I am thinking that we might be in for a good Spring season for home sellers and buyers. Mortgage rates hit 3-year low after Trump's bond-buying announcement Increased demand for mortgage-backed securities sent rates to the lowest level since September 2022. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mort...NjkhKeeD921JNsfT7Iwaj_I5aN1VhcSltGk41SkL6KN6I We could easily see rates in the 5% range in a month or two......especially....if the FED could get past their little HISSY-FIT and do another rate cut before the new FED chair in May. (I dont believe they will.....they simply dont care about any data anymore) Rates in the 5% range would....based on my memory....be RIGHT ON....... the historic mortgage range. Although rates do jump around a lot. Here is the range for various time spans: Mortgage rate history: 1970s to 2025 https://www.bankrate.com/mortgages/historical-mortgage-rates/
We bought three homes in the 1970's......one home in the 1980's.....and two homes in the 1990's. Look at the rates above......if you are whining about current rates and home ownership. We were lucky to go to ALL CASH buying beginning in the mid 1980's and ever since. BUT....most people were financing in the 1970's through the early 2000's. And...compared to what Baby Boomers had to pay for a mortgage.....the current rates are GREAT.
Here is what....AI...tells me Strathmore.....I don't know if this answers your question or not. Looks like you have to do it in accunt settings. IBKR (Interactive Brokers) adjusts performance for currency by converting non-base currency positions and P&L into your account's set base currency (like USD) using historical exchange rates, showing unrealized P&L and cost basis translated to your base currency in reports, and even automatically converting currency for trades if needed, though it charges a small fee for these conversions. How Performance Adjustment Works Base Currency Setting: You define a primary Base Currency (e.g., USD) for your account in settings. Position Translation: For assets in other currencies, IBKR uses the exchange rate from the day you opened the position to translate the cost basis and unrealized profit/loss into your base currency, as seen in your TWS Statements. Performance Reports: Your overall performance metrics (like Time Weighted Return) in PortfolioAnalyst and statements reflect these translated figures, giving you a consolidated view in your base currency. Automatic Currency Conversion: If you buy a stock in EUR but only have USD, IBKR automatically converts the necessary funds, applying a small spread (around 0.03%) to the mid-market
Yeah, I'm with Smokie on this one. That's the ketamine talking. If history is anything to go by, the common folk will have to fight for everything they get. Investing and real estate is how people get ahead. Waiting is how life ends in disappointment. I have seen no honest discussion about UBI. I am not hopeful that AI will be equally beneficial to all. It'll be great to be wealthy already. For everyone else, back to the rat race.
I see that the....self-loathing markets....are back today. We WEENIED out of the earlier gains....for NO reason. I still have a good gain but much less than earlier. AND....my green stocks have now experienced......."Honey I shrunk the gains".....with only COST, NVDA, and AMZN now green.
Another positive story that will of course be ignored by the markets. US reaches trade deal with Taiwan as Supreme Court decision looms https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live...s-supreme-court-decision-looms-152657183.html
I ended with a nice middle size....medium gain today. From only three stocks....NVDA, COST, and AMZN. Plus a beat on the SP500 by....0.28%. LETS END THE WEEK WITH A NICE LITTLE RALLY TOMORROW.
THE MARKET AT THE CLOSE TODAY. Stocks close higher Thursday as chip, bank stocks rally https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/14/stock-market-today-live-updates.html "The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 292.81 points, or 0.60% to 49,442.44, boosted by gains in Goldman Sachs and Nvidia. The S&P 500 rose 0.26% to 6,944.47, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.25% to 23,530.02. Those gains are off from the highs of the session. Earlier in the day, the Dow was higher by 431.55 points, or 0.88%. The S&P 500 rose 0.76%, and the Nasdaq had gained 1.06%."
No worries, Smokie. I think I agree with you. I do think he's serious, but I certainly won't be making any changes in my retirement strategy LOL
Thank you, W. That means a lot. You and this thread have truly made a huge difference to my life and my family’s. I’m certain of that.
Thanks W. It seems that for EU customers the portfolio performance is being shown in EUR, the same as portfolio value. Weakness of the USD contributed to my lower performance last year. I find my brokerage platform pretty confusing, some numbers are in € some in $, hard to differentiate, even when I set the base currency to be shown in italics. Lori what brokerage are you using in the UK?
Hi Strathmore. I use Trading 212. It’s probably frowned upon here, as it’s not a traditional brokerage (think Robinhood if you’re in the USA), but I love it. They have a fantastic app. I also have a spending account with them that gives me 1.5% cashback on everything I spend, which is automatically invested. I keep all my cash savings with them as well, as they currently offer a pretty good savings rate and pay daily interest.
Looks like the good futures have given in to the reality of this DUMB market and have now faded after the bell. I start from here with only two green stocks today....MSFT and NVDA. The big averages are slowly moving RED. The DOW and SP500 both RED now.
HERE is the open....which is now outdated. Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq climb as Wall Street gets set to wrap up volatile week https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live...s-set-to-wrap-up-volatile-week-234227757.html
The short term markets and virtually ALL the financial media are totally focused on NON-INVESTING stories lately. Of course this is the norm now. And no doubt the AI trading systems love it.....as they churn out the micro second trades....based on new headlines and content all day long. I have now reviewed a couple of the usual big sites that I look at daily and there is absolutely NOTHING.....of any interest to actual investors....long or short. I will move on and see if I can find any content that matters anywhere else.
I will tell you one reason why....because these types of events and stories have NOTHING to do with the business of great AMERICAN companies. They are stories that can be sensationalized in various ways by the media......but in the end have NOTHING to do with investing. NO.....THE MARKETS DONT CARE. AND....that is the way it should be. ‘Markets are callous’: Why stocks aren’t fazed by Iran, Greenland or Venezuela https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/16/trump-sp-500-iran-greenland-venezuela-geopolitics.html Bottom line.....CALLOUS equals living in the world of REALITY.....in the markets.
