inflation expectations had leapt to 6.7%, up from 4.9% in March, when Democrats predicted 6.5% inflation and Republicans saw only 0.1% — an enormous gap in outlook. Independents were at 4.4%." AND....partly from Michigan and from the article: "One private equity firm, Thomas J. Lee’s Fundstrat, argues that 57% of respondents are Democrats, which would skew the results in an anti-Trump way. “I don’t know where they get that number from,” said UMich’s Hsu. “Our largest group is the independents.” In the April survey, 34% of the base was Democrat, 24% Republican, and 42% independent, based on a three-month moving average, she said. Since 2017, the response has been 21%-30% Republican and 25%-36% Democrat, with independents in between." And....importantly the "margin of error".....April 2025 poll had a "margin of error" of......6%. https://ricochet.com/1810570/view-consumer-sentiment-surveys-skeptically/ MY COMMENT This is why I dont care to talk about politics on this thread or much in real life. This is also why this sort of poll data is WORTHLESS. Look at the HUGE gap between what members of both parties tell the poll above.....and...together they make up 58% of the people being polled. This must have a MASSIVE impact on the data. In addition the poll has a margin of error of 6%....that is a HUGE margin of error. The differences based on politics in April of 2025 when looking at "Inflation Expectations" was....Democrats 6.5%....Republicans 0.1%. BOTH....are WORTHLESS....way out of line with reality. Basically this "stuff" is WORTHLESS....nothing more than sensationalistic ammunition for media sites. IGNORE IT ALL.
Yeah, I think it is a good example of what most media now does. They simply cannot let the facts stand on their own. They rarely even publish any actual report, but they will gladly fill the space with their own biased narrative regularly. Same for many of the experts brought on to ham it up. They are all paid for applying a particular bias. It is just the way it is now. I suppose in some ways, they are not to blame fully. People are too lazy for research now days and are too often searching for something to confirm their own bias and to match their own thoughts. They are simply serving up what most people want….which is mostly only things they want to hear. It is a giant echo chamber divided into two camps. It also translates into investing as we see evidence of it daily. The obsession with fluctuations in the market and every little percent move from day to day is meaningless and most of the news associated with it as well. We see it in earnings as well. The actual reports are available from specific companies to review, but folks just gobble up what the media reports about it often included with a lot of opinion and just wasteful information.
I'll have to read that article. If that is true (and I have no reason to doubt an article with evidence at first glance), then it really begs the question: who is this whiplash reporting for? There seems to be a clear incentive to cause panic, manipulate the market, and make gains, but who are the losers then? Day traders? Hedge fund managers? Cathie Wood?
What an exciting bunch we are.....posting on an investment board on a Friday night. Here is that article Road: Record Main Street and Wall Street divide: Individual investors been buying stocks for 21 weeks straight https://investorsobserver.com/news/...ors-been-buying-stocks-for-21-weeks-straight/ (BOLD is what I consider important content) "Despite a rough start to Trump’s first 100 days back in office, individual investors are throwing caution to the wind and buying the dip at a record pace, even as Wall Street steps back. According to Bank of America (BofA) data, individual investors have now been net buyers for 21 weeks straight, the longest streak on record. That’s more than twice as long as the previous record set in 2021–2022. Over the last four weeks alone, Bank of America’s private clients bought $2 billion worth of stocks, a new high. Meanwhile, hedge funds sold a record $1.5 billion. Institutional clients pulled $2.7 billion, the second-largest outflow ever recorded. “This is a much larger divergence between retail and institutional investors than during the 2022 bear market,”“This is a much larger divergence between retail and institutional investors than during the 2022 bear market,” The Kobeissi Letter wrote. “The Main Street and Wall Street divide is massive.” The BofA data shows a growing number of retail investors are buying the dip, picking up stocks during sell-offs in hopes of lowering their average cost. InvestorsObserver first reported the trend on April 8, shortly after Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement sparked a market slide that drew comparisons to the early pandemic crash. That strategy may already be paying off." MY COMMENT It was posted on page 2718.
As to your question above Road.......it is the Hedge Funds, the Traders, and the legal market manipulators (shorts) trying to plant "stuff" in the media. But actually I believe that much of the day to day "stuff" we see in the financial is driven by....politics and click seekers......and is IGNORED by the long term retail investors. Now as to the daily markets....I believe that AI Program Trading is the GREATEST (legal) market manipulator....BY FAR.
You are not far off with that thought. In addition, there are those that claim to be long term, but really are not in terms that we normally speak of. They hold for a little while and then something comes along, some market event, news, or whatever and convince themselves to move on. Then they do it again and again and again. The returns suffer greatly, no chance of compounding and then take on more and more risk because they feel behind only to just repeat the same behavior over and over.
