The Long Term Investor

Thank you Tom. You know that you and I are the original two posters on this thread way back in the first few weeks and months. You had some epic returns over the years.......especially what you did with TSLA.

You have your investments set up for retirement and are doing what you have to do. My investing strategy and what I am doing would be very different if I had to fund my retirement from my market money.

AND...I understand what it is like since from age 49.....till Social Security kicked in about age 66 and my income annuities started at age 70....I had to carefully manage my personal assets to make sure my money would last. It is a real balancing act and you seem to be doing a very good job.

The crazy thing is that even with 65% gains....I suspect that.....I am probably at best about in the middle of the posters on here this year.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR.....my friend....TomB16.

 

A fun and interesting little article that has absolutely nothing to do with investing. Some interesting.....stuff.....here.

77 Facts That Blew Our Minds in 2024
Chewing gum, space capsules, and minivans are just a few of the things we see differently after a year of reporting.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science...t=TGgP34XZPBAppowZPOH7p197cXBrVjNR5VOhGryIAEo

 

IDIOTS......you have got to love them in the market and investing world. I am reposting this important article since it got buried in the holiday week.

YES.....we have a lot to be thankful for:

A Time To Be Thankful For All The Idiots

https://www.allstarcharts.com/all-star-charts-premium/2024-12-27/time-be-thankful

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


"During this time of the year, I find myself thinking back on the prior 12 months. It's hard not to right?

I wanted to send a short note today reminding everyone to look around. Understand what is happening out there and why it's been happening.

This year more than ever, we are grateful for the permabears, who are so darn good at convincing all those gullible sheep to fight a perfectly good bull market, that it's helped the rest of us make so much more money.

The S&P500 is up 28% this year. The Nasdaq100 is up 30%. This is after the 2023 returns of 26% for the S&P500 and 54% for the Nasdaq100.

They cried and cried about a recession. But all we got was the Nasdaq literally doubling in total value.

These are historic returns that have rarely ever been seen in American history.

But I have to say, if it wasn't for these angry permabears promising you a crisis every day the past 2+ years, our returns would not have been as good.

If Wall Street sell side analysts weren't so bad at their jobs, these gains would likely not be anywhere near what they've been.

If economists didn't put on blindfolds when walking into their offices, like some sort of creepy fetish, the stock market returns would likely be much different than what we just witnessed.

Think about these clowns promising you the next Black Monday with their very creative macro conspiracy theories...

If these fools weren't so good at convincing even greater fools to listen to them, then we wouldn't all have as much money as we have today.

And to be clear, this is not a knock on anyone. I'm not trying to disparage anyone's life or lifestyle choices. I'm just telling it like it is.

The reason I want to point out their demented behavior, in addition to showing my gratitude, is so we can identify this type of opportunity in the future.

It will come again.

Maybe not as great as the past 2 years have been. But we will certainly have opportunities to squeeze the crap out of the criminally insane once again in the future.

As traders and/or investors, if we're not profiting from these setups, then we're not doing our job.

It's our responsibility to our LPs, or Households, or Family Office, or our own portfolios to profit from the spectacularly irrational behavior we see from the weakest minded humans.

Keep in mind, in a lot of cases, the actions of these legendary charlatans are being driven by conflicting interests.

Wall Street sell side analysts, for example, are mostly just trying to keep their jobs, so they can afford to keep paying for their wife's plastic surgery, and little Timmy's private school and the rest of the lifestyle that your tax dollars have helped subsidize over the years.

The economists are just too blinded by lagging indicators to be able to see what the world is actually doing. They ignore reality to focus their attention on theory. Think about it. It's impossible to see what is right in front of you when your head is so far up your ass. That's just science.

And then of course you have the social media degenerates. These poor souls are just looking for some attention. Maybe their mothers did not give them the love they needed, or perhaps they were picked on as a child, or cut from the high school basketball team. But they are depressed beyond repair, and they express their sadness daily on social media.

They're unhappy and lonely and want you to be too, no matter how dumb they look along the way. Again, their priorities are just different than ours.

Now, it isn't just one of these types of challenged individuals that causes the squeeze. It's the collection of all of them that has created one of the greatest opportunities to profit in the history of financial markets.

The guy promising a crisis every day because of the fed, or the yen, or the bitcoin or whatever made up fairytale they're spewing these days, is not the only fuel driving all of our gains. But they certainly help.

Think of it like compounding interest. A little bit every day from all of the different types of charlatans, is what added up to these epic returns for the rest of us.

And we shouldn't forget about it either, or take it for granted.

That's why I'm reminding everyone today, including myself.

We will look back to this moment in the future.

• You'll see the handful of economists who still have jobs embarrassingly optimistic about the future of the economy.
• You'll notice the sell side analysts on Wall Street all with unusually high upside targets for stocks.
• And of course, the crisis guy who's been wrong about everything for years, will capitulate tell you that stocks will now rally. They'll use something like "melt-up" in their description, which is a classic permabear strategy to justify their lack of understanding about how markets work.

We see it every cycle. There are new versions of these charlatans every time. The names and faces change, but the details are almost exactly the same every single cycle.

When that moment comes, we will look back at how grateful we are today for their creativity and persuasiveness throughout this bull market.

If it wasn't for you idiots, we wouldn't all be as wealthy as we are.

So we are incredibly grateful. And we will not forget it.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you.

Go hug a permabear. Tell them JC thanks them for their service."

MY COMMENT

Yes.....I am very thankful for them all. BUT....they are a constant distraction and thorn in the side of investors and the markets.

As long term investors our job is to......IGNORE IT ALL.

As we start the NEW YEAR....it is a good thing to keep all the above in mind. This is important stuff for investors to review and know......that all the "STUFF" that you see touted every day in the financial and other media is usually massively dominated by....... IDIOTS.

 

More good stuff here.

12 Things That Probably Won’t Happen in 2025

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2024/12/12-things-that-probably-wont-happen-in-2025/

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

"Predicting the future is hard and forecasting is not really my forte so here’s my list of things that probably won’t happen in 2025:

1. You probably won’t get rich overnight. Someone will. Probably not you or me.

2. No one will predict the biggest risk or upside catalyst. The biggest risk this decade was a pandemic no one could have possibly seen coming. It changed the economic, market and political landscape in ways that will be felt for decades.

And while the tech world was trying to sell us all on the metaverse and Web 3 (remember that one?), Chat GPT seemingly came out of nowhere and AI essentially carried the stock market in the past 24 months.

No one predicted these events and it’s unlikely someone will predict the next big catalyst either.

3. The Detroit Lions probably won’t win the Super Bowl. It’s been so much fun watching the best Lions team ever but we’re snake-bitten with injuries.

They have the best offense and roster in the league but too many guys are hurt on defense.

I’m preparing myself now so I’m not so disappointed when the heart-breaking loss happens.1

4. You probably won’t time the market perfectly. In the fall of 2022 I had a slug of cash to invest and dumped a lump sum into stocks.

In hindsight it was pretty fortuitous timing.

In 2023 I had a slug of cash to invest but decided to dollar cost average in over the course of a year or so.

In hindsight it was the wrong strategy in a market that went straight up.

Timing the market is mostly luck. No one ever does it perfectly.

The good news is a long time horizon is the ultimate equalizer. The timing of your purchases doesn’t matter that much if you think in terms of decades.

5. 2025 probably won’t work out according to expert forecasts. Bloomberg collected all of Wall Street’s annual forecasts this century to show the range of predictions versus the actual results:


Forecasting the short-term is hard:

If hearing the brokerages’ average 2025 forecast of a 9.1% gain is giving you a sense of déjà vu, you’re onto something. Over the past 25 years, 53% of the 376 firm forecasts surveyed by Bloomberg clustered between 0% and 10%.

In seven of the past eight years, the market’s returns were outside the range of all forecasts compiled, often collectively underestimating the index’s return potential.

Ben’s forecasting model is probably better at expectation-setting than Wall Street strategists.

6. You probably can’t predict what the best-performing asset class or strategy will be. I’ll be updating my favorite performance chart early in the new year.


There is little rhyme or reason from one year to the next.

7. You probably won’t like something about the economy. People were upset during the Great Financial Crisis because housing prices crashed and wouldn’t go up.

People are upset now that housing prices are too high.

In the 2010s inflation and wage growth were too low.

In the 2020s inflation and wage growth are too high.

There is no such thing as a perfect economic environment for everyone.

8. You probably won’t outperform the market. Some people will. Most won’t. The good news is outperforming is not a prerequisite for financial success.

9. You probably won’t pick the best-performing stock. These are the five best-performing stocks in the Russell 3000 Index so far in 2024:

• GeneDx Holdings (WGS) +2,740%
• Rigetti Computing (RGTI) +1,630%
• Sezzle Inc (SEZL) +1,190%
• Dave Inc (DAVE) +1,070%
• SoundHound (SOUN) +1,030%

I follow the stock market pretty closely. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve never heard of any of these companies.

The only way I’ll ever own the best-performing stock is in my total stock market index fund. I’m OK with that.

10. You probably won’t find joy and contentment from your favorite influencer. I’ve met a handful of the biggest personal finance experts. Some of these same people who preach about being zen with your finances and finding your ‘enough’ obsess over how much they make and have an unhealthy relationship with money.

Most of the people who seem to have life figured out on social media are full of it.

11. You probably won’t see everything in your portfolio do well. Sure, if you have a concentrated portfolio it’s possible to see everything firing on all cylinders but trees don’t grow to the sky.

Being a long-term diversified investor means dealing with leaders and laggards.

12. You probably won’t guess the timing of the next correction. One of my favorite Warren Buffett anecdotes comes from a quarterly letter he wrote in the 1960s when one of his clients called to warn him stocks had further to fall while they were already in correction territory.

This was his response:

If you knew in February that the Dow was going to 8652 in May, why didn’t you let me know it then?

And if you didn’t know what was going to happen during the ensuing three months back in February, how do you know in May?

I’m fairly confident the stock market is due for a correction.

I am not confident at all in my ability to predict the timing or magnitude of said correction.

Preparation is easier than predictions."

MY COMMENT

YES....in my view the best and only way to win as an investor is to be a long term investor. Let time smooth out all the short term bumps and troubles that plague us all.

 

Regarding the post above about IDIOTS and the post above about 12 things that probably will not happen......remember.....the HUGE returns that many of us have had in 2024 are HIGHLY ABNORMAL.

They do NOT mean that we have the markets all figured out. They do not mean that we are all suddenly an investing GENIUS. They do not mean that we have suddenly broken the code for market success......with whatever system or style we use.

About all it means is....we got LUCKY.....and had a historically abnormal random year. It all probably had NOTHING to do with....."ME" or "YOU".

 

Well right at the open I sold some.......a very small "some"..... of my massive hoard of NVDA stock that dominates my portfolio. About five minutes later I used the money to buy shares of PLTR.

I got a positive gain at the open on NVDA and I got the PLTR at a loss early today. I am not a timer.....but the timing worked out just fine.....for one day.

I have now moved my PLTR up to just shy of HALF a normal position in my account. By waiting to do this move.....I have pushed the capital gains tax on the NVDA sale out to my 2025 taxes in April of 2026.

End result......I took some profit and immediately re-invested in another HIGH FLYING AI stock.....a lateral move. BUT.....NVDA is still a massive dominant position in my account.....far larger than any other holding.

I dont normally do re-balancing......but....in this special situation it was time to do so....a little bit. Although, I dont know if I would really call this re-balancing since NVDA will STILL continue to totally impact my daily portfolio result.

At least I am now positioned in....both stocks....to benefit HUGELY......if either one continues to boom.

 

YES it does.

The stock market usually goes up
But keep in mind that 'usually' does not mean 'always

https://www.tker.co/p/stock-market-usually-goes-up-2024

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

"Stocks rallied in 2024 with the S&P 500 climbing 23.3% to close the year at 5,881.63.

A resilient U.S. economy bolstered sales growth during the year. Meanwhile, corporations widened their profit margins, which amplified earnings growth. Already-high stock market valuations got richer — but this can be at least partly explained by the prospects for further margin gains and earnings growth in 2025 and beyond.

It’s the latest reminder that the stock market usually goes up.

If you feel uneasy about the >20% gain, you really shouldn’t. Gains of this scale are actually common.

As we discussed in October, you don’t earn long-term average returns by experiencing a lot of average years. You earn them by experiencing a lot of above-average years and some below-average years.


The stock market experiences a lot of above-average years and below-average years. (Source: Bilello Blog)
Importantly, long-term investors in the stock market experience far more positive years than negative years.

Any way you slice it, the historical data confirms that the stock market usually goes up.

“The S&P 500 remains in a bull market, and for all periods since 1928, the S&P 500 has been in a bull market on nearly 80% of all trading days,” Bespoke Investment Group analysts wrote in their annual outlook report.


“The S&P 500 has been in a bull market on nearly 80% of all trading days.” (Source: Bespoke Investment Group)
“Bull markets have historically been much more prevalent than bear markets, so if you bet against the market, the odds are stacked against you,” Bespoke analysts said.

And prices don’t go up for the sake of going up. Rather, they are supported by fundamentals. Specifically, the economy usually grows, which helps earnings to usually grow

“The U.S. economy often grows at a solid pace, and the stock market has been on a bullish long-term uptrend as a result,” Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research wrote. “In the post-World War II period, from 1945 to 2023, the average recession lasted about 10 months. Since 1945, there have been 12 recessions that occurred during just 13% of that time span.”


“Recessions are infrequent and don’t last long.” (Source: Yardeni Research)
There are some comparability issues when measuring the U.S. stock market against the U.S. economy.

That said, the two aren’t entirely unrelated. And it is the case that earnings — like GDP — have trended higher for a very long time.


Earnings usually go up. (Source: Deutsche Bank via TKer)
And earnings are the most important long-term driver of stock prices.

‘Usually’ does not mean ‘always’ ⚠️

I launched TKer as the newsletter that tells the story about how the stock market usually goes up.

But it’s important to remember that “usually” does not mean “always.”

The stock market has a history of some bad years — and many bad days. Even in up years, the market has experienced some ugly drawdowns. Investing in the stock market is an unpleasant process.

So while the near-term outlook for the market is arguably favorable, you should always keep your stock market seat belts fastened.

The good news is what usually happens is the stock market goes up. It goes up on most days and in most years, and those gains have historically overwhelmed the many temporary losses during long-term investors’ holding periods."

MY COMMENT

I guess I am a gambler....after all. As a long term investor I am......"GAMBLING.....based on the historic PROBABILITY that the markets will go up way more than they go down. Although I am not sure you can call going with the probability....gambling. Add in my stance as a long term, all the time, investor......and I have MINIMIZED the risk as much as is possible in the markets.

I try to further stack the odds....by only investing in the most successful companies in the world.

 

It is going to be hard for anyone to beat your 122% return on your....EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE....brokerage account TireSmoke.

I totally agree with the sentiment above. It is a great motivator to invest and save if you treat yourself once in a while. We would have way more money if we had put all our art money in the markets.....but.....that is not how we CHOOSE to live life. It is all about balance and passion.

 

Anyone....feel free to post your returns for 2024. Also any commentary on how you got there....or what is in your portfolio.

 

Sounds like a well thought out plan....broteau.

 

TSLA is and will continue to be EXTREMELY volatile as a stock.

Tesla stock slides on Q4 delivery miss, first yearly sales decline

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesl...f-8jlcqOmp62GxLKMaFT2rEshtmpjFuQTBOCiLZsmL3Lp

Tesla reports 1.1% sales drop for 2024, first annual decline in at least 9 years

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesl...sANImuuk0Aj66YME-qRy0485ApUvZI6kSskJZ2QeVAUif

 

HERE is the economic news today......that no one cares about.

US unemployment claims fall to 211,000, the lowest level since March

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-u...TlC6avJtNKFMto6E2pmrStUbNJg7b1jRDlg8OBSHI8Lb0

 

AND.....we are now heading RED. BUMMER.

My first "BUMMER" of 2025. I am sure there will be many more. Just to break the ice and get it over with I will also say....."WHATEVER".

 

I always buy....all in all at once....no market timing and no dollar cost averaging. As I have said many times......for long term investing....the academic research proves that simply putting your money into a good stock all at once when you are ready to buy BEATS trying to market time or dollar cost average.

I dont remember ever seeing anyone else that can bring themselves to do this. BUT...it is in line with the research.

I suspect that I might see a drop in PLTR after my purchase today. It may end up going into a time span of consolidation of the current very large, very quick, gains. That is fine with me if it happens since it is a long term holding. AND....I NEVER.....disregard the probabilities proven by the academic investing research. So....bring it on.

 

AND.....we are now back to GREEN. YEA.

(Now....there is some real scintillating market analysis)