Other economic stories today. Of course MUCH of this data is severely outdated not to mention totally untrustworthy. US retail sales unexpectedly unchanged in October https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-retail-sales-unexpectedly-unchanged-135104119.html US Business Activity Growth Slows While Price Pressures Mount https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-business-activity-growth-slows-144500119.html US business inventories increase slightly more than expected in September https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-business-inventories-increase-slightly-152721047.html
HEY.....something positive....not that it matters. AI boom seen lifting chipmaking equipment sales 9% to $126 billion in 2026 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-boom-seen-lifting-chipmaking-152903092.html
With the way the markets are reacting to any news right now....good or bad.....and with the constant pressure being applied by the daily negative media......I would not be surprised to see the markets talk themselves into a BEAR MARKET for 2026. REALITY does not matter. I dont think this is a PROBABILITY....but I do think it is close to perhaps 30/70 or 40/60 odds.
BOTTOM LINE....sentiment polls are useless data....totally untrustworthy. They do NOT reflect REAL consumer behavior or thinking. They are mostly a regurgitation of what is the big media concerns being pushed at the moment. Consumers are feeling gloomy about the economy. Here’s why they’re spending anyway https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/16/consumer-sentiment-retail-sales-holiday-walmart-tjx.html "Consumer sentiment has fallen and layoffs are rising, yet U.S. shoppers have fueled solid retail sales growth and turned out in large numbers during the five-day stretch from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday."
MORE good news for the consumer and the economy. Oil prices tumble to lowest since May, on pace for biggest annual decline in 7 years https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/16/crude-oil-prices-today.html
I am not going to WASTE any more time posting for now. EVERYTHING today is short term.....mild drama. Outdated data...being fear mongered by the media. AND....the AI PROGRAM TRADERS are more than happy to trade it all day long. The extremely speculative, short driven, negative trading market continues. There is ZERO focus on fundamentals of companies or business.
I have to make one more comment.....POOR COSTCO. A new 52 week LOW today.....around $844. And for ONE year.....(-13.61%) All I can say is look at the past four earnings reports....is this justified? Not to me....I am fully committed to this stock and company.
interesting observations as always W yea i was thinking the same thing how this month is starting off just about the same as last month did, only to have reversed course and recovered all the earlier month’s losses. i feel like we may see a similar pattern play out here this month once again with the traditional SCR (santa claus rally) coming up starting next week. for those keeping score at home, the “SCR” is taken from the final 5 trading days of the current year and the first 2 of the new year. i used to maintain a google spreadsheet for tracking said SCR every year. did not set up for this year as of yet, but maybe i’ll get on that after this post haha. we will see if get one this year. i suspect we will once this latest pullback has finally exhausted itself out. which i’m not personally feeling terribly confident that this pullback escalates into anything larger than what we are seeing now. i suspect we will close our the year at or near the year’s high but not much more than that. next year on the other hand is a wholenother animal at least early on. could see some more volatility entering this market. but for these final few trading days left in 2025 i don’t personally see things collapsing or falling apart outside of something completely out of left field (a black swan). happy holidays gang! and yea ditto with W and smokie both said earlier Lori. hope you have an amazing time in disney with your fam. and a merry christmas and a happy and prosperous new year to you!
Sometimes it is important to zoom out. This year we had our little slide beginning in mid-February to the first part of April. Since then, it has been pretty easy. A lot of noise, but rather easy. Then we have to travel back all the way to.....2022. I don't get all of the angst here lately. What's to complain about....market return wise at this point? Enjoy the returns. There will be a time and place to fret. It could be soon or it may be further down the road. It will find us, no matter if we are celebrating or squealing about it.
I am now at about ZERO for the week. Monday a large-small LOSS. Today a large-small GAIN. By "large-small" I mean that I had a small loss but at the high end of the small range. MY stocks were all GREEN today except for...COST and GOOGL. Both the loss and gain are nearly identical. I also beat the SP5000 today by 0.76%.
I must say I HATE days like we had all through November and like we are having now in December. As a business person it eats at me to see the markets acting like they currently are. BUT.....I have no control over it.....and there is nothing I can do. Short term....I am simply an observer.
HERE is the general market today. S&P 500 slips for a third day as jobs report sparks economic fears https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/15/stock-market-today-live-updates.html Those of us on here that are big cap tech heavy......and into PLTR and NVDA..... did just fine today. The meaningless short term.
haha agreed well according to the carson group, historically speaking (since 1950) when the month of december had started off weak for the S&P like we’ve been seeing this month, the pullback has typically bottomed out around the middle part of the month (essentially where we are now). chart courtesy of carson group: we’ll see if the fat man in a red suit shows up as he casually does around this time of the year. oh and i completely agree with your sentiments about all the market angst recently and whatnot. fact is, while this month has started off on a bit of a slow start, the major indices aren’t even off -5% from their respective ATHs. this latest pullback i feel has been very orderly in fashion. a healthy little dip to work off some of the extreme overbought frothy conditions we’ve had over the past few months. not a bad thing to be sure. pullbacks are sometimes necessary to give fuel for the bull. i suspect this recent pullback will be exhausted soon enough given the time of year we’re in we’ll see. i don’t see anything that should derail this market in these final days of 2025. should be a relatively quiet end to another banner year in the equity markets.
The NORMAL negative open today.....with the SP500 and NASDAQ in the red. We will have to wait to see where we go from here. S&P 500 is little changed after 3-day losing streak https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/16/stock-market-today-live-updates.html
A good little article. 5 Investing Surprises From 2025 The year proved once again that staying the course pays off for investors. https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/5-investing-surprises-2025
I have to assume that ALL these big cap companies throwing money at OpenAI know what they are doing. Although if you believe what you see in the media they are MORONS. I know who I believe......and who the real MORONS are. Although many of these companies are making so much money these investments are.....peanuts. Amazon in talks to invest about $10 billion in OpenAI, source says https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openai-talks-raise-least-10-023416764.html
As I mentioned above......here is an example. Amazon Set to Waste $10 Billion on OpenAI https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-set-waste-10-billion-151541306.html
I have four green stocks....but....NVDA, PLTR, and GOOGL down pretty big today so I am definately in the RED. As usual the typical....AI BUBBLE......BS is responsible for the markets today.
