NICE.......we are CONTINUING to see the POWER and STRENGTH of the markets and the economy........even in the face of our self-imposed economic attempted suicide: Retail sales post big gain in September as consumers show unexpected strength https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/16/retail-sales-september-2020.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points Headline retail sales rose 1.9% in September, much better than the 0.7% Dow Jones consensus estimates. Excluding autos, the gain was 1.5%, ahead of the 0.4% expectation. Clothing and accessories led the gains while electronics was the only negative sector. Consumers spent at a much faster pace than expected in September, with retail sales rising 1.9% in a sign that the U.S. economy’s biggest driver remains healthy. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected sales to rise 0.7%, up from a 0.6% rise in August. Excluding autos, the gain amounted to 1.5%, which also was better than the 0.4% estimate. Clothing and accessories led the gains, rising by 11%, while sporting goods, music and books jumped 5.7%. Electronics and appliances was the only major sector that was negative, dropping 1.6% from the August levels. Markets reacted positively to the news, with Dow futures implying an opening gain of about 126 points. However, economists expect that number to turn around when third-quarter growth is announced at the end of the month, with the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker pointing to a 35.2% increase. That would be more than double any single-quarter growth going back to at least 1947. Beyond that, concerns are rising that the fourth quarter could see a marked slowdown as coronavirus cases continue to rise. The holiday shopping season will be a key for what kind of momentum the U.S. sees as the calendar turns into 2021. The unexpectedly big gain in spending comes after months of historically high savings as consumers retrenched due to the Covid-19 scare. The personal savings rate peaked at 33.6% in April and remained at 14.1% in August, the highest pre-pandemic rate since June 1975. “The strength in August sales is welcome, and consumers in aggregate have the resources — in the form of the huge increase in savings deposits built up since the spring — to finance a strong holiday season,” wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “The problem is the virus. Cases are rising at only a modest pace in the more populous states, but we can’t be sure that will continue, and the message from states where cases have risen to very high levels is that economic activity begins to suffer very quickly.” A drop in electronics sales could be seen as one harbinger of a slowdown. The September 2020 total also represented a decline of 6.4% from the pace of a year ago. Food and beverage sales were flat for the month while furniture-related sales were up 0.6%, Motor vehicle sales were a significant point of strength, rising 3.6% on the month and 10.9% from September 2019. That came as prices for used cars and trucks rose 6.9%, the largest monthly increase since February 1969. MY COMMENT BIG SURPRISE.........in the figures which SMASHED the estimates. NO BIG SURPRISE........that the so called "experts" missed the entire trend shown in these figures........of course.......to the negative side......as usual.
Added zoom today. I know.. pretty late for the zoom train but I think the company still has plenty of room to grow regardless of whatever happens to Covid
WELL.......room to grow is a BIG part of what I like to see. They have become a HOUSEHOLD name. I know nothing about the company at all. Simply a guess......they might be a nice acquisition target for some GIANT company.
ANOTHER week........in the history books. I lost some money this week.......ending RED today and losing out to the SP500 by .44%. HOWEVER......the general averages both ended positive for the week. A SHOCKER to me.......I expected the week to be negative. SP500 for the week +.19% DOW for the week +.07% So as a result BOTH averages increased their gains for year 2020: SP500 year to date +7.24% DOW year to date +.24%
The closed captions for the hearing impaired say exactly what I am thinking. Trump going to Washington to fight for us? Should have hit him with a slipper. Same way you smack a dog who passed gas.
It was a great week for us. Of course, with our sedentary investing style, our portfolio value at any given moment is about as relevant as my wife's thoughts on my nutritional intake.
So of course it’s comical to hear about a rich person racing to Washington to help the poor. But I’m just happy to have a rich guy go to Washington and make the media and social elite shut the hell up and call them out for decades of bullying hard working men and women regardless of financial backgrounds. That he has done.
I wonder if any poor person ever got elected. I mean, like working class poor. A guy like me. Not someone with a privileged background. Someone who actually goes to work for a paycheck, lives in a rented home, drives a used car, and cheats on his wife. 1 member of Congress was a bartender with student loan debt when she was elected. I can only guess that her net worth was not much if you went to college, and tend bar with your college degree. She is not from a wealthy home. She is probably the 1st regular person elected to that high of an office.
Are you proposing beating the voter or the president? Gotta admit, her story is a good one and love her or hate her, the sincerity, intensity, and fire she possesses is quite a breath of fresh air vs. the old stuffy nonsense of many of the old guard on both sides.
As for AOC, I don't exactly see eye to eye with her Green New Deal. But I absolutely support change in the direction of fresh ideas. Too many in Congress have been there too long. As if Congress were a birthright entitlement if you are of the right bloodline, or a lifetime appointment. I want to propose a new law where no more than 1 person from a family could hold public office. No more Chicago mayors named Daly, or office holders named Kennedy or Bush. No fear of Ted Cruz's wayward brother Tom bringing us to "one nation, under Scientology". Just like Congress, the President should be eligible to be continually elected. No term limit. If the people want him out, they vote him out. If POTUS is doing a good job, let him continue. Imagine if (fill in the blank) got 12 or 20 years in office. But don't listen to me. I would have supported appointment of George Washington as Emperor. And I continually remind people that Ben Franklin, face on the $100 bill, was not a President. Ben Franklin was a sexual deviant. And we send our children schools named after him. Is it Trump's fault that dumb people voted for him? Or is it dumb people, who are.at.fault for voting Trump? I say beat them both with a slipper. And I'm not talking about the common man, with his MAGA hat, casting the popular vote. I am talking about beating the electoral college voters.
"Long term investors make more money than market timers." PRETTY MUCH says it all. UNLESS your goal in investing is to play video games with your money, or have fun, or short term excitement, or drama, or ego, or to NOT make money, or to lose money, etc, etc. The problem is......MOST people that think they are long term investors get........suckered......into doing short term stuff by their human brain.......fear.......and.......greed. WELCOME..........BigPear.
Now, now......guys.....talking politics is fine if you wish....but your odds of convincing anyone of anything are ZERO. ALL of you younger people that agree or vote for any of the anti capitalistic or socialistic "STUFF".......are in for a HUGE shock as you see how that is going to all work out over the rest of your lives. I have NO DOUBT it is coming..........that sort of thinking is going to change our entire society and culture.......too bad I will not be around long enough to see the end result and say..........you got what you deserve. Come back on here in 30-50 years and let us know how it all worked out for you and the country. BUT.......in the meantime.....talking about it........as theory and opinion.......at least for me.......is a TOTAL waste of MY time. BUT.....feel free if you wish.
I PREFER to spend my time and effort.......making money.......or......at least trying to make money. HERE is what I see as important: Amazon just had its biggest Prime Day ever. But this year, it's not hyping that up https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/15/business/amazon-prime-day-messaging-change/index.html ""We are thrilled that Prime Day was a record-breaking event for small and medium businesses worldwide, with sales surpassing $3.5 billion—an increase of nearly 60% from last year," Jeff Wilke, Amazon CEO Worldwide Consumer, said in a news release Thursday." AND "Amazon confirmed to CNN Business that this Prime Day was the best on record since the annual event started in 2015, but the company declined to include this detail in this year's official announcement. Amazon declined to provide a sales figure, but some analysts had predicted Amazon would make as much as $10 billion in sales this Prime Day." MY COMMENT Pretty bad when a very successful company in a supposedly capitalistic country is afraid to put out the data on their best day ever. BUT......as an investor that is an owner of Amazon......I LOVE IT
I prefer a filthy rich person from Jamaica queens than a privileged bartender that went to Boston university AS LONG AS THEY ACTUALLY FIGHT FOR TRADITIONAL AMERICAN VALUES. You know.. The country we were born into adopting those values... fighting entitled Washington elite opinion makers and hitting them with something much harder than a slipper is icing on the cake really.. See? Anyone can play the stereotype game. What are we gonna talk about next? Who’s more racist? Yeah I think that discussion coming soon
A political world with no more Kennedys, Bushs, Clintons, Trumps, et all would be nice indeed. Be careful with that wish. The way things are now, Obama would be president until he dies Sounds good to me. I say beat them all with a slipper. A big slipper. 100% agree, but it is fun talking about beating people with slippers. Come join us If hitting the Washington elite with something harder than a slipper is the goal, I think you would be hard pressed in finding someone better for the job than AOC. Traditionally, rich people only get into politics to further their own gains. Improving the conditions for the working/middle class is not even on their radar.
I happen known a few politicians personally and for many years. One on the national level. They were good people before getting into politics. I believe they got into politics for noble reasons and they are still good people. Part of the problem here is that we all have different ideas, we all know our own point of view to be correct, and we tend to think anyone who does not do it how we would do it is wrong. Sure, there is plenty of corruption at all levels of government but it's probably not nearly as bad as the average person perceives.
The reason why most people find Trump to be a bitter pill to swallow is exactly because of that sentiment you displayed “rich people tend to care for themselves”. Of course his bullish NY style paints him as a repulsive individual, one which I will find hard to believe any regular person will care to follow. And so again, let me repeat what I just said earlier LETS NOT MAKE IT ABOUT STEREOTYPES. This is not what this is about. The past 2-3 decades have seen a rise in totalitarian mind control through major media outlets, entertainment channels and eventually through the implementation of social media within news networks. You now have the media control everything you think. They are the popular kid in the class that tells you what is popular to say and think. The privileged bully. The ones everyone likes but ALWAYS care for himself. He will care for others JUST SO OTHERS WILL LIKE HIM MORE. not because he really cares 2 sh**s about helping the poor or the needy. We have gotten idiotically ignorant because of our support of that popular kid. We all ALL wanna support him and be like him. So much so that we lost a grasp of reality and what’s actually right or wrong.
I am sure there are many good people going into local politics for the right reasons. They want to help fix a broken system. There are also many people going into local politics for less than noble reasons. Reasons that are pretty self evident by now. The problem with the good people is twofold: 1. They refuse to bend to the political machine of being a self serving club that keep the public just happy enough to not revolt while enriching themselves. Their refusal to compromise their values leads to burnout or defeat at the hands of someone who will be a member of the club and benefits from associated campaign contributions. 2. If the good people survive long enough, they slowly become a member of the club eventually through corruption osmosis. Look at all the old guard. They don't give a crap about the average person. Though I do not agree with AOC on a variety of issues, I would like to think she is above both outcomes. Realistically though she will fall into one of the two above scenarios, and that makes me cynical about the future. Absolutely. I am positive that none of us are in lock step with each other politically. Here is the problem I have with that statement. It takes all levels of disagreement and sweeps them all into the same trash can of chaos. There are plenty of people who disagree on many issues but who are willing to compromise for the greater good of the country. Those people are not being represented. At. All. Politicians are so hellbent on maintaining power that they are not willing to temper their own constituents. Constituents who are easily manipulated by the media and fringe groups. They are complicit and further the chaos. When is the last time anyone has heard during a debate something like, "I know my opponent has very different views than I do, but I do not condone the toxic nonsense being thrown at them by some of my constituents. That needs to stop. We all know you are going to vote for me and not them, so tone it down, and let's be civil. It will not help your or my cause." I would fall over dead if that happened. Anyone with half a brain knew that he was self serving and that was not going to change. It has nothing to do with his New Yawker culture and everything to do with him being a sociopath. A very predictable and not so smart sociopath. I 100% agree with you here. The media is overall toxic for our country. Why? Because it preys on all of humanity's worst traits. Here is the rub though, we have the option to turn off the TV. We can stop going to certain websites. We can delete our FB accounts or only use it for family pictures. We have that power. We can make the media toothless overnight. Are are addicted to it. We have it in us a desire to get riled up and rage against our perceived enemies. It's been around forever. We brought this upon ourselves. If we are truly sick of it, we are the only ones who can make it stop.
