The Long Term Investor

HERE is the market today. Looking good so far.

Stocks rise after Apple earnings, December inflation data

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/30/stock-market-today-live-updates.html

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

"Stocks moved higher Friday as investors analyzed earnings reports from Apple and other well-known companies, alongside the release of a closely followed inflation report.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
rose 20 points, or less than 0.1%.

Investors honed in on Apple, which saw shares rise 3% after the company exceeded fiscal first-quarter expectations. While Apple reported disappointing sales tied to the iPhone, services revenue appeared to take the spotlight.

The December data for the personal consumption expenditures price index — the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge — showed an increase of 0.3% from November and a 2.6% annual rate. While this yearly advance was in line with economists’ expectations, it marked an acceleration from the prior month’s rate of 2.4% — raising some concerns that inflation remains sticky. Excluding food and energy, core PCE also increased 0.2% monthly and 2.8% on an annual basis.

Friday’s action follows a winning — but volatile — trading session for the three major indexes. Technology has been a major focus of investors this week given Monday’s big sell-off sparked by developments out of China’s DeepSeek artificial intelligence startup and earnings reports from key players over recent days.

Despite those advances, only the Dow is on track to finish the week higher. While the blue-chip index has risen about 1%, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are poised to finish down by 0.1% and 0.5%, respectively.

Friday also marks the last day of what has been a rocky January for traders. Nevertheless, the three major averages are on pace for monthly gains, with the S&P 500 up 3.6% and the Nasdaq on pace for a 2.7% advance. The Dow outperformed in the period, on track for a 5.7% jump.

“We still do have a fair amount of earnings,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors. “Usually, it pays to be long during earnings, so we would continue to be bullish into February.”"

MY COMMENT

It has actually been a extremely good month for the markets this month. SP500 going to hit at least +3.6%.........NASDAQ, +2.7%......and the DOW +5.7%. These are very large gains for a single month. AND....it looks like they are going to grow even more today.

Do this every month.....(not going to happen)......and, we will be looking at another year of +25% to 35% total return for investors. Unfortunately projecting the markets does not work that way.

You would never know that we have been having such a good month if you just focus on the day to day opinion/media coverage.

AND....just for fun:

"The report highlights that DeepSeek’s total server capital expenditure (CapEx) amounts to an astonishing $1.3 billion."

"Research exposes DeepSeek’s AI training cost is not $6M, it’s a staggering $1.3B"


https://interestingengineering.com/culture/deepseeks-ai-training-cost-billion

 

Looking like a very good day so far since the ticker is telling me that I have eight of nine stocks in the green right now. My lone loser....my micro-position CMG. Of course I am very forgiving of that stock and am giving it a long time to show me what it can do.

I have now finished scanning all my usual sources and not much is really happening today. With the AAPL earnings and the decent inflation data....it is a nice NORMAL day in the markets....no drama....no BS.

In spite of all the turmoil......we are going to end the month with some hefty gains in the big averages. The BIG TECH has had a tough month with the constant media fear-mongering and attacks from China. So what......this is the norm for the tech area of the markets. To be in these stocks you have to be able to....take the heat.....to get the gains.

YES.....we are still in a BULL MARKET. YES.....policies of the new government will "probably" lead to a much better business environment. YES......we are still the world leader in TECH....by far. YES.....there is still no better place to invest than BIG CAP American companies that are the cream of the crop around the world. AND:

YES......I continue to be fully invested for the long term as usual.

 

I hope EMMETT is ok.

It has been a long time since he has posted anything...even a simply hello. If you read this Emmett.....just pop in and let us know that you are doing ok.

 

Since the markets are doing well on their own today....I will continue to put the......ALTERNATIVE INFO.....out there on DeepFake. Someone has to do it.

Deepseek is ‘IP theft’: US officials raise alarm; Microsoft had alerted OpenAI

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com...-had-alerted-openai/articleshow/117683876.cms

Unprotected DeepSeek Database Exposed Chats, Other Sensitive Information
An unprotected database belonging to Chinese AI company DeepSeek exposed highly sensitive information, including chat history, secret keys, and backend data.

https://www.securityweek.com/unprotected-deepseek-database-leaked-highly-sensitive-information/

DeepSeek’s AI restricted by ‘hundreds’ of companies within days
Anxieties around DeepSeek have mounted since praise from high-profile tech executives propelled it to the top of the Apple Store

https://financialpost.com/news/deepseek-ai-restricted-hundreds-companies

MY COMMENT

For more info see my post on the prior page that outlines how the Chinese government helped orchestrate the Weekend and particularly Sunday evening....media frenzy on DeepSeek.

 

I note that one of my holdings.....PLTR....basically hit a new ALL TIME HIGH today. it is now just below at $84.65....or....+4.22%.

https://www.investing.com/news/comp...time-high-of-848-amid-tech-rally-93CH-3843066

Of course this article and many stock pickers..... continue to claim that the stock is over-valued. it may be....but....this is a very young company that is just starting out. We often see this sort of "overvalued claim" with young growth stocks. It will be interesting to see what they report when their earnings come out NEXT WEEK.

They have had an epic run-up. And as far as I can see they continue to rack up the government and private contracts. This will be the key when earnings are reported.

 

A very nice day so far. I hope we can avoid the dreaded....late day fade.

PLTR is on fire today......hitting multiple ALL TIME HIGHS. a moment ago I saw that is was at $85.22 per share. AMAZING action in this stock recently.

 

Unfortunately for Delaware.....they did this to themselves.

Meta in talks to reincorporate in Texas or another state, exit Delaware, WSJ reports

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meta-talks-reincorporate-texas-another-192720617.html

DUH.

 

Looks like the NERVOUS NELLY markets talked themselves into the red today. These short term people and machines that are driving this "stuff"........ need to take a chill pill and get a handle on the real world.

 

The markets faded badly at the end of the day and so did my account. I ended in the RED today. Good riddance to this ridiculous week. I had a medium loss and got beat by the SP500 by 0.57% today.

 

The week that was:

DOW year to date +5.08%
DOW five days +0.90%

SP500 year to date +2.93%
SP500 five days +1.20%

NASDAQ 100 year to date +2.36%
NASDAQ 100 five days +2.22%

NASDAQ +1.80%
NASDAQ five days +2.05%

RUSSELL year to date +2.51%
RUSSELL five days (-0.11%)

As for me a pitiful week. I ended the week with my entire portfolio at year to date......(-0.61%). Last Friday I was at year to date for my entire portfolio.....+3.84%. Live by the gun...die by the gun.....for me this week.

The best I can say is we ended the month of January with positive gains in the averages. ONWARD AND UPWARD.

 

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE.

 

And to continue my....search for Truth.......SATYA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya#:~:text=Sat is a common prefix in ancient,sat-van means one devoted to the truth.

DeepSeek’s hardware spend could be as high as $500 million, new report estimates

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/31/deepseeks-hardware-spend-could-be-as-high-as-500-million-report.html

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

"Key Points

• A new report from SemiAnalysis estimated that DeepSeek’s hardware spend is “well higher than $500M.”
• China’s DeepSeek app took off in the U.S. this week.
• DeepSeek said the model’s total training costs amounted to almost $5.6 million, a fraction of the amount rivals have spent.

China’s DeepSeek became the biggest topic in tech this week, with many in the industry and on Wall Street focused on a single number: $6 million.

In DeepSeek’s paper about its newest artificial intelligence model, the company said that its total training costs amounted to $5.576 million, based on the rental price of Nvidia’s
graphics processing units. DeepSeek included a clear caveat, saying that the number included only the model’s “official training” and excluded the costs tied to “prior research and ablation experiments on architectures, algorithms, or data.”

Early in the week, DeepSeek’s AI Assistant took the coveted spot for most-downloaded free app in the U.S. on Apple’s App Store, dethroning OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Global tech stocks sold off, with chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom losing a combined $800 billion in market cap on Monday.

A new report from SemiAnalysis, a semiconductor research and consulting firm, added more context to DeepSeek’s expenses. The firm estimated that DeepSeek’s hardware spend is “well higher than $500M over the company history,” adding that R&D costs and total cost of ownership are significant. Generating “synthetic data” for the model to train on would require “considerable amount of compute,” SemiAnalysis wrote.

The report said the Claude 3.5 Sonnet from Anthropic cost ”$10s of millions to train,” but noted that Anthropic raised billions for dollars from Amazon and Google, an indication of how much more money is required to run the models and the company.

“It’s because they have to experiment, come up with new architectures, gather and clean data, pay employees, and much more,” SemiAnalysis said.

DeepSeek’s own paper does not include an estimation of its compute costs. The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“To be clear DeepSeek is unique in that they achieved this level of cost and capabilities first,” SemiAnalysts wrote. The firm added that DeepSeek’s R1 “is a very good model” and that “catching up to the reasoning edge this quickly is objectively impressive.”

Experts and analysts this week touted the quality of DeepSeek’s model, and noted how impressive it is considering the U.S. curbed chip exports to China three times in three years. That led to concerns that the U.S. is falling behind its chief adversary in a market that’s predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.

Bernstein analysts wrote in a note Monday that “according to the many (occasionally hysterical) hot takes we saw [over the weekend,] the implications range anywhere from ‘That’s really interesting’ to ‘This is the death-knell of the AI infrastructure complex as we know it.’”

DeepSeek was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, co-founder of High-Flyer, a quantitative hedge fund focused on AI. The AI startup reportedly grew out of the hedge fund’s AI research unit in April 2023 to focus on large language models and reaching artificial general intelligence, or AGI — a branch of AI that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks, and that OpenAI and others are pursuing.

DeepSeek is still wholly owned by and funded by High-Flyer, according to analysts at Jefferies.

The buzz around DeepSeek began picking up steam earlier this month, when the startup released R1, its reasoning model that rivals OpenAI’s o1. It’s open-source, meaning that any AI developer can use it.

Like other Chinese chatbots, DeepSeek’s has limitations on certain topics: When asked about some of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s policies, for instance, DeepSeek reportedly steers the user away from similar lines of questioning.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has praised the model publicly, but the company has also said it believes there’s evidence that DeepSeek improperly harvested OpenAI data to build its product.

At an event in Washington, D.C., on Thursday hosted by OpenAI, Altman said DeepSeek is “clearly a great model.”

“This is a reminder of the level of competition and the need for democratic Al to win,” he said. He said it also points to the “level of interest in reasoning, the level of interest in open source.”"

MY COMMENT

Combine the above with my prior post on the Chinese government pushing this story in the media over the weekend and Sunday before the story hit and BASHED the markets......and....this story is starting to take on some....very important..... context.

Add in the potential that DeepSeek improperly harvested OpenAI data......a typical move for China, a country with a long history of stealing technology and blatantly copying it.....and you have even more....context.

AND....just for fun:

"The report highlights that DeepSeek’s total server capital expenditure (CapEx) amounts to an astonishing $1.3 billion."

"Research exposes DeepSeek’s AI training cost is not $6M, it’s a staggering $1.3B"

https://interestingengineering.com/culture/deepseeks-ai-training-cost-billion

 

Sorry....I am now done with thinking about DeepSeek. A waste of time going forward for me.

(BUT....anyone else that wants to talk about DS on here....feel free to do so. Free Speech.)

 

Earnings so far:

EARNINGS INSIGHT

https://advantage.factset.com/hubfs...k/Earnings Insight/EarningsInsight_013125.pdf


KEY DATA

• Earnings So Far: We now have 36% of SP500 earnings in, 77% reported a positive EPS surprise.....63% reported a positive revenue surprise.

• Growth: Earnings growth rate (S&P 500) is 13.2%. At 13.2% the growth rate is the highest earnings growth rate reported since Q4 2021.

• Guidance: 12 companies (SP500) have issued negative guidance 13 S&P 500 issued positive EPS guidance.

• Valuation: PE forward 12-month P/E ratio (SP500) is 22.0. Above the 5-year average and above the 10-year average.

MY COMMENT

As usual Earnings are coming in strong. Will the markets care......probably not. The focus of the markets will be the usual short term drams, fear-mongering, sensationalism, etc, etc, etc. NONE of which has anything to do with fundamentals.

 

Good to see you back and posting Jwalker.

 

Yes....as usual earnings are going to be made irrelevant by short term news......typical.

This is what will eventually destroy the markets.......ignoring fundamentals...... for fear mongering and sensationalizing day to day events. Do this sort of BS week after week for years on end.....and....there will be no markets other than simply GAMBLING.

We have NEVER had this sort of 24/7 negative coverage for most of the life of the markets. In the end...it will totally DISTORT the markets.....and......DISCONNECT the markets from ALL historical precedent.

Just my observation.......which....will do NOTHING to help what I believe is coming over the next 10-20 years. Being FOREWARNED......is not going to change anything.....so I probably should just shut up on this topic.

I have been watching the media ramping up the tariff fear-mongering over the past 4-5 days. They are flooding the financial sites.....Sunday evening.... with speculation, and negative opinion......in posted articles on this issue. Nothing can be done about this......other than to simply sit and watch the usual INSANITY.

It will probably mean that it is a waste of time to do much watching of the markets or much posting tomorrow. If I see long term investing content, I will post it....but...I am not going to waste my time on the tariffs.

Dow futures drop more than 450 points after Trump hits U.S. trading partners with tariffs

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/02/stock-market-today-live-updates.html