HERE is the second.....big one...today: Alphabet revenue grows 23% but cloud business still losing billions, lagging competitors https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/02/alphabet-googl-earnings-q4-2020.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points Google’s parent company beat estimates on the top and bottom lines. Alphabet disclosed operating profit from Google’s cloud business for the first time. Shares of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, rose 6% in extended trading on Tuesday after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that surpassed analysts’ expectations. Here’s how the company did: Earnings: $22.30 per share, adjusted, vs., $15.90 per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv. Revenue: $56.90 billion, vs. $53.13 billion as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv. Google Cloud: $3.83 billion, vs. $3.81 billion as expected by analysts, according to StreetAccount. YouTube ads: $6.89 billion, vs. $6.11 billion as expected by analysts, according to StreetAccount. Traffic acquisition costs (TAC): $10.47 billion, vs. $9.32 billion as expected by analysts, according to StreetAccount. Alphabet’s revenue grew 23% on an annualized basis in the quarter, according to a statement. That’s stronger growth than last year’s Q4, which came in at 17%, and suggests that Google’s advertising business is recovering well after a big slowdown in Q2 of last year. The company also broke out operating income from its cloud business for the first time: the company lost $5.61 billion during the full year, and $1.24 billion during Q4, showing that the business is still in investment mode. By way of contrast, Amazon’s cloud business earned an operating profit of $13.53 billion last year and $3.56 billion last quarter. Advertising revenue for the fourth quarter came out to $46.20 billion, up from $37.93 billion in the same quarter last year. The company’s Other Bets segment, which includes life sciences unit Verily and self-driving unit Waymo, brought in $196 million in the fourth quarter and $657 million during the year. The company showed operating loss of $4.48 billion in 2020. Google’s “Other Revenue” came in at $6.67 billion in Q4. That’s up from $5.26 billion Q4 2019. MY COMMENT ALSO....blow out earnings. We should have a very interesting day tomorrow for investors. GOOGL is up by 7.91% after hours. AMZN is up by 1.33% after hours. Not that it means anything.....as to the open tomorrow. A GREAT.....all around day.....for investors today.
Gee.....I almost forgot....my day today. BIG GREEN in my accounts. I had two holdings in the red today PG and MSFT....both very slightly. I got a beat of the SP500 by .40%. AND.......I am right at my.......previous....all time high. So....all impact of last week has been......ERASED.
Yup what a surprise... but really... it’s not like he’s quitting. He’s just gonna take the back seat.... and likely get involved with more politics or current events.... Kinda like Bob Iger at Disney, only of course a much larger figure than bob
TomB16 said: "What do you think about Jeff Bezos stepping down?" I dont like it.....simply because I hate to see change in long term successful management team and change over from the founding visionary leader of the company. BUT....sooner or later it had to happen. HOPEFULLY BEZOS is making a good selection for the new CEO. Jassy HAS been there since 1997....so....hopefully he knows how and what made the company a success. Jassy is only 53 years old so he can.....hopefully....be in the job for a long time. He is a Seattle guy with ties to the old guard city ELITES in Seattle. For me....he will be on double secret probation.....for his first year or two to see if he can continue.....and.....even grow the momentum that has been the hallmark of this company for the past decades. Worst case....he is a failure and can not handle the job...at that point it is a situation of evaluating the company as a long term investment. Sooner or later it happens to EVERY company. So....bottom line.....we will know how it all is working out in about TWO YEARS......perhaps THREE.
WELL.....one of the accounts that I manage for a relative will have $300,000 coming into the account some time over the next 3-5 market days. So that money will have to be invested. This is a taxable brokerage account with significant funds ALREADY invested in the same fashion as the portfolio model that I post at various times. So.......what is the plan for these funds? WELL....the plan will be to add to both the fund and stock sides of the portfolio in the USUAL fashion. I MAY......I dont know yet since I have not given it any thought yet.......add funds as needed to balance out some of the holdings with those that have run way up in value. In any event......I will stick with my USUAL investment strategy........and......the SAME portfolio model that I post here. I.....WILL ALSO......follow my usual approach of investing the funds.....ALL IN ALL AT ONCE. I will do this even though we are at a market high right now. I trust and believe the academic research that prove this is the right approach. In addition I have invested this way over my entire life and have NEVER regretted it. I dont care to try to market time...this money into the markets. As usual I will POST when these funds are invested.
A quick note about Shorting Stocks. I was thinking that this thread may benefit from having an explanation of this trading practice in leu of what happened recently. Im sure that the seasoned investor knows how this borderline illicit practice serves traders, but the young investor may not. So here is an example of how it played out for one George Soros, the king of shorts. Here is the article presented in good old fashioned W articulation: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-theory/09/how-soros-does-it.asp George Soros: The Philosophy of an Elite Investor George Soros, the maverick hedge fund manager. has generated significant annual returns, after management fees. His flagship Quantum Fund is revered by investors. Despite the animosity generated by his trading tactics and the controversy surrounding his investment philosophy, Soros has pent decades at the head of the class among the world's elite investors. In 1981, Institutional Investor magazine named him "the world's greatest money manager." Soros' Philosophy George Soros is a short-term speculator. He makes massive, highly-leveraged bets on the direction of the financial markets. His famous hedge fund is known for its global macro strategy, a philosophy centered around making massive, one-way bets on the movements of currency rates, commodity prices, stocks, bonds, derivatives, and other assets based on macroeconomic analysis. Simply put, Soros bets that the value of these investments will either rise or fall. Soros studies his targets, letting the movements of the various financial markets and their participants dictate his trades. He refers to the philosophy behind his trading strategy as reflexivity. The theory eschews traditional ideas of an equilibrium-based market environment where all information is known to all market participants and thereby factored into prices. Instead, Soros believes that market participants themselves directly influence market fundamentals and that their irrational behavior leads to booms and busts that present investment opportunities. Housing prices provide an interesting example of his theory in action. When lenders make it easy to get loans, more people borrow money. With money in hand, these people buy homes, which results in a rise in demand for homes. Rising demand results in rising prices. Higher prices encourage lenders to lend more money. More money in the hands of borrowers results in rising demand for homes, and an upward spiraling cycle that results in housing prices that have been bid up way beyond where economic fundamentals would suggest is reasonable. The actions of the lenders and buyers have had a direct influence on the price of the commodity. An investment based on the idea that the housing market will crash would reflect a classic Soros bet. Short-selling the shares of luxury home builders or shorting the shares of major housing lenders would be two potential investments seeking to profit when the housing boom goes bust. Major Trades Soros will always be remembered as "the man who broke the Bank of England." A well-known currency speculator, Soros does not limit his efforts to a particular geographic area, instead, he considered the entire world when seeking opportunities. In September of 1992, he borrowed billions of dollars worth of British pounds and converted them to German marks. When the pound crashed, Soros repaid his lenders based on the new, lower value of the pound, pocketing in excess of $1 billion in the difference between the value of the pound and the value of the mark during a single day's trading. He made nearly $2 billion in total after unwinding his position. He made a similar move with Asian currencies during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, participating in a speculative frenzy that resulted in the collapse of the baht (Thailand's currency). These trades were so effective because the national currencies the speculators bet against were pegged to other currencies, meaning that agreements were in place to "prop up" the currencies in order to make sure they traded in a specific ratio against the currency to which they were pegged. When the speculators placed their bets, the currency issuers were forced to attempt to maintain the ratios by buying their currencies on the open market. When the governments ran out of money and were forced to abandon that effort, the currency values plummeted. Governments lived in fear that Soros would take an interest in their currencies. When he did, other speculators joined the fray in what's been described as a pack of wolves descending on a herd of elk. The massive amounts of money the speculators could borrow and leverage made it impossible for smaller governments to withstand the assault. Despite his masterful successes, not every bet George Soros made worked in his favor. In 1987, he predicted that the U.S. markets would continue to rise. His fund lost $300 million during the crash, although it still delivered low double-digit returns for the year. He also took a $2 billion hit during the Russian debt crisis in 1998 and lost $700 million in 1999 during the tech bubble when he bet on a decline. Stung by the loss, he bought big in anticipation of a rise. He lost nearly $3 billion when the market finally crashed. Conclusion Trading like George Soros is not for the faint of heart or the light of wallet. The downside of betting big and winning big is betting big and losing big. If you can't afford to take the loss, you can't afford to bet like Soros. While most global macro hedge fund traders are relatively quiet types, avoiding the spotlight while they earn their fortunes, Soros has taken very public stances on a host of economic and political issues. His public stance and spectacular success have put Soros largely in a class by himself. Over the course of more than three decades, he has made the right moves nearly every time, generating legions of fans among traders and investors, and legions of detractors among those on the losing end of his speculative activities. My comment: I chose this article from Investopedia because it demonstrates the act of borrowing money in different currencies and gaining value from the difference after betting against the currency you borrowed from. Thats probably the easiest way to explain to someone how the short process works. And at the same time, this article also demonstrates how destructive shorting could be not just against a company, but actually against a whole country. Back to you W
WOW....I sure hope Google does tomorrow....for real.....what it is doing after hours. It is up $144 per share. As a comparison....Amazon is up $10. I thought Amazon's earnings were stronger than Google's......but apparently I am in the minority....at least in terms of after hours trades.
I wonder how many people will leave the market the next time money tightens up for 6+ months? Everyone is a trading genius when money is flooding in but I suspect a lot of people will become bored and disillusioned.
Sounds about right.....TomB16. Of course......if you are ACTUALLY a long term investor...you dont care about some 6 month period.....or......how much money is flooding in and driving up stocks. Those of us that have been at it for a while......know.....that interest in the markets ebbs and flows. Today's day traders are tomorrows..........anti-stock crowd....because they got themselves BURNED and bailed out of investing. Actually.....they were NOT "investing" anyway....they were gambling.
How do you guys decide how to distribute funds in your portfolio, do you have units (amounts of money) that you try to contribute regularly or do you just throw whatever money you can afford into your portfolio willy nilly. Just curious how some of you manage your portfolio's. This is probably the most exciting and important thing for us long term investors and I don't see it talked about that much in general. For example I always try to save up and invest a certain amount when I first go into a stock and then contribute as I see fit going forward. Just curious if any of you have tips that you find help manage your portfolio. What percentages per your overall portfolio do you normally try to keep in each stock/funds and what would be too much and how do you decrease your percentage for a running stock (Tesla 2020) that has over performed the rest of your portfolio. Any insights are greatly appreciated. I enjoy the management aspects to this game and sometimes compare it to managing a fantasy sports team but with real money invested in every player!
WELL.....some good questions in the above post. I dont think there is any.....one.....single answer. It depends on the particular investor and what works for them. Number one......for any investor...whatever or however you do anything....adding funds to your account is a good thing. Just do it. You will kick start your compounding by adding funds as often as you can.....regardless....of how you allocate it. As to MYSELF and the accounts that I manage. Most of the accounts.....tend.....to have BIG CHUNKS of money come in once in a while. One of my kids accounts.......does have $500 going in every month. I encouraged them to do regular monthly deposits to their taxable brokerage account that automatically reinvest. It is easier for them and invisible. The allocation in that account is EASY....since it just holds a SP500 Index Fund and fidelity Contra Fund....it is on automatic investment equally to both funds. As I have said many times.....when I start a new portfolio I ALWAYS follow my portfolio model. So.....I start with all the stocks in equal amounts into each. Over time they diverge since I let the WINNERS RUN. When new money goes in I DO NOT punish the winners by putting less into them. The only regular money that goes into my primary account is $20,000 in December/January of each year. This money comes from our starting income budget for the year......and represents money that is above what we will need to live on for the upcoming year. I tend to allocate it......half to my funds and half to the individual stocks.....equally......in theory......if possible. The stocks like AMAZON that are higher share price are an issue since one share is more then 1/12 of the $20,000. I tend to do 1 share of those and divide the rest equally. Or.....I might just skip them for one year. It depends on what I think of their performance at that moment. I like to ride MOMENTUM and GROWTH PROSPECTS. At the moment due to growth over time....the mutual fund side of the portfolio is about 41% of the total account value and the stocks is about 69% of the total account value. I have an account that is going to get a big chunk of cash in the next few days....$300,000. It is one that I manage for a relative. I sat down last night and worked out what I want to do with that money. I will put half the money into the two mutual funds in the account....SP500 Index Fund and Fidelity Contra Fund. 50/50 to each fund. The other half of the money.....$150,000....will go into the 12 stocks. I will put $10,000 into EACH stock. The additional $30,000 will go into......COSTCO, HOME DEPOT, HONEYWELL, NVIDIA, PROCTOR & GAMBLE, AND SNOWFLAKE.....at $5000 each. SIMPLY because......I want to get the dollar allocation up some in those particular companies. SNOWFLAKE is a much smaller holding compared to the rest of the portfolio since It was a speculative small investment.....100 shares....at the IPO. It has done well so deserves more. Costco, Honeywell, Home Depot, and Proctor&Gamble......have tended to lag a little bit behind the tech stocks in the portfolio......I want to get more into those companies for the reason they.......are NOT tech. Nvidia.....I am adding a little more....since.....they are one of the more recent additions to my account and when I added them I did not have enough funds to get them near a full allocation....so I am doing some.....catch up...there.
WELL......I see that poor AMAZON.....is....being PUNISHED for their record shattering earnings. I guess the markets did not like the way they SPRUNG the new CEO news on everyone with NO advance warning. I am never surprised......anymore...... by the CRAZY.......and irrational...... short term reactions we see day to day in the markets. BUT....in this case...I think the reaction is logical.....it just represents the fact that the markets do not like change to a successful business model. GOOGL.....well....just pushing strongly ahead. I am actually surprised at how much they are up at the moment. I knew they were up significantly last night in after hours trading.....but did not know if it would translate into today. I guess so....so far. A REALLY strong move up.
For all AMAZON holders...I like this little article. SEEMS like nearly EVERY investor owns AMAZON in some way either as a stock or mutual fund or ETF holding: Bezos' shock exit cools Amazon results boost https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...exit-cools-amazon-results-boost-idUSKBN2A31U2 (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "(Reuters) - Jeff Bezos’ surprise move to step down as chief executive of Amazon.com Inc quashed Wall Street optimism about bumper quarterly results, but analysts were upbeat on the promotion of its cloud computing head to the top job. Andy Jassy, 53, has long been considered a strong contender for the top job since Amazon.com Inc created two CEO roles in 2016 reporting to Bezos, the other held by recently retired consumer CEO Jeff Wilke. However, few were expecting Bezos to step down when the company on Tuesday reported quarterly sales above $100 billion for the first time, delivering goods and gaining more cloud customers during the coronavirus pandemic. “The timing of the announcement comes as a surprise, the appointment of Jassy is not surprising,” D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte said. “But, will not be surprised if Amazon stock is under pressure once Jassy takes over, given the market’s fondness for Bezos.” Shares of the e-commerce giant, which gained about 76% in 2020, were up marginally on Wednesday morning at $3,404. They have risen 8% since mid-January in the run-up to the results. “The upside to the stock price is limited given the performance into the numbers and given what’s coming in the next 3-6 months - the vaccine rollouts,” said Keith Temperton, an equity sales trader at Forte Securities. “Amazon model might be seen as starting to get a little bit expensive, given that people might start thinking about actually leaving their houses.” At least 17 brokerages raised their price target on Amazon’s stock and 46 brokerages have a “buy” or higher rating, according to data from Refinitiv Eikon. Jassy joined Amazon in 1997 after Harvard Business School, founding Amazon Web Services, known as AWS, and growing it to a cloud platform used by millions of customers. Analysts said Bezos, now among the world’s richest men who started Amazon as an internet bookseller in a garage 27 years ago, had already stepped back from much of the company’s day-to-day operations and Jassy’s leadership has its benefits. “Naming Andy Jassy CEO and Amazon’s pivot to a services company will definitely take some of the heat away from the antitrust probe and decrease the likelihood of it,” Forte said. J.P.Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth dismissed concerns around Jassy’s lack of experience in retail, saying that he would continue Bezos’ same core values and beliefs, given similar operating cultures between the consumer and AWS businesses." MY COMMENT Time will tell. Just a normal event for ANY long term investor. Management changes happen over time.......and.....you just have to reevaluate the company after that happens. Sometimes you keep the stock....other times it leads to selling the stock. HOWEVER it turns out....it will take at least 2-3 years to evaluate how it is all works out.
AS USUAL......the actual news that is important.....WILL be ignored. ADP report shows private companies added 174,000 jobs in January, beating expectations Analysts expected that U.S. private employers added 49,000 jobs in January. https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/adp-january-employment-report-2021 (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "U.S. private employers resumed hiring in January amid signs that new COVID-19 cases are falling and state governments are lifting lockdown measures implemented to curb the spread of the virus, according to the ADP National Employment Report released Wednesday. The report showed that companies added 174,000 jobs last month, topping the 49,000-job increase that economists surveyed by Refinitiv had predicted. The increase followed a decline of the upwardly revised 78,000 in December, the first time that employment shrank since the early days of the pandemic. “The labor market continues its slow recovery amid COVID-19 headwinds,” Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute, said in a statement. “Although job losses were previously concentrated among small and midsized businesses, we are now seeing signs of the prolonged impact of the pandemic on large companies as well.” The job losses were concentrated heavily in services-related businesses, which accounted for 156,000 of the total gain. Education and health services led those businesses with 54,000 new jobs created, while professional and business services added 40,000 positions. The leisure and hospitality industry, one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, saw its payroll increase by 35,000 last month. The goods-producing sector, meanwhile, added 19,000 jobs with the bulk -- 18,000 -- stemming from construction. Medium businesses with 50 to 499 employees created the most jobs, expanding payroll by 84,000 last month. Small businesses added 51,000 jobs, and large businesses created just 39,000. The ADP report precedes the Labor Department's more closely watched jobs report, due Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET, which is predicted to show the U.S. economy added 50,000 jobs last month, up from December's loss of 140,000. Analysts anticipate unemployment will hold steady at 6.7%. MY COMMENT YES.....in spite of everything........all the drama and media BLATHER......we WILL see the economy reopen over the next 6-12 months.
In my daily scanning of articles and news.....I see.....GameStop, GameStop, GameStop, GameStop, Robinhood, Robinhood, GameStop, GameStop, etc, etc, etc. The news is DOMINATED by articles on these topics. Of course........NOW.......the focus is on ALL the money that the little guys have LOST. At this point.....simply IDIOCY. YES.....the little guys HAVE and WILL lose a lot of money on this stock. EVERYONE knew this would happen....it was obvious. DUH. YES....everyone was and is.....on their side.....but....anyone looking at this situation with logic KNEW it would only end ONE WAY. The current articles are the......MEDIA....trying to wring EVERY last bit of "clicks" and "ratings" from this story BEFORE it disappears into the trash bin of history. BUT......lets HOPE that the issue of Robinhood and others screwing their customers....by stopping trading in a SUPREMELY UNFAIR fashion..... DOES NOT disappear and get swept under the rug. This is too important of an issue to let it FADE along with the GameStop stock. It will be interesting to see if the MEDIA pushes or follows this story line.....unfortunately....I doubt they will.
Here here, W. I watch quite a bit of investment related YouTube and read the odd online investment article. Google has decided I'm a trader and sends me every get-rich-quick scheme on the net. When I open my YouTube home page, there are legions of people dying to tell me how I can build tremendous wealth in 14 days by doing this one thing.... Somehow, Google directly equates investing with ponzi activity.
HERE is a nice little article for any AMAZON shareholders that need a little bit of hand holding.....or....encouragement over the upcoming change of leadership: Jeff Bezos has been halfway out the door for a while https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/03/investing/amazon-stock-jeff-bezos-andy-jassy/index.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) ""Jeff is not leaving." That is what Amazon (AMZN) chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky told analysts on the company's earnings call Tuesday -- a call that Bezos wasn't even on, despite theannouncement moments earlier that he would be stepping down as CEO later this year, with Andy Jassy as his successor. (Bezos will remain as Amazon's executive chairman.) But Bezos' absence on the call probably doesn't matter. Amazon's stock was flat in early trading Wednesday. Strong earnings and revenue for the fourth quarter and a healthy outlook for 2021 clearly helped soften the blow of the Bezos bombshell. Plus, Amazon analysts and investors are already accustomed to the fact that Bezos, who personally owns The Washington Post and space company Blue Origin, has many other interests. The last time that the Amazon founder spoke on an analyst earnings call was in April 2009. Bezos has appeared at several annual shareholder events in recent years though, most recently at a virtual meeting in May 2020. But Amazon hasn't been the Jeff Bezos show for some time now. That's undoubtedly because Amazon has its hands in a LOT of different pies. It's no longer just an online retailer. It has a physical presence with its own brick and mortar branded stores and it also owns the Whole Foods grocery chain. It is also a streaming media giant, and it is making bigger inroads into healthcare following its 2019 purchase of online pharmacy PillPack. But Amazon's real money maker is Amazon Web Services, or AWS. That's the cloud giant that Jassy leads. AWS gets paid to host websites for top companies; Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Netflix and Verizon are all AWS customers. AWS posted an operating profit of $13.5 billion in 2020, accounting for nearly 60% of all of Amazon's operating income. So it's only natural that Jassy, who has been with Amazon since 1997, will succeed Bezos. "Although not as familiar a face to the general public as Bezos, Jassy is exceptionally well regarded by the investment community," said Michael Levine, an analyst with Pivotal Research Group, in a report Wednesday. The fact that Bezos is staying put and getting the fancier title of executive chairman also probably means that Amazon will probably not change its strategy all that much under Jassy. And why should it? Amazon is now one of the largest companies in the world, worth nearly $1.7 trillion. The stock is trading near an all-time high and is up more than 500% in the past five years -- much better than the broader market. What's that they say about if it ain't broke, don't fix it? "We expect Andy Jassy as CEO to mean a continuation of Amazon's key themes of delighting the consumer and executing as scale builds/compounds in all of its businesses," said UBS analyst Eric Sheridan in a report Wednesday. Of course, there are risks any time an iconic CEO steps down. Howard Schultz was forced to return to the Starbucks (SBUX) CEO role in 2008 after stepping down in 2000, before he finally passed the reins on to Kevin Johnson in 2016. But it probably helps that Bezos is will still be heavily involved with Amazon. He could assist Jassy with longer-term strategic planning, much as former Google/Alphabet (GOOGL)CEO Eric Schmidt did from 2011 through 2017 when he remained as chairman after founder Larry Page took over as CEO in 2011. The Bezos-Jassy dynamic could also resemble the C-suite dynamic at Disney (DIS) now, where former long-time CEO Robert Iger remains chairman and former parks and resorts leader Bob Chapek is now CEO. "Although Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO, we believe he will remain integral to Amazon's strategy, and the incoming CEO Andy Jassy is a long-time executive at the company so leadership will remain strong," said Mizuho Securities USA analyst James Lee in a report Wednesday. The only slight change Lee sees going forward is "a potential emphasis towards the cloud business." In other words, Amazon investors can be forgiven if they are humming an old song lyric from The Who on Wednesday. "Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." MY COMMENT As to the stuff above......LETS HOPE SO. I am sure Bezos thinks he is making a good decision since a HUGE amount of his personal wealth is on the line. I will be.....cautiously optimistic. AND....I have no immediate plans to change anything....ESPECIALLY....my largest holding....AMAZON. I STILL consider this company one of the......if not "the".....most ICONIC companies in the world today......with.....all indications being in favor of a TOTALLY DOMINANT future.
As we head toward the CLOSE....I am feeling pretty good. I am on track to hit a new record personal high in my accounts today. ALTHOUGH.......I have thought that at various times in the past....than look at the closing numbers and.....DAMN.....the market screwed me in the last hour or so. If I had a farm....I would NOT bet it on ANYTHING to do with short term stock market activity. I said...."pretty good"....above because I am from Texas and that is how we talk......and....because even though I have a nice gain today...my portfolio is 50/50....6 stocks up and 6 stocks down.
