The Long Term Investor

OK....I had a BIG gain in my nine stocks today. I also beat the SP500 by......0.10%.

MOVING on to NVDA week.

 

The week that was.

DOW year to date +7.64%
DOW five days +1.49%

SP500 year to date +10.20%
SP500 five days +0.34%

NASDAQ 100 year to date +12.10%
NASDAQ 100 five days (-0.77%)

NASDAQ year to date +11.49%
NASDAQ five days (-0.56%)

RUSSELL year to date +5.94%
RUSSELL five days +3.37%

As for me I ended with my entire portfolio at year to date.....+18.72%. Last week it was at......+20.26%.

 

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE.

 

REALLY.....you have got to be kidding. WOW......what a CRISIS......big cap tech stocks were lagging the markets for a.....GASP.......whole week. IDIOCY.

Of course there was a massive SHORT ATTACK with ubiquitous media articles rehashing the same old arguments about PLTR and flogging the end of the AI trade...mantra. This little article makes no mention of that.....fact.

The use of the term....."investors"....is also totally off. Sounds more like....."traders"......not investors to me. ALSO....sounds like just repetition of the short attackers story-line to me.

Investors' biggest conundrum right now

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inve...h7gvvnbqeCN7wzXz_k1fmCV2XN-t6bztkO3UYEpL_RJKD

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

"The most popular trade of the past three years has hit a speed bump. Or maybe it's nearing the end of the road.

That's one of the biggest debates happening in markets right now. A group of large technology stocks that have benefited from momentum in the AI trade have lagged over the past week.

Palantir (PLTR) is perhaps the most notable this week. A flagship of the AI bullish narrative, the stock had fallen almost 20% from its most recent all-time high amid a six-day losing streak that ended on Thursday.

But zoom out over the past year, and the stock is up more than 375%.

As the stock chart shows, that's a hefty return from when the stock was trading hands at $30 a year ago. So some profit-taking in this stock, or any other AI darlings, would make sense.

But the trajectory also raises another question.

Clearly, there have been dips in the stock over the last year, like the 40% drop from February's high of $125 to an April low of $74. And now it's more than doubled since that low, along with a slew of other AI-related stocks that ripped off the April bottom.

So is this just another buyable dip in the AI bull market rally, or should investors really be preparing for the end of a decade of dominance for large-cap stocks?

That question — whether it be about Palantir stock or any other large-cap technology name — is at the core of the market action over the past week.

The Russell 2000 is up about 6.7% since the start of August, outperforming the S&P 500's roughly 2% gain. Healthcare (XLV) and Materials (XLB) are leading the sector action after lagging for most of this year, while Technology has been the clear laggard as the worst-performing sector in the month.

Small caps have had their moments over the past two years, happening in fits and starts. They've even been a popular pick among Wall Street strategists making predictions for the year ahead. But those moments just haven't seemed to materialize into a full-fledged rotation, as the Russell 2000 Index is up just 4.5% over the past year and hasn't reached a record close yet in this bull market run.

But here we find ourselves, back in the big debate as to whether the rotation is actually happening this time, for real. There are, of course, arguments on both sides.

"History would suggest there is more to go in cap-weighted dominance," Bank of America's head of US equity and quantitative strategy, Savita Subramanian, wrote in a note to clients this week. "But if the Fed's next move is a rate cut, and if the Regime indicator is shifting to a Recovery, we think the run may be closer to done."

On the other side, it's hard to bet against Big Tech and stop dancing with the stocks that brought the market this far. Truist co-chief investment officer Keith Lerner wrote in a note to clients on Thursday that while he believes the tech sector could see some more troubles in the near term, he sees further dips as buyable.

"The main risk to monitor is a deterioration in earnings momentum — however, profit trends remain strong for now," Lerner wrote. At the end of the day, stock valuations are about making money and the hopes of making more of it.

Nvidia (NVDA), the leader of this AI bull market, will report quarterly results after the bell on Wednesday, Aug. 27."


MY COMMENT

About as DUMB as you can get. A five day drop.....you have got to be kidding.

I love the little sentence about how...... since the start of August.....blah, blah, blah. Of course mentioning the month of August....on a psychological level....makes your brain visualize a market drop of a month. But the time span of the little drop was ONLY a week. The first couple of weeks in August were EPIC gain weeks.

A perfect example of the constant BS that long term investors have to....ENDURE.

 

As to the above......here is what I think.

On Monday at the open in one of the accounts that I manage I am selling ALL shares of.....training wheels position.... WMT.

I am using that money to add $10,000 each to AAPL, AMZN, HD, COST, GOOGL, and MSFT. I am also adding $15,000 each to NVDA and PLTR. These moves will happen at the open on Monday.

I can always add WMT back into the portfolio later........but.....for now I prefer to see this money allocated to the other eight stocks. I believe that their potential for gains is MASSIVE over the next 5-10 years.

 

PLEASE.......I am posting the above moves as part of my pledge on this thread to post all trades when they happen. This allows readers to follow my journey as a long term investor.....as documented in this thread.... over what is now a time span of nearly.....SEVEN YEARS.

BUT......I am NOT recommending that anyone else COPY what I am doing. My situation and the situation of the various family members that I manage accounts for is very specific to........."US".

"YOUR situation is very specific to "YOU". Your situation may not be like mine or my family members. EVERYONE must invest according to what is best for their own very specific situation.

 

Just for the historical record......this is the market yesterday.

Dow surges more than 800 points to post record close as Powell speech fuels rally

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/21/stock-market-today-live-updates.html

 

I will also mention.......I DO still have WMT as a small trial position in some of the accounts that I manage. I will make the moves above in a single account on Monday. So I have different levels of WMT from zero to small depending on the particular account.

This will allow me to continue to follow WMT as a holding and see how I like it and ......IF......it can become a full position at some point in the future.

 

I got SKUNKED recently in my auction quest for a painting and a piece of sculpture. I lost out on both of them. I did not even get close. Both items blew past what I was willing to pay for them.

That is how it is in the collecting world. The good news....there is never any shortage of auctions or good items. So I will just look forward to the various FALL auctions that I attend and watch.

 

The week ahead. Pretty obvious....it can be summed up in a single word......NVIDIA.

Nvidia earnings set to test AI trade with stocks near record highs

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvid...h7gvvnbqeCN7wzXz_k1fmCV2XN-t6bztkO3UYEpL_RJKD

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

"Stocks ended the week in rally mode after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell opened the door for a September interest rate cut.

In the week ahead, earnings from Nvidia (NVDA) will see the world's largest company and AI leader test a summer rally that has stocks back near record highs.

After slump earlier in the week, a massive surge following Powell's comments in Jackson Hole left the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) at a record high and other indexes roaring. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.3% on the week, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) slipped 0.5%. The Dow gained 1.5%.

Nvidia's quarterly earnings release after the bell on Wednesday will be the week's key event, with updates on inflation, GDP growth, home sales, and consumer sentiment featuring on an economic calendar that will be busier than the earnings calendar.

Outside of Nvidia, reports from Dell (DELL), Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS), Best Buy (BBY), Dollar General (DG), and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) will serve as the corporate highlights.

The door has 'opened wider'

During what was likely his final speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium as Fed chair, Jerome Powell told the audience the "shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance." For investors, the words "may warrant" became a green light on rate cuts next month.

Markets rallied in kind.

In his speech, Powell highlighted that "downside risks to employment are rising," while "a reasonable base case is that the effects [of tariffs on inflation] will be relatively short-lived."

JPMorgan's chief US economist, Michael Feroli, told clients in a note on Friday Powell's comments indicated the "door to a September cut opened wider." And market pricing suggested as much — investors were placing 85% odds on Friday that Fed will cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point at its September meeting, per the CME FedWatch Tool.

These rate cut hopes will be put to the test on Friday with the release of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, the Fed's preferred inflation measure.

Economists expect annual "core" PCE — which excludes the volatile categories of food and energy — to have clocked in at 2.9% in July, up from the 2.8% seen in June. This would mark the highest annual increase since February. Over the prior month, economists project "core" PCE at 0.3%, unchanged from June.

"Tariff-related price pressures are broadening across the goods sector and appear to be spilling over into the services sector," wrote economists at Wells Fargo in a note.

"We ultimately expect core PCE inflation to peak slightly above 3% by the end of the year. With inflation drifting in the wrong direction and the labor market losing momentum, the Federal Reserve faces difficult trade-offs in balancing its dual mandate."

Nvidia earnings on deck

The largest stock in the market is slated to report quarterly results after the bell on Wednesday.

Wall Street expects Nvidia to report earnings per share of $1.01 on revenue of $46.13 billion. A slew of Wall Street analysts have raised their price targets on Nvidia leading into the release, but at least one of those analysts warned the quarter may not impress to the level investors have become accustomed to over the past several years.

"We expect NVDA to report strong [second quarter] results and guide [third quarter] slightly below consensus, as we expect NVDA's outlook to exclude direct revenue from China given pending license approvals and uncertainty on timing," Keybanc analyst John Vinh wrote in a note to clients on Aug. 19.

Still, Vinh boosted his price target on the AI chip leader to $215 from $190, as he expects Nvidia's outlook to improve into next year.

Nvidia shares entering the release are up 32% this year and have nearly doubled since the market bottom in April.

The broadening begins

Nvidia's earnings release comes at a precarious moment for the broader AI trade, which, outside of Friday's all-encompassing rally, has largely hit pause over the past few weeks.

So far in August, the Information Technology sector (XLK) has been the worst performer in the S&P 500.

Citi's head of trading strategy, Stuart Kaiser, wrote in a note to clients on Aug. 20 that he expects "sentiment selling" in the tech and AI trade to clear quickly unless Nvidia "posts a large disappointment." In other words, Kaiser sees the tech trade picking back up that started Friday as likely to continue.

As tech has taken a back seat, some of this year's laggards have become the leaders.

As markets believe the Fed is inching closer to cutting rates, interest rate-sensitive areas of the market have soared higher. The small-cap Russell 2000 (^RUT) index is up 5% over the past month, while the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB) is up over 10%. In that same time period, the S&P 500 is up just 2.6%.

"We’ve changed back to a market condition that is more about rotation than the outright risk aversion," Interactive Brokers chief strategist Steve Sosnick wrote in a note on Aug. 20.

MY COMMENT

In classic fashion the above OMITS the basic reason for the current.......ONE WEEK.....weakness in AI, big tech, and the AI trade........the SHORT ATTACK last week on PLTR and indirectly NVDA......along with a massive news campaign to claim that the AI trade might be in trouble. A coordinated and concentrated intentional attack by short sellers.

I will say.....it is just about impossible for NVDA to ever satisfy with earnings now. It is a never ending battle with the constant and unrelenting negativity of the financial and other media. A shame.......and....shame on them.

 

To continue the above......the media is in total, full-on, negativity mode. It is unrelenting and continuous. it never ends and never will end....it is the new normal......that is just the baseline that we now have to ENDURE as long term investors.

What I find amazing is that after all the BS we had to sit through last week.......and in spite of all the DIRE claims and negativity.....GUESS WHAT.....the markets are just below all time highs. I repeat.....ALL TIME HIGHS.

How can this be....with what we heard about the sky falling last week?

Well....it is the simple disconnect between speculation and sometimes outright falsehood....along with rampant sensationalism in the media......and reality of the REAL NUMBERS.

In TRUTH....it has been an EPIC year for the markets so far. Earnings have been GREAT. The big averages have nice gains with four months left in the year......and......are for the most part at their typical year end average return with four months to go. The SP500 for example is over 10% year to date.....without considering dividends.....which would add another 1.5%. This is basically a little above the long term annual average for the SP500.

In addition we have now seen the FED signal that there......might....be a rate cut in September.....as well as them reacting with more of a focus on reality rather than politics. With this little change in their language.....we have now reached the point where the markets are lined up as nicely as I can ever remember for an extended BULL RUN.

A big part of this environment will be the BIG NEW TAX bill which has for the most part not even come into play yet. We are at the very beginning of a technical revolution......with AI and computing power. We are in a time of lower taxes, less regulation by government, less bureaucracy......and.....MOST importantly.......we have seen a HUGE move back to reason and rational thinking and away from INSANE political, social, and cultural policy.

There is a.....GOLDEN RUNWAY.....extending out in front of stocks for the next 2-3 years. That wave that I continue to ride has now grown to a tsunami......a GOLDEN TSUNAMI.

THIS.....is why I recently moved about $100,000.....from little training wheels position WMT........into the other eight stocks that I own in one of the portfolios that I manage. THIS is why I have continued to added shares in various acccounts to the concentrated eight stocks that I own......over the past month or two....even at market highs.

I am looking at what I consider to be the medium term to long term.....PROBABILITY....in the markets especially in big tech.

Of course.....you know me.....I am fully invested all the time.....a basic perma-bull. I ignore the inevitable corrections......and even perhaps.......the once in a while black swan ..........that will interrupt the markets and cause panic and fear.

I know....it would be nice to be able to enjoy the ride for once and not have the ENDURE the constant negativity and fear-mongering.....but that is just the way it is.

REMEMBER......however.....to me PROBABILITY means a more than 50% chance......and....that leaves the other 49% or 50% that is.....the negative..... "possible".

That is why I am a long term investor......for probability to work in my favor....first I have to be realistic and rational in what I think I am seeing.....and second.....I have to be long term enough to capture that probability.

It is the same in a casino....the probability is with the house....but short term...it can skew way out of line with what that probability guarantees. (NOT that the markets are a casino...LOL)

LETS HAVE A GOOD WEEK......to kick off the final four months of the year.

 

I suggest that if you are here in the USA.....you had better go in to the office for work.....unless you are a government worker and cant be fired. If you dont......well you are likely to wake up in 5-10-15 years with your job outsourced to some other country where someone else will work in an office or even from home much cheaper than you.

Author: Getting employees back to the office is at an 'inflection point'
A new book argues why in-office work is more important than ever.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/auth...fice-is-at-an-inflection-point-201435253.html

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

"Four years since the pandemic sent people home to work, companies have been intensifying their desire for a return to the office. Yet for many workers, flexible work arrangements are a must-have.

Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, has a new book co-written with Ranya Nehmeh, a workplace strategist. "In Praise of the Office: The Limits to Hybrid and Remote Work" lays out the business case for employers pushing for workers to get back to the office.

Here are edited excerpts from my recent conversation with Cappelli:

Kerry Hannon: Why has the case for in-office work never been stronger?

Peter Cappelli: We've gone through this period where there's been big debates about remote work and a lot of companies have persisted in various kinds of remote, but mainly hybrid. At the moment, the recognition is growing across employers that it hasn't worked so well.

When business returned and things became a little more normal, it became easier to start to see some of the drawbacks. It wasn't enough just to keep the wheels going.

We're at this inflection point now where companies really have to decide if they ever want to get people back. The longer you wait, the harder it is to ever get people to come back without a big fight.

Right now, people might be saying, ‘I will quit if I have to go back to the office,’ but it turns out they don't mean it. The reason, of course, is it's one thing to say that you will quit; it's another to actually walk away from a paycheck.

What’s wrong with a hybrid work arrangement?

People just don't come in. That’s maybe the single biggest factor. There is a growing awareness that people are really never there on their anchor days. If you want that for your company, you have to manage that attendance.

That’s on the shoulders of the managers themselves. It's not that we don't think you could have hybrid work, but if you're going to do it, it requires a lot of effort on the part of management.

Lots of employers trumpeted the success of remote work not that long ago. What changed?

One thing that changed is the labor market softened. It's not the case that people are job hopping right now because there just aren't very many jobs offered. The number of jobs that are being offered with some kind of remote possibility is declining.

At the CEO level, immediately after the pandemic they were glad things were still running at all. Expectations were really low. What's changed is the CEOs are now thinking we're losing something, and the employee resistance to return to the office has weakened. That's why we're seeing the push right now.

Until recently, it was resistance from employees and a little kicking the can down the road. Employers didn't want to take on their employees. The labor market was tight. In reality, remote work was a short-term solution during the pandemic that ended up causing a longer-term problem.

What’s the compelling advantage of in-person work?

There’s value in human interaction, what we learn from each other, the cooperation that we can get in solving problems, and the motivation and commitment that comes from being around other people.

Our view is not that you have to be in the office all the time — but social connections matter a lot. When you first began your career, imagine what it would've been like if no one was in the office. You'd be completely lost.

If you think about how we learn about office work, we learn by watching. You learn what the values of the organization are. You learn it from the conversations in the office. You can see how the boss reacts to different requests and different problems.

As you advance, you've got your ear to the ground, and you've got the opportunity to raise your hand and pitch in and have some influence. You can catch the boss between meetings and pass along a little tidbit of information, and you develop relationships with people where you can solve problems.

If you’re in the office and you need help from somebody, and it's urgent, you just go around the corner and stick your head in their door and ask them a quick question.

Those are the kind of things that we miss when we move to remote — in addition to the general fact that people are energized by working with people.

With remote work, people also spend more time in meetings that are worthless. A lot of those things could be fixed, but the problem is they're not.

What’s one thing that working in an office can give us that most people don’t think about?

You will have friends. You build your social network. Remote workers having shrinking social networks, and that contributes to the loneliness epidemic and the lack of social connections.

Is remote work as big as it appears to be in terms of the number of people who work that way?

No. In Europe, for example, where employees have always had more power, I figured remote work would stay. It hasn't. Most everybody's gone back to the office. In Asia, most everybody has gone back to the office. In the US, the best data we've got from the government, which is now a little dated but nobody believes it's gone up since then, is that more than 70% of US employers have no remote or hybrid workers of any kind.

Now that sounds stunning. But remember, most employers are small. Remote work and hybrid work, in particular, is largely a big city, big company phenomenon. It isn't everywhere, and it isn't in all jobs. It's only white-collar jobs.

The future of work is certainly not remote? Correct?

That's right. Every once in a while somebody pops up a list of the employers that have fully remote work. It is almost always companies that begin as remote. By the way, the thing that struck me about those companies if you look at them, they've got a lot of rules about how to behave, and it's quite different from the office. It requires a lot more management time and energy than we've given it.

What's your parting thought for employers of how to approach the new world of work?

If you opt for remote or hybrid, good outcomes don't happen by themselves. You can make it work, but it requires more time and effort for management, more rules, more practices, more leadership.

And for employees?

Be very practical. If you’re beginning your career, go to the office. Be careful about taking remote positions because I think it won't be too long before CFOs start asking, ‘Why is Peter an employee at all? We don't see him. Why not just make him a contractor?’ I imagine that will start happening pretty quickly."

MY COMMENT

Really.....If I am an employer with a large labor force.....why do I need you at all if you are working remote. I can contract your job out to a company in India or elsewhere for half or one third what I pay you. I can replace you with two or three people for half the cost.

And....since they will be employees of some contract labor company.....I have ZERO expense for HR, pension, 401K, medical, dental, or any other benefit cost. I also have ZERO cost for workers comp premiums, Social Security, or anything else that is a cost to me to have "you" as an employee.

 

OK......all my trades went through at the open today. I was lucky enough to catch enough RED in the opening prices to have an "extra" little chunk of money left over. So......I put that extra money into FIVE more shares of.....PLTR.

I continue to put my money where my mouth is....on this thread and in real life.

 

OK......I am going to take a few excerpts from the article below. I do NOT want to get into the political side of the article or the right versus left side of the article. What I like in this article is the descriptions of running a small business and the thinking and behaviors involved.

MOST of the content that I am going to post is.....REALITY.....in the life of a small business owner. MOST of what I am posting is the TRUTH of the day to day life of a small business owner.

At least it was for me when I was running a small business......and....dealing with and observing business owners around me.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5462422-small-business-owners-lean-right/

(EACH paragraph below is a SEPARATE, DISSCONECTED excerpt from the above article......they are EDITED content)


"When you run a business, you are the one taking the risk. You’re not getting a paycheck. You can’t just go home and forget about it. You can’t take a vacation without keeping in touch. You are responsible for everything all the time. You are making decisions with your money that affect the people — employees, customers, partners, suppliers — who rely on your business."

"Government regulations increase the risk of you inadvertently doing something illegal or breaking some rule, and this makes it harder for you to operate your business."

"There’s also control. People leave their jobs to start businesses not just because of their passion or entrepreneurial drive, but also because they want more power over their own lives. I can assure you that running a business takes more time and commitment than clocking in to a job. But you also get more say over when and where you spend that time without reporting to an unreasonable boss. You also have more control over the money you spend and generate and the decisions you make."

"My best clients — owners who have been running companies for decades — are fearful that the cliff they see at the end of their 90-day backlog of orders is real and that no new orders will come in. This keeps them up at night. They are afraid of all the things they can’t control — interest rates, inflation, economic growth, taxes, labor policies. They fear governments that increase their administrative burdens, limit where and how they can do business, and overtax the profits they work so hard to generate."

"Finally, business owners, though optimistic and opportunistic, are also generally wary and untrusting. My non-profit math friend learned the hard way that people lie. Employees don’t show up for work, service providers don’t deliver as promised and customers don’t pay. When you have enough people lie to you for a long enough period of time, you start to doubt everyone you work with."

MY COMMENT

I just thought I would post this as content that describes a little bit of the.....FUN....of being a business owner. it brought back some memories for me of my time as a small business owner that was financed by and with my personal assets on the line every day for 22+ years.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to being a business owner. There are many other aspects of being your own boss....negative and positive....in addition to the above. Anyone that has not done it....has no clue what it is like. Being a business owner changes a person......in some good ways.....and in some bad ways.

 

I have been totally ignoring the market today over the past hour since the open. I now see that we have a mixed market at the moment. NSADAQ is slightly green and the SP500 is a bit red.

SOME of the fear topics of a week ago have revived and are weighing on the markets......at least based on what I have heard talked about on business TV today:

PLTR valuation
The AI trade
Big tech and the future of big ech
NVDA earnings being disrespected and twisted into a negative by the short term traders.

One thing I have not heard a peep about.....thank goodness....the FED.