YES.....it is an interesting world where the BIG INVESTMENT BANKS....put out there analyst opinions and than the.....BIG BANK....AI Trading Programs......smash the market or smash the stock based on news headlines....including the headline regarding the analyst negative report.
BUT....what do I care....I had another BIG GAIN today. It was led by seven of my nine stocks participating in the big rally today. I also beat the SP500 today by .....1.15%. I am on a big roll so far in 2025. BUT...I need to quickly build up some gains so I can weather the first downturn of the year when....not if....it happens. I am not being negative.......I am simply noting that there is always a number of downturns in any market year and this year will be no exception. It is nice to get off to a good positive start to the year.
COST https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/c...ractices-rebukes-companies-scrapping-policies I wonder what happens with the $1.50 hot dog in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion? I sure hope COST can tamp down this fire with these news headlines or we're going to see $800/share before we ever see $1000 again. Hell, we might just get a 2 for 1 split without an actual split. "Reading the room" in the comments section doesn't sit well. Guess the only saving grace is they have a significant moat unlike Bud Light, Target, Nike etc.
In response to DEI, just like many 'initiatives' I think the underlying principal makes some sense and that's why they get traction. The problem is that it needs to been done correctly and in a rational systemic manner which makes it very error ridden and failure prone. I have not looked into COSTO's DEI program but based on everything the company has done so far it seems like they are seeing some sort of benefit from it. When I walk into costco I don't feel like I am having someone's views shoved down by throat like the store displays and advertisements of target and bud light. The world isn't fair, I think these systems could be effective in giving someone a shot at the plate but then they should also have metrics for retainment. It's up to the employee to walk, strike out or get on base. I agree @WXYZ that we need to front load some gains this year! Let's see if we can keep the last 3 trading days going!
HERE is the first thing I looked for in the coverage today. Top 3 takeaways from Nvidia's CES 2025 keynote https://finance.yahoo.com/news/top-...A4NyRPvOlZqC-OglaSRq56XsMQKwTD0tKR7Q3IouoI97v Of course....the best article that I found was from.......INDIA. CES 2025: Everything revealed by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in his keynote speech Here’s a look at all the new GPU hardware and AI software introduced by Nvidia at CES 2025. https://indianexpress.com/article/t...-huang-everything-announced-ces-2025-9764573/ MY COMMENT LOTS....of new tech and advances for the company here in many areas of business.. Way down in the weeds tech stuff. BUT.....apparently nothing said about Blackwell or basic fundamental business info. So.....good stuff....but nothing on the issues that the market cares about.
Perhaps the lesson of Boeing is how long a company can operate under comically terrible management and continue to do OK. That they are failing isn't a surprise to anyone who has paid attention for the last 15 years. That it took them so long to fail is a surprise to me. Even now, they are doing everything they can to avoid building planes safely. Nissan has been abusing their customers for years. Anyone who owns a Nissan with a CVT, which is a very large proportion of their vehicles, knows what I'm talking about. We are melting down a lot of totalled Nissans that were taken out by bad CVTs, relatively early in their lives. The failure of Nissan as a company is well deserved. At some point, we lost track of the idea that sales are loosely connected to product quality and reputation.
LOL......looks like the jobs report tanked the market just a few moments ago. No print coverage yet.....but.....it is obvious from the instant turn to red in the SP50o and the NASDAQ.
AMEN TomB16. It is amazing how poorly managed many big companies are and how incompetence takes years to build up to have a noticeable impact. Usually....the information is right in front of your face....if you choose to look. BUT....the financial media, analysts, company Boards, etc, etc, etc......just choose to ignore it all. The most destructive force in business.....and probably the most common.....BAD MANAGEMENT.
Here is the other economic news today.....beyond a few hours....no one will care about. US trade deficit widens as goods imports surge https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-t...sANImuuk0Aj66YME-qRy0485ApUvZI6kSskJZ2QeVAUif
LOL....the financial media must have not had any....."canned"....articles ready for the jobs report. I am still seeing NOTHING on any of the big sites. Personally this is what I consider important today when it comes to the economy. Online holiday spending rises nearly 9%, as deep discounts and AI-powered chatbots fuel purchases, Adobe data says https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/07/onl...es-with-discounts-ai-chatbots-adobe-says.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points Online spending grew 8.7% during November and December, according to Adobe Analytics, as consumers took advantage of discounts. Shoppers have embraced “event-ized buying,” as they hold out for key periods when they know that items they want will be on sale, said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst for Adobe Digital Insights. The biggest year-over-year spending growth came from groceries, which jumped nearly 13% to $21.5 billion, and cosmetics, which shot up by 12.2% to $7.7 billion, the data said. Online spending rose 8.7% during the holiday season from last year, according to data from Adobe Analytics, as deals and the use of AI-powered chatbots helped inspire purchases. Sales on retailers’ websites and apps totaled $241.4 billion from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, according to Adobe. The company’s analysis includes more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million unique items and 18 different product categories. More demand, not higher prices, drove higher online spending, according to Adobe. Adobe’s Digital Price Index found e-commerce prices have fallen every month for 27 months. The company’s figures are not adjusted for inflation, but if they were revised, overall consumer spending would be higher. The e-commerce results are a promising sign for the retail industry, which has yet to report company-specific sales. Walmart , Target, Macy’s and others will start to post their fiscal fourth-quarter results, including their sales over the key shopping season, in late February. Other early reads on the holiday season have looked strong, too. Retail sales for the holiday season in the U.S., excluding automotive sales, rose 3.8% year over year for the period from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online sales across payment types. Deep discounts motivated holiday shoppers to spend, according to Adobe’s data.For every 1% drop in the typical price, demand for merchandise increased by about 1% compared with the 2023 holiday season, Adobe data found. That led to an additional $2.25 billion in online spending. Vivek Pandya, lead analyst for Adobe Digital Insights, said as prices of groceries and housing remain elevated, consumers are waiting to buy nonessential goods at times of the year when they expect to pay less. He described that pattern as “event-ized buying.” For example, he said shoppers have opened their wallets during Amazon’s Prime Day event in the summer or during sales days such as President’s Day and Memorial Day. “There are certain moments and certain opportunities where we see them overindexing their spend, really driving forward, because they see the value,” he said. “And then outside of those periods, we start to see growth kind of draw back down.” Some of the best online deals during the holiday season were in the electronics category, where discounts peaked at 30.1% off listed price; toys, where price reductions topped out at 28%; TVs, where discounts maxed out at 24.2%; and apparel, where price cuts peaked at 23.2%. Electronics, apparel, and the furniture and home goods segment were the three top categories for the holiday season, which contributed to about 54% of the total online spending, according to Adobe. Yet the biggest year-over-year spending growth came from groceries, which jumped nearly 13% to $21.5 billion, and cosmetics, which shot up by 12.2% to $7.7 billion. The AI effect One of the newer factors nudging spending is AI-powered shopping assistants such asChatGPT and its competitors. Traffic to retail sites that came from generative AI-powered chatbots shot up by 1,300% compared with the year-ago holiday season, as more shoppers turned to the technology to look for gift ideas and direct them to cheaper items, according to Adobe. That data included only external chatbots, not those that retailers offer on their own apps or websites. Pandya said while the technology is young and the base of users still modest, those chatbots are becoming more meaningful drivers of clicks and purchases on retailers’ websites. “You have a consumer that’s very strategic and thinking a lot about their strategy around where they’re buying, when they’re buying, what’s offering the best deal,” Pandya said, “and that’s where the generative AI sources, the assistants were helping the consumer and kind of co-piloting that journey.” For many shoppers, smartphones played a central role. Most of the season’s e-commerce purchases — nearly 55% — took place through a smartphone rather than a laptop or other device. That’s up from about 51% in the year-ago holiday season, Adobe found. The use of buy now, pay later, a credit option that allows shoppers to split their purchase into multiple payments, rose 9.6% year over year and contributed to $18.2 billion in online spending during the holiday period. That marked an all-time high for the holiday season, according to Adobe. Cyber Monday was the biggest day on record for buy now, pay later with $991.2 million in spending." MY COMMENT This is good data and good news for the consumer economy. People are willing to spend money and buy "things". I see this all around me every day. What I do not see is more and/or good business in restaurants. ALL the restaurants we eat at every day are way down in table count. AND....we are not going to high end places. We eat at the mom and pop.....bread and butter.....down home type places. Restaurants have now reached maximum....demand destruction....with their price hikes in my view from what I am seeing in my area.
Finally a jobs article. US job openings rise unexpectedly to 8.1 million in November, a sign the labor market is resilient https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-j...sANImuuk0Aj66YME-qRy0485ApUvZI6kSskJZ2QeVAUif (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in November, showing companies are still looking for workers even as the labor market has cooled overall. Openings rose to 8.1 million in November from 7.8 million in October, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. They were down from 8.9 million a year earlier and a peak of 12.2 million in March 2022 as the economy was roaring back from COVID-19 lockdowns. But they still exceed pre-pandemic levels. Economists had expected job openings to fall slightly in November. Layoffs rose slightly in November, and the number of people quitting their jobs fell, suggesting that Americans are less confident in their ability to find better jobs elsewhere. The American labor market has cooled from the red hot hiring of 2021-2023. Employers added 180,000 jobs a month in 2024 through November, not bad but down from 251,000 in 2023, 377,000 in 2022 and a record 604,000 in 2021. When the Labor Department releases December hiring numbers on Friday, they're expected to show that companies, government agencies and nonprofit organizations added nearly 157,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate remained at a low 4.2%. The numbers were volatile during the fall: In October, hurricanes and a strike at Boeing limited job growth to just 36,000. In November, with the strike over, payrolls bounced back, growing 227,000. The Federal Reserve closely monitors the labor market for clues about where inflation is headed. Fast hiring could push up wages and prices. Weakness might suggest the economy needs a jolt from lower interest rates. Responding to inflation that hit four-decade highs two and a half years ago, the Fed raised its benchmark rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023. Inflation came down — from 9.1% in mid-2022 to 2.7% in November, allowing the Fed to start cutting rates. But progress on inflation has stalled in recent months, and year-over-year consumer price increases are stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. At its December meeting, the Fed cut its benchmark interest rate for the third time in 2024. But the central bank’s policymakers signaled that they’re likely to be more cautious about future rate cuts: They projected just two in 2025, down from the four they had foreseen in September." MY COMMENT Of course the....ECONOMISTS....are wrong once again. Although I will cut them some slack.....this jobs data is the most CORRUPT data there is. It is totally dishonest. It is massively corrected and revised to death....month after month, all year long. It is so inaccurate as to be....TOTALLY WORTHLESS. It is amazing.....but...it still has the power to tank the markets for a day or two. A leftover impact.....from the FED rate hike era....which is NOW OVER. Unfortunately....this worthless report....has probably trashed the markets for the rest of the day today. This oversized impact is because there is absolutely nothing else going on.....so the financial media and the markets are going to focus on it. It will be nice to get into earnings in a few weeks and hopefully overshadow this GARBAGE. BUT......I dont ever underestimate the ability of the media and the markets to IGNORE a great earnings season.
Well TireSmoke.....we got NVDA over $150 for a while this morning....but....we have now lost the bubble and all the gains from yesterday. This is extreme action in the stock over the past hour and a big turn-around....based on NOTHING. This big of a turn around in such a short time has to be....AI Program Trading. Although I think there is some disappointment with the Huang Keynote comments since there was no mention of any of the big picture stuff that NVDA investors thought they would hear......like Blackwell. SORRY people.....a tech conference is not an earnings report and is not the proper place to give fundamental business updates. if you expected this you got SUCKERED by the financial media hype.
I will opine that any company operating today that can ignore the macro economic tsunami and stick to operating their core business well is a company worth watching into the future. That is true any time but it's easier to see who's pants are down at their ankles at times like this. In 2009, I invested in companies that navigated the GFC with little drama. I ditched any that had management changes. Those companies did well over the next 10~15 years. This will be a similar opportunity.
You are on fire today TomB16. The above is so true. So many of the great companies today....are those that have amazing management that came up through the company ranks......and...... that focus like a laser on operating the company....and simply efficiently doing business. Total focus on doing the core business of the company. A good positive example....COST. A perfect negative example....NKE and BA. The worst.....those with big name....celebrity CEO's.
Not much else to say today. The short term markets have decided to freak out over NOTHING. We are probably headed toward a wasted and worthless day today. Meaningless. BUMMER. OH WELL.....the price we pay for being long term.
I suspect these are dark times for traders. The short term outlook isn't good, to say the least. For a long term investor, such as myself, this is just the opportunity I've been waiting for. The GFC boost in perspective ran out a while ago. The information had long run out. This will provide a new platform that should take me to end of my investing life.
My first......wasted day....of the new year. Every stock in the RED. Good to get it over with and move on from here.
You have got to love a good old fashioned....AI PROGRAM TRADING.....manipulated market drop. They create the drop by trading in concert with all their computer trading programs.....and than they trade the drop......and intensify the event....with their computer trading systems. Since all of these computer based micro second trading programs are basically created by the same people....or people that think the same....they all work the same way and end up manipulating the markets. A classic....SELF FULFILLING EVENT.
Yep. The massive pullback right after hitting a new ATH. That's the life we live now. With technology you have to take the bad with the good. Lets see what tomorrow brings.
