We were also seeing some profit taking early today....after yesterday's gains. I see that the NASDAQ is now GREEN.
I see from the ticker that I now have four stocks up today....an improvement from early in the day. WOW....all the averages are now suddenly GREEN. It is a lazy day in the markets today. BUT....I see potential for a good close today.
A smaller loss for me today.....basically...an irrelevant day in the markets. I had two stocks up today....HD and AAPL. I also got beat by the SP500 by....0.42%. Moving on.
I am not expecting anything shocking....but.....WE MUST...... hype this story. January CPI report expected to show headline inflation eased slightly amid rate cut debate https://finance.yahoo.com/news/janu...-slightly-amid-rate-cut-debate-212332999.html Tune in tomorrow at 8:30.
I am just sitting back and waiting for the 26th when NVDA has their ER. I'm hoping that it's the catalyst needed to get out of this 8 month stagnation. After living through 2022 with the stock this isn't bad at all. Sometimes doing nothing is hard work!
Yes.....doing nothing is the ultimate hard work. today....is a mixed day for me.....4-5 stocks up and 5-6 down. PLTR on fire again. And in the end....not much change in account value so far. At the same time.....all the big averages are RED.
The.....non-story of the day.....to me. Consumer prices rise 0.5% in January, higher than expected as annual rate rises to 3% https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/12/cpi-january-2025.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points The CPI accelerated a seasonally adjusted 0.5% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 3%, both higher than expected. The core CPI ran at 0.4% and 3.3% respectively, also above forecast. Shelter costs continued to be a problem for inflation, rising 0.4% on the month. Food prices jumped 0.4% and energy prices climbed 1.1% as gasoline prices increased 1.8%. Markets largely expect the Fed to stay on hold for an extended time and pushed the next rate cut probability out to September following the CPI report. Inflation perked up more than anticipated in January, providing further incentive for the Federal Reserve to hold the line on interest rates. The consumer price index, a broad measure of costs in goods and services across the U.S. economy, accelerated a seasonally adjusted 0.5% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 3%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. They were higher than the respective Dow Jones estimates for 0.3% and 2.9%. The annual rate was 0.1 percentage point higher than December. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, the CPI rose 0.4% on the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 3.3%. That compared with respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.1%. The annual core rate also was up 0.1 percentage point from December. Markets tumbled following the news, with futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average sliding more than 400 points while bond yields scaled sharply higher. “The ‘wait and see’ Fed is going to be waiting longer than anticipated after a red-hot January CPI inflation report,” wrote Josh Jamner, investment strategy analyst at ClearBridge Investments. “This report puts the final nail in the coffin for the rate cut cycle, which we believe is over.” Shelter costs continued to be a problem for inflation, rising 0.4% on the month and accounting for about 30% of the entire increase, the BLS said. Within the category, a metric in which homeowners estimate what they could get if they rented their homes increased 0.3% on the month and was up 4.6% on an annual basis. “Shelter costs continue to be the main driver of core inflation as higher mortgage rates push more Americans into a rental market in which vacancy rates are near record lows,” said Erik Norland, chief economist at CME Group. “Traders appear to believe that today’s data make additional Fed cuts less likely than they had expected previously.” Food prices jumped 0.4%, pushed by a 15.2% surge in egg prices related to ongoing problems with avian bird flu that have forced farmers to destroy millions of chickens. The bureau said it was the largest increase in egg prices since June 2015 and it was responsible for about two-thirds of the rise in food-at-home prices. Egg prices have soared 53% over the past year. Nonalcoholic beverages posted a 2.2% gain over the past 12 months, while in January tomatoes fell 2% and other fresh vegetables declined 2.6%. New vehicle prices were flat, but used cars and trucks saw a 2.2% increase and motor vehicle insurance was up 2%, pushing the annual gain to 11.8%. Energy prices climbed 1.1% as gasoline prices rose 1.8%. The report comes a day after Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated the central bank could be on hold for a while when it comes to interest rates. Powell told members of the Senate Banking Committee that he thinks the Fed doesn’t need to be in a rush to lower rates as it evaluates progress on inflation and as President Donald Trump continues plans to levy tariffs against imports. Markets largely expect the Fed to stay on hold for an extended time and pushed the next rate cut probability out to September following the CPI report, according to CME Group data. Traders also implied about a 70% probability that the Fed will cut only once this year. Trump, though, is still pushing for lower rates. In a post on Truth Social about half an hour before the CPI release, the president said, “Interest Rates should be lowered, something which would go hand in hand with upcoming Tariffs!!!” The CPI release, though, could complicate further easing in monetary policy. The jump in prices ate into worker paychecks, as the CPI increase entirely offset the 0.5% move higher in average hourly earnings, the BLS said in a separate release." MY COMMENT Does not concern me in the slightest. I really dont care about rate cuts. Rates are already low. I really dont care about 3% inflation.....right at the bottom of the normal 3-4% range. Plus this is basic nit-picking of data.....since 30% of this small increase is shelter....plus more added by.....eggs. BOTTOM line for me.....the markets are NOT economic reports and.......AMAZINGLY.....the actual economy is NOT economic reports. I hate the constant nit-picking of all this unreliable data. I much prefer just simply seeing the......BIG PICTURE.....which right now looks very good.
We just went to the store and did NOT buy any eggs. Not due to price....but....because after doing lots of baking recently we have about two dozen in the fridge right now. That amount of eggs will last us for many months. Perhaps I should cash in.....and sell them. But....I dont want to worry about the Capital Gains tax.
Welcome to Texas. BUMMER for the East Coast.....and....Delaware. The New York Stock Exchange is launching an exchange in Texas https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/12/the-new-york-stock-exchange-is-launching-an-exchange-in-texas.html "Key Points NYSE Chicago, previously the Chicago Stock Exchange, will soon become NYSE Texas. Last month, TXSE Group announced that it had filed for registration of the Texas Stock Exchange with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Texas has also emerged as a competitor to Delaware as the legal home of major companies."
Talking about the....BIG PICTURE. I am a total BIG PICTURE guy in life and investing. I try to NEVER get all bogged down in the nit-picking details. I refuse to micro-manage....which is often just over-thinking. The Perils of Line-Item Thinking https://behaviouralinvestment.com/2025/02/11/the-perils-of-line-item-thinking/ (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "One of the key challenges faced by investors aiming to generate long-term returns with a diversified portfolio is ‘line-item thinking’. This is where we obsess over the success or failure of individual positions, often losing sight of our true investment goals and the principles of sound diversification. A good investment decision is not the same as a good portfolio decision. Portfolio objectives are often framed in terms of beating a benchmark or ‘optimising’ for a given level of risk. Neither of these feels quite right. A benchmark-centric approach implicitly assumes that the benchmark is the correct base mix of assets for our requirements; while optimisations that are striving for ‘return maximisation’ within certain parameters suffer from inputting forecasts that we know will be wrong into a system very sensitive to those incorrect forecasts. Rather I think for most individuals the objectives of our portfolios should be something along the lines of: To maximise the probability of delivering good outcomes and minimise the probability of very bad outcomes. It follows that any decision we make regarding our portfolio should be consistent with achieving those aims; and this is where the issue of line-item thinking arises. What is line-item thinking? It is characterised by these types of behaviours: – Thinking about the attractiveness of an investment on a standalone basis, or relative to one other asset. (I expect US equities to outperform emerging market equities, so I am overweight). – Thinking about how an investment will perform in one future scenario. (I don’t think there will be a recession this year, so I prefer high yield to high grade credit). – Thinking in terms of profit and loss, and whether an individual position ‘added value’. (This position detracted value and therefore was a mistake). Although line-item thinking can seem reasonable in isolation, it is often antithetical to good portfolio decision making. None of the three examples above really help me achieve my portfolio objectives as described; they may even hinder it. Positive portfolio decisions can often seem like bad line-item decisions. Portfolio Neglect The principal reason we build portfolios that combine different assets, funds and securities is diversification. The future is unknowable and therefore we want to create a combination of holdings that is resilient to that uncertainty. If we could predict the future, then we would only hold one security in our portfolio. This brings us to the central behavioural challenge of diversification. Proof of it being effective comes in the form of assets and positions performing poorly (certainly relative to other things that we hold), but we have little appetite for owning stragglers. Good diversification is about making choices that we expect to work in a world that we don’t expect to happen. Line-item thinking exacerbates this problem because instead of considering the role each holding plays in meeting the objectives of our diversified portfolio, we think about them independently – did this asset, fund or view outperform or not? It works in binary, deterministic terms. It is always about outcome bias Outcome bias (our propensity to judge the quality of a decision by results alone) is one of our most pernicious and powerful behavioural failings. We cannot resist assessing portfolio performance after the fact and judging how the different components have fared. The underperformers and idlers are classed as poor decisions that cause us anxiety, while the outperformers are evidence of sound judgement. This perspective makes sense through a line-item lens, but it is entirely inconsistent with making sensible portfolio decisions. We can quite easily make choices where an individual position performs well, but fails both criteria of increasing the probability of good outcomes and minimising the probability of very bad outcomes (particularly when only observing short-run returns). The central issue is that good portfolio decisions are designed to make us robust to a range of unpredictable future results; if we do this, by definition, a decent chunk of our portfolio will look ‘wrong’ with the benefit of hindsight. Our portfolio performance assessments come once a single market or economic path has been charted. Diversification always feels like a cost because nothing seems uncertain through the rear view mirror. Line-item thinking comes to the fore here – we look at each position, assess its performance and probably focus on the ones that have struggled. This seems reasonable but is a terrible idea from a portfolio perspective. But what is the alternative? There are three critical portfolio-thinking questions to ask about the performance of individual positions: – Was the decision reasonable at the time it was made given what we knew? – Has the asset behaved in a manner that was broadly consistent with expectations / or its role in the portfolio? – Did the decision meet the criteria of increasing the probability of good outcomes and minimising the probability of very bad outcomes? Of course, asking people to think less about outperformance / underperformance of any given position is an entirely futile exercise. What’s measured is what matters! But the more that we think in such a manner, the less likely we are to make decisions that are consistent with meeting our overall portfolio objectives. Line-item thinking is everywhere. Not a year goes by when the last rites aren’t read for a particular type of asset that hasn’t performed well. Bonds, value investing, liquid alternatives, non-US equities…have all come into the crosshairs in recent times. These types of claims make sense from a line-item perspective, few of them do from a portfolio one. Line-Item Duty Given that it is portfolio outcomes that matter to us, not the ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of any specific position, why is line-item thinking so prevalent? One undeniable reason is simply availability – we see the line items, so we care about each of them – but there is a deep irony here. We like to check that we are diversified by looking at all the underlying holdings in our portfolio (we don’t want to see just a single line in our valuation even if there is plenty of diversification underneath that); but when we can view each of the underlying positions, it inevitably makes us want to rid ourselves of the poor performers. Our desire to find proof of diversification leads to behaviour where we become less diversified. Line-item thinking is also easy. Easy to prove and easy to measure. Positions either work or they don’t, and we were either right about how things panned out or we were wrong. Even attempting to explain why we might be happy that certain positions looked to have performed disappointingly, or why a decision that looks like a poor one actually made a portfolio more likely to meet long-run objectives is likely to be met with scorn. The consequences of line-item thinking There are several significant and deleterious consequences of line-item thinking: Increasing portfolio concentration: Removing the laggards and increasing exposure to the winners is an inevitable consequence of line-item thinking – we don’t want to hold positions that are underperforming, so we reduce diversification and concentrate on the things that we got ‘right’. We create portfolios for the known past, not an uncertain future. Less portfolio resilience: Line-item thinking means that we focus on whether a position is likely to outperform / underperform, rather than consider the role it might play in making a portfolio more robust to certain outcomes. A position that performs very strongly in a future that has a 30% probability of occurring can be incredibly valuable, even if on 70% of occasions it will look like a failure (on a line-item basis). Too much risk: Line-item thinking will perpetually bias us towards higher return / higher risk assets. If we have the choice between two assets – we are always likely to favour that with a higher return potential even if it carries more risk and is less diversifying, because from a line-item perspective it is more likely to outperform. Too much trading: Over-trading is an inevitable consequence of line-item thinking as we continually trade in and out of assets as they go through their performance cycles. Not only will we trade too frequently, but we will also almost always do it at inopportune times: Why don’t we hold more of that asset that has outperformed everything else in the portfolio, has enjoyed huge tailwinds in recent years and is trading on stratospheric valuations? The more we think about the standalone merits and performance of any given holding or ‘line-item’ in our portfolios, the less likely we are to make sensible, well-calibrated decisions and be appropriately diversified for an uncertain future." MY COMMENT Portfolio construction and make-up is a critical art for any investor. I try to always look at my portfolio as a whole. Being a long term investor makes it much easier to avoid screwing around with individual holdings too often and as a result your portfolio. For me investing....especially for the long term....is all about PROBABILITY. I dont mind having a stock like CMG or WMT or other not high flyer stocks.....if they help me get a long term probability of success in my portfolio. It is all about seeing the BIG PICTURE....over the long term.....or....micro-managing your investments. AND...it is also a question of balance and risk management.
I am not really paying any attention to the markets today. We will be going out to lunch early since I have to get ready and leave at about 12:45 for a 2:00 rehearsal. It will be the first whole band rehearsal.....with what will hopefully be the final line-up. We all met up at a club to do a few songs the other night as sort of a.......proof-of-concept. It went well. So bottom line....I will miss most of the day today...including the close since I will be tied up until at least 5:00.
Ok......a small loss for me today. My portfolio as a whole gave me five GREEN stocks today....PLTR, CMG, AAPL, WMT, and COST. I lost out to the SP500 today by a slight amount.....0.04%. Dont care.....we had a good rehearsal today.
I just got some housing market data for my general area....perhaps about 8000 homes.....for the month of JANUARY: MEDIAN PRICE.......$860,000.....+10% HOMES SOLD.......25......+47% DAYS ON MARKET.......73.....-3%. NEW LISTINGS.......44.....+33% SALES VOLUME.......$25.1MILLION.....+19% CLOSE TO LIST PRICE.......96.7%....+2%.
Our work has switched up providers for our 401k and HSA. It appears to be a good thing for the HSA as we know have many more investment options including individual stocks. The short term down side is I had to liquidate my old HSA into cash and it can take up to 6 weeks! to transfer over!. 6 weeks out of the market! Seems excessive. Anyway the 401k change appears to be comparable investment wise other than eliminating the option to buy company stock, which is doing amazing the past few years. I do like the interface better and they included some pretty cool tools that I have been tinkering with. One is a net worth calculator thing that I won't use because I don't need anyone, especially work, knowing that. The other tool is a 'how do I compare to others' where you can sort by Age, Salary and Gender. I am assuming it is accurate to some degree because they have direct access to everyone's 401k but wouldn't account for outside accounts that many of us have. I am firmly a run your own race supporter! but I also like metrics and seeing where you fall amongst your peers can sometimes be either motivating or comforting. End of the day(retirement) how much you need is a case by case basis. Do you need a little cabin in the woods or a beachfront villa in a gated community. If you have an age group or salary bracket you want me to include let me know but I just selected $100k-$250k for this exercise. Observation: -At every age group males are outsaving females by about 10-15%. Some of this appears to be salary related with makes making about that much more on average -The numbers for people under 30 years old look pretty good to me for both balance and contribution rate. While many people under 30 have no or negative net worth it appears ones with 401k access are doing pretty good. and maybe even better than older generations. -Even 'top peers' (peers in the 90th percentile) are not saving a million dollars by retirement in this salary bracket! -As people get closer to retirement they are contributing more which makes sense These numbers look extremely weak: -I didn't include this below but the average 50-59 year old male making $250k+ a year has a 401k balance of $451k, top peer has $1.3mil. -60+year old male making $250k+ a year has a 401k balance of $530k, top peer has $1.56 mil. Gender: Male Age: Under 30 Salary: $100k-250k Peers Contribution: 6% Balance: $37k Top Peers Contribution:15% Balance: $97k Gender: Female Age: Under 30 Salary: $100k-250k Peers Contribution:6% Balance: $31k Top Peers Contribution: 15% Balance: $86k Gender: Male Age: 30-39 Salary: $100k-250k Peers Contribution: 6% Balance: $83k Top Peers Contribution: 14% Balance: $220k Gender:Female Age: 30-39 Salary: $100k-250k Peers Contribution: 6% Balance: $70k Top Peers Contribution: 14% Balance: $189k Gender: Male Age: Under 40-49 Salary: $100k-250k Peers Contribution: 6% Balance: $165k Top Peers Contribution: 14% Balance: $449k Gender: Female Age: 40-49 Salary: $100k-250k Peers Contribution: 6% Balance: $141k Top Peers Contribution: 14% Balance: $387k Gender: male Age: 50-59 Salary: $100k-250k Peers Contribution: 7% Balance: $281k Top Peers Contribution: 17% Balance: $785k Gender: female Age: 50-59 Peers Contribution: 7% Balance: $228k Top Peers Contribution: 18% Balance: $645k Gender: male Age: 60+ Peers Contribution: 8% Balance: $312k Top Peers Contribution: 19% Balance: $893k Gender: female Age: 60+ Peers Contribution: 7% Balance: $252k Top Peers Contribution: 20% Balance: $708k
Some nice info above TireSmoke. Actually when you consider that many people are married and both worked.......and that many people also own a home......by age 60+ most people along with Social Security are going to be OK in retirement. Even if a couple only has about $500,000 to $750,000....at retirement that money can make a significant difference compared to not having it. BUT....the amounts above do seem low.
I have been ignoring the markets today to work on my....GASP.....TAXES. I just got done with all the basic data and I will owe about $4500......MORE...... than I was projecting. The amount of the check that we will have to write in April is way more than the amount above.....the $4500 represents the.....EXTRA.....money we will owe above what I was estimating our tax liability would be. I knew that I would owe this year......and only being off by $4500 is good for me. I was worried that it would be a lot more than that. I just hope we do not take a big hit by being pushed into a higher Medicare Part B premium category.
I have not looked at my account but I looked at one of my kids....it has the same holdings as mine. I see that ALL stocks were in the GREEN. A very nice day.
To continue the little theme that tireSmoke started above: Navigating retirement: Generations redefine the future of work and leisure The question is not when you will retire but how you will design your path to fulfillment https://www.salon.com/2025/02/12/na...ions-redefine-the-future-of-work-and-leisure/
HERE is the obvious driver of the markets today. Bonds Rally as New Inflation Data Repair Damage Inflicted by CPI https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-bonds-rise-hot-inflation-105941004.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "(Bloomberg) — Treasuries rallied as a report on producer prices suggested that Wednesday’s selloff sparked by hot consumer inflation data was overblown. The advance trimmed some yields by nearly 10 basis points, erasing most of the previous day’s surge. Even before the January producer price index was released, interest-rate strategists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. said investors should buy two-year Treasury notes after Wednesday’s selloff pushed yields toward the high end of the recent range. The market’s recovery produced gains for those who bought 10-year Treasury notes in Wednesday’s auction, and lowered the expected yield for an auction of 30-year bonds at 1 p.m. New York time. Potentially complicating the auction, the Trump administration said it would announce plans for reciprocal tariffs on trading partners at the same time, however CNBC reported they won’t take effect immediately. “It’s a relief rally,” said Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector fixed income investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Elements of the PPI suggest that the Fed’s preferred gauge of consumer inflation, to be released near the end of the month, will be more benign than the CPI was, she and others said. The yield on 10-year notes dropped as much as nine basis points to 4.53%. The notes drew a yield of 4.632% in Wednesday’s auction, which produced the highest new-issue coupon since 2007. The 30-year bonds to be sold at 1 p.m. traded at a yield of about 4.74%, down from a peak of 4.85% Wednesday. The surprise acceleration in consumer price growth battered US government bonds as traders pushed bets for the next Federal Reserve interest-rate cut to December from September. The data intensified fears that inflation has been reignited, and could accelerate further if the tariffs US President Trump has threatened take effect. But while the CPI and core CPI rates unexpectedly quickened, the PCE price index rate that Fed policymakers seek to have average 2% over time may show deceleration to 2.5% for January when released Feb. 28, Citigroup Inc. economists said. They predict the Fed will cut rates in May, though most other Wall Street banks are less sanguine about easing this year, and several predict the central bank will hold rates steady through year-end. “The market has done a good job of pricing the inflation risk,” Brian Weinstein, head of global markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said on Bloomberg Television. “What the market is anticipating is that we shift this conversation to the growth impact of all this uncertainty in the tariffs.”" MY COMMENT Looking good.
