The Long Term Investor

HERE is the question from above:

"IF the Democrats take office in 2020, will you be inclined to close your position in Boeing, knowing that the progressive path the Democrats are heading down is making it seem more and more likely that Military spending will be cut dramatically in order to fund climate control, healthcare for all, etc? Just a question about the future, since that is what you focus on - long-term investing."

ANSWER: NO, I dont make stock decisions based on politics. What politicians say and what they actually do and how they actually act are two very different things. Add in lobbying and other aspects of the political process and I dont see any way you can generalize to a single company and their business. Now if I see that the fundamentals and financials of the company are not up to what I would like, at some point in the future, I would sell it.

Now, if, at some point in the future, I see the current tilt toward Socialism taking root as a national movement and gaining control of some portion of our government to the extent that they can actually pass laws based on Socialist policy, I will probably be inclined to sell all individual stocks and just hold everything in a SP500 Index Fund while I watch the impact of the IDIOCRACY.

 

HERE is the media take on the market rise today. NOTHING shocking going on in reality. THINGS are just humming along. At least I will knock the ROY CLUB off the top of this forum.

Wall Street gains after tame economic data, Boeing turns higher

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...onomic-data-boeing-turns-higher-idUSKBN1QU1HZ

"U.S. stocks rose broadly on Wednesday after a fresh set of economic data strengthened the Federal Reserve’s patient stance on future rate hikes and as Boeing rose for the first time since Sunday’s deadly crash of a 737 MAX 8 jet in Ethiopia.
FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 7, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

U.S. producer prices barely rose in February, resulting in the smallest annual increase in more than 1-1/2 years, in the latest sign of benign inflation.

“Producer price index is a key signal for the Fed in gauging whether or not to raise rates, so this should add some wind to the sails of those looking for a more dovish Fed,” said Mike Loewengart, vice-president of investment strategy at E*Trade Financial in New York.

“An accommodative policy has typically been a boon for markets recently.”

The data comes on the heels of tame consumer price index numbers on Tuesday."..........

MY COMMENT:

The balance of the article goes on to talk about specific stocks. At the moment, the ten year treasury yield is 2.616%. AMAZING considering the strength of the economy and markets at the moment.

TomB16.....loved your little question in the Roy Club thread. Also the reply.....29% in one month.....WOW. Especially liked the "retired senior"..... "living on a fixed income"......."health reasons"......"need to raise a lot of money really quickly"....About the only thing you left out is the widows and orphans.

 

Looks like the grounding of the Boeing 737 by the Feds is seen as a good thing. At the close BA stock was UP $1.73. I tend to agree. Time to stop the screwing around, hold their feet to the fire, and get this issue fixed once and for all. Like the lithium/ fire issue a while back. APPARENTLY the markets also think this is a good thing. This will DEFINITELY start the all-out push to get this issue over with and move on.

 

I like this little article. The action of the graph is cool. This is the sort of article and data that shows the POWER of LONG TERM INVESTING. The key is to be in the markets long term early in life. The key is to invest for 20....25....30....35 years. THAT is how you rack up and compound those gains.

Check out this graphic and sleep tight on your retirement account

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/c...ement-account-2019-03-12?mod=mw_theo_homepage

(BOLD is my emphasis and opinion of important content)

"“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”

But in a less-morbid twist on that “Fight Club” quote, it’s safe to say that, on a long enough timeline, the win rate in the stock market reaches 100%.

“While it’s true that putting your money on the line is never easy,” Jeff Desjardins of the Visual Capitalist blog wrote in a post, “the historical record of the stock market is virtually irrefutable: U.S. markets have consistently performed over long holding periods, even going back to the 19th century.”

As proof, he pointed to this animation from The Measure of a Plan blog, which shows the performance of the U.S. market over different rolling time horizons using annualized returns going all the way back to 1872.


The data, adjusted for reinvestment of dividends as well as inflation, comes from the S&P Composite Index from 1872 to 1957, and then the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.69% from 1957 onward.

As you can clearly see, the longer the time frame, the less frequency that your market bet will become a loser. In fact, once the 20-year window is reached, all losses disappear completely. Yes, of course, past performance is no guarantee of future results, but still, you have to like your chances.

Here’s another way to look at the risk in short-term investing. Of note, 31% of the years over the past century and a half of data delivered negative returns:


“Long-term investors can see that as long as their time horizon is measured in the decades, you can take the odds of making money in the stock market to the bank,” Desjardins wrote.

Then again, hey, whatever happens, it’s just money, right? As “Fight Club’s” Tyler Durden said, “You are not the contents of your wallet.”

At last check, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.58% was up more than 200 points on Wednesday, while both the S&P and Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.69% were also nicely higher."

MY COMMENT

What I could not highlight in bold above is the positive statistic that is the crux of this article, yet never mentioned. The article mentions the fact that 31% of the years over the past century and a half delivered negative returns. On the POSITIVE SIDE 68.7% of all years over the past century and a half delivered positive returns. THIS HUGE bias in favor of positive returns in stocks and markets in general is the KEY to LONG TERM INVESTING.

The OTHER KEY to long term investing and critical to compounding is the reinvesting of dividends and capital gains. The above data has been adjusted to reflect reinvestment of dividends.

The real question is.....how can this even be true......how can it be this simple.....what is the catch? Other than requiring a good number of years to be invested, there is no catch. BUT.....look around you at the people in your life....how many have the discipline to be this simple for so many years. Fortunately for many, the 401K plan with monthly or annual contributions and matches often leads to a lifetime, many decades, of this sort of investing.

 

HERE is some stuff for fun, but there are lots of investing lessons embedded in this data. ALSO, some lessons in thinking and looking at things from various and weird angles. AND the typical lessons about manipulating statistics and data.

The Twenty Craziest Investing Facts Ever

https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2019/03/13/the-twenty-craziest-investing-facts-ever/


"1. Since 1916, the Dow has made new all-time highs less than 5% of all days, but over that time it’s up 25,568%.
95% of the time you’re underwater. The less you look the better off you’ll be.

2. The Dow has compounded at less than 3 basis points a day since 1970. Since then its up more than 3,000%.
Compounding really is magic.

3. The Dow has only been positive 52% of all days. The average daily return is 0.73% when it’s up and -0.76% when it’s down.
See above.

4. The Dow has spent more time 40% or more below the highs than within 2% of the highs (20.6% of days vs. 18.4% of days)
No pain no gain.

5. The Dow gained 38 points in the 1970s
See above.

6. Why am I using the Dow instead of the S&P 500? They’re effectively the same thing. The rolling one-year correlation since 1970 is .95.
Stop wasting your time on this.

7. At the low in 2009, U.S. stocks were back to where they were in 1996.
Stocks for the long-run. The very long-run. Usually. Sometimes.

8. At the low in 2009, Japanese stocks were back to where they were in 1980.
See above.

9. U.S. one-month treasury bills went 68 years with a negative real return.
What’s safe in the short-run can be risky in the long-run.

10. At the bottom in 2009, long-term U.S. government bonds outperformed the stock market over the previous 40 years
Stocks generally outperform bonds, but there are no guarantees.

11. Gold and the Dow were both 800 in 1980. Today Gold is $1,300/ounce, the Dow is near 26k.
Cash flows > commodities.

12. Over the last twenty years, Gold is up 340%. Stocks are up 208%, with dividends.
You can support any argument by changing the start and end dates.

13. Since 1980, Gold is up 153%. Inflation is up 230%.
See above.

14. CTAs gained 14% in 2008 when stocks lost 37%. Since 2009 they’re up 2.5%. Stocks are up 282%.
Non-correlation cuts both ways.

15. If you had invested from 1960-1980 and beaten the market by 5% each year, you would have made less money than if you had invested from 1980-2000 and underperformed the market by 5% a year (A Nicky Numbers Special)
When you were born > almost everything else.

16. The Dow lost 17% in 1929, 34% in 1930, 53% in 1931 and 23% in 1932.
Be grateful.

17. Warren Buffett is the greatest investor of all-time. In the 20 months leading up to the dotcom peak, Berkshire Hathaway lost 45% of its value. The NASDAQ 100 gained 225% over the same time.
No pain no premium.

18. Only 47.7% of stocks generated a life-time return that match one-month treasury bills.
The reason why so many mutual funds fail to beat the market is because so many stocks fail to beat the market.

19. Dow earnings were cut in half in 1908. The index gained 46%.
The stock market ≠ the economy.

20. In 1949 the stock market was trading at 6.8x earnings and had a 7.5% dividend yield. 50 years later it reached a high of 30x earnings and carried just a 1% dividend yield.
You can calculate everything yet still not know how investors are going to feel"

MY COMMENT:

INTERESTING and fun to play with this sort of data. Definitely shows different ways of thinking about things.

 

This is an interesting "little" article regarding a comparison of International investing versus American investing. AND......more importantly it will get the "Roy Club" post off the top of this forum.

The Global Portfolio’s Rough Three Decades

https://fortunefinancialadvisors.com/blog/the-global-portfolios-rough-three-decades/

(Bold is my opinion of important content and what should be learned from this article)

"Since the financial crisis, the U.S. stock market has outperformed the rest of the world by a fairly wide margin, with the current ten-year return differential between the MSCI USA and MSCI World indices standing at about 3% annualized (via MSCI):



Given such a disparity in returns, it has been tempting to argue that a globally diversified portfolio is not truly necessary. After all, as I have noted elsewhere, the U.S. stock market is rivaled among other countries only by Japan in terms of its diversification, and unrivaled by any in terms of its dynamism.

However, to draw such a conclusion after only one decade of performance would be premature; after all, there have been previous cycles where the rest of the world outperformed the U.S. by similarly wide margins. To get a better grasp of whether the globally diversified portfolio added risk-adjusted value over the US-only portfolio, I ran the numbers back to February of 1986, which was the furthest back available data went. Given a greater max drawdown and lower Sharpe ratio (which measures risk-adjusted returns), it is hard to argue that a global portfolio offered any value to American investors at all. If anything, the U.S. market provided diversification to the rest of the world, which is the reverse of what investors are usually told when urged to invest globally:



Granted, February of 1986 is perhaps not the best starting point for a global portfolio as Japan was in the last stages of an unprecedented bubble that catapulted Japan to the highest weighting in the MSCI World Index, and Japan’s bubble would burst just a few short years later. Changing the start dates, however, might certainly change the results, but that would also reek of arbitrariness.

Instead, I opted to run rolling 3-year excess Sharpe ratios to identify when the global portfolio would have yielded superior risk-adjusted results:



It can be seen quite readily that the last decade is hardly an anomaly as far as U.S. outperformance is concerned; aside from the immediate aftermath of the tech bubble and the ensuing commodity & financial bubble, the U.S. has generally enjoyed superior risk-adjusted returns to the global portfolio.

To be fair, currency has quite a bit to do with this, as I have mentioned here, here, and here. So, how much did currency impact relative risk-adjusted returns? Indeed, currency had a material impact over the last three decades:



Perhaps, then, the fairest comparison is the U.S.-only compared to a currency-hedged global portfolio? To determine this, I created a 50-50 split index composed of the MSCI USA and MSCI EAFE 100% Hedged index, which was rebalanced annually to the 50-50 mix [unlike the portfolios tested above, this is based on net returns, which were all the data available.] Since 1993, the earliest common start date, the simulated hedged global portfolio exhibited less overall volatility as well as a slightly more modest max drawdown, but still posted a lower Sharpe ratio:



It seems that no matter how one looks at the data, the last few decades have not been friendly to the global equity portfolio when viewed through the lens of an American equity investor. However, I do not want readers to come away thinking that I am opposed to investing abroad. Far from it! As I have argued previously, there is no compelling reason to own everything in the foreign equity universe. Similarly, foreign equity portfolios with factor tilts such as momentum and minimum volatility offer value to investors. In addition, investors may find better value in foreign small caps as I have discussed here and here. So, by all means, diversify your portfolio not just sufficiently, but also prudently.

MY COMMENT:

YES, it is my simple opinion that owning AMERICAN stocks and especially broad indexes like the SP500 will give you MASSIVE international and world wide exposure while being invested in the CREAM OF THE CROP of American business.There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to invest in anything outside the USA. A DOUBLE WIN....good for the USA and good for your pocketbook.

 

WELL........yet another positive week to add to the PLUS side of the ledger that we have been building up in 2019. EVEN the usually negative talking heads were sounding positive today. AT THE MOMENT this is where we stand half way through March 2019:

DOW year to date +10.81%
SP500 year to date +12.59%

YES.....+12.59% on the SP500 year to date. BUT.....lets not get too carried away. It was just a few months ago that we saw a years worth of gains swept away in the span of a couple of months.

Now that the market has broken through key resistance, here’s what’s next

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/15/now...-through-key-resistance-heres-whats-next.html

S&P 500, Nasdaq close at 5-month high on China trade, global growth optimism

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/d...ims-for-best-weekly-run-in-a-month-2019-03-15

Dow rises more than 100 points, S&P 500 posts best weekly gain since November

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/15/stock-market-wall-street-focus-on-us-china-trade-deal-brexit.html

MY COMMENT:

I am content to be a market CHEERLEADER at the moment. Not much else to do anyway as a LONG TERM INVESTOR. Riding the wave......riding the wave. It will be VERY DIFFICULT........but......if we can sustain this momentum for the rest of the year we could be in for a BIG TIME result for 2019. There....that should JINX things pretty good. And before you get too carried away, keep in mind that we have a long, long way to go till year end.

 

TomB16 a few hours ago I saw some articles with market opinion by Cathie Wood and was going to post them but cant find them now. From what I saw in those short articles I tend to agree with much she says and have expressed the same in this thread.

That we are in a deflationary period which gives the bull market much room to run.
That productivity and technology, etc, will keep inflation down.
That the markets are climbing a wall of worry.
That disruptive technology is a big investing area
That a potential yield curve inversion does NOT indicate a recession now.

Of course I have not followed her and other than a few short articles today know nothing of her opinions. If you run into any articles that you think are good feel free to post them on here whether in agreement with me or not.

In FACT and in SUMMARY, my current opinion as has been the case for years is.....that we have been on the edge of a deflationary depression since 2008/2009 and for that reason worries about inflation are way overblown.....that the current rise in productivity due to tech, robots, machines, AI, and imported legal and illegal labor also is deflationary as well as a driver of the current economy and bull market and will keep inflation firmly in check for many many years......that the yield curve inversion BS is hardly statistically accurate and even if it occurs will have little to NO predictive value.....that the markets have been climbing a wall of worry for the past 8-9 years and continue to do so......and yes, disruptive tech will be huge over the next 20 years......that the bull market has a long way to go.....etc.

However as to disruptive tech....I choose to not invest in individual companies or to try to pick who the winners and losers will be. I prefer to wait for things to get sorted out over time and if.....BIG IF....I choose to invest in individual companies to do so after they become dominant. At my age...70....I prefer to not have a lot of risky single stock exposure to unproven companies, unproven business models, unproven products, and unproven management that is often seen in early tech companies. I believe that the greatest danger to the general economy will prove to be DEFLATION over the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years. etc, etc, etc.

I definitely DO NOT share her fervor for Tesla or Bitcoin. I also personally believe that the sort of ETF's that her company runs are EXTREMELY risky and NOT suitable for most investors, although they probably appeal to young MILLENNIAL's with little investing experience and way too much overconfidence in technology.

In the past I took some BIG risk investing in early tech that paid off well, but now I choose to be more conservative in how and what I invest in, NOT THAT being a fully invested all the time investor in a very concentrated portfolio such as my portfolio model is "conservative".

My recommended approach for most people to capture the gains of the disruptive technology revolution that WILL occur over the next few decades is to invest in the SP500 and capture those companies when they start to mature but STILL have massive growth ahead of them.

 

LOL.....YES we do not agree.

I would say odds of Ford being around and strong in 10 or 20 years.......75-80%

Tesla being around (as an auto company) and strong in 10 or 20 years............20%

 

As to above......AUTO companies are one of the business areas that I NEVER buy. I also AVOID, banks, financials, insurance companies, drug companies, and a few other industries. I find these business areas to go constantly up and down, boom and bust, and too erratic for my taste. I got to this point by 30 to 50 years ago owning some companies in these areas and over the years realized that they never worked out to what I thought the potential was. AND...I got tired of the constant BOOM and BUST with these companies as long term holdings.

 

WELL.....one reason for my percentages may be that I dont follow either company and the figures that I put up are just seat of the pants.............GUESSES.

As to the OIL AGE. NO I dont think we are anywhere near the end of the oil age. I include natural gas in the "oil age". At this point I dont see ANYTHING that can replace oil and gas and gasoline for electricity generation, home heating, and vehicles. I have discussed this issue over the years with a number of electrical engineers that work in the coal and natural gas power plant business and I dont see ANYTHING that can produce what we need. In my opinion the REAL future of energy for the next 20-40 years is and should be natural gas. ( I believe we have here in the USA at least 100 years of natural gas supply) As to the so called renewable energy sources, wind, solar, etc, all in my opinion are simply.....DELUSIONAL FANTASY. I do believe that nuclear power could provide our needs, especially the small reactors like those used on ships and subs, but the public will not support it due to fear mongering. (how many of our navy ships or subs have had nuclear accidents with catastrophic impact.......NONE.....there are reactors all over the place, ships, subs, military facilities, universities, business, etc, etc, but at the moment nuclear power seems to be dead as an energy the public will accept)

AND..........NO I do not believe in global warming or climate change in the slightest either.....and.......yes, I have read much of the REAL scientific data and publications on the subject. I put "climate change-global warming" in the same category as every stone age superstition that people have accepted as truth over the past 400 years......that the earth is flat, that the sun circles the earth, etc, etc. I approach this subject of oil, warming, and EVERY financial and scientific subject with the same CLINICAL FOCUS that I apply to everything in life.

I see all the issues above as yet another area that is totally unrealistic to discuss or argue with others since it is unproductive and a waste of time for everyone.

 

NO not a nerve, simply giving my opinion. As to investing in anything that is.......electric cars, energy storage, renewable energy production, etc.......NO interest in the slightest. I dont foresee any time in the future when I would be interested in these areas.

As to AI.....Yes, I believe it will snowball and DEVASTATE the white collar job market. At the moment I have no interest in this area. It is too new and unsettled to know who the winners will be. I would guess it will take at least 5-10 years minimum to know who will dominate. So for the foreseeable future, 5-10 years, no interest investing in this area.

Although, in regards to the above, I do own three mutual funds in my portfolio model...SP500 Index, Fidelity Contra Fund, and Dodge & Cox Stock fund and I may have exposure to the above industries in those funds. I leave that to the fund managers. I dont pay any attention to fund holdings, ALL I care about is record versus the SP500, fees and management costs, and giving my portfolio some diversity from my personal investing bias.

 

A good STRONG and BROAD positive open today. I will take any day where my stocks portion of my portfolio model is beating the SP500, something that has been happening regularly since the start of the year. BUT.....with my very concentrated stock holdings that can change on a dime. What REALLY counts is the LONG TERM performance. SOME of my holdings have been getting hit with various short term events and news items lately. IN SPITE of this, they all show strong gains over my holding period and in my opinion they are weathering some pretty extraordinary events nicely. For example:

JNJ - Talc cancer lawsuits and news.
BA - 737 design problems and crashes.
NKE - dramatic high profile shoe failure.

With the very concentrated small number of stocks I hold I am surprized that the short term impact has not been too bad so far.

Here is my "PORTFOLIO MODEL" for all accounts managed which is the basis for MUCH of my discussion in this thread. I am re-posting this since I often talk in this thread about my portfolio model. My custom in the past on this sort of thread was to re-post my portfolio model every once in a while since I will tend to talk about it once in a while. I "manage" six portfolios for various family including a trust. ALL are set up in this fashion. If I was starting this portfolio today, lets say with $200,000. I would put half the money into the stock side of the portfolio, with an equal amount going into each stock. The other half of the money would go into the fund side of the portfolio, with an equal amount going into each fund. As is my long time custom, I would than let the portfolio run as it wished with NO re-balancing, in other words, I would let the winners run. Over the LONG TERM of investing in this style (at least in my actual portfolios), the stock side seems to reach and settle in at about 55% of the total portfolio and the fund side at about 45% of the total portfolio over time. That is a GOOD THING since it tells me that my stock picks are generally beating the funds over the longer term. AND....since the funds in the account generally meet or beat the SP500, that is a VERY good thing.

As mentioned in a post in this thread, I include the funds in the portfolio as a counter-balance to my investing BIAS and stock picking BIAS and to add a VALUE style component (Dodge & Cox Stock Fund), a top active management fund that often beats the SP500 (Fidelity Contra Fund) and a SP500 Index Fund to get broad exposure to the best 500 companies in AMERICAN business and economy. The funds also give me broad diversification as a counter-balance to my very concentrated 12 stock portfolio.

STOCKS:

Alphabet Inc
Amazon
Apple
Boeing
Chevron
Costco
Home Depot
Honeywell
Johnson & Johnson
Nike
3M

MUTUAL FUNDS:

SP500 Index Fund
Fidelity Contra Fund
Dodge & Cox Stock Fund

CAUTION: This is a moderate aggressive to aggressive portfolio on the stock side with the small concentration of stocks and the mix of stocks that I hold and with the concentration of big name tech stocks. Especially for my age group. (65+). So for anyone considering this sort of portfolio, be careful and consider your risk tolerance and where you are in your life and financial needs. I am able to do this sort of portfolio since my stock market account is NOT needed for my retirement income AND I have a fairly HIGH RISK TOLERANCE.

MY COMMENT:

HOPEFULLY the stock portion of the portfolio will now be stable for many years into the future with good performance on the part of the various companies in their business and no trades necessary. I prefer to NOT make changes or trades, but if necessary I will pull the trigger without hesitation or emotion.

 

Lets HOPE that this little analysis and prediction is accurate. ALTHOUGH, it will be another 9 months before we see how it all worked out.

Credit Suisse raises S&P 500 forecast, sees 20% gain for 2019

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/18/cre...00-forecast-sees-20percent-gain-for-2019.html

(BOLD is my opinion on important content and analysis)

"Underneath the stock market’s epic rebound has been a “more favorable” trend that Credit Suisse says will drive the market higher.

The bank dialed up its year-end forecast for the S&P 500 to 3,025 from 2,925 previously. The new outlook calls for a gain of more than 20 percent for full-year 2019 or more than 7 percent from current levels after the big rally to start the year. It would also be the stock market’s best year since 2013.

That is because all the market risks that tanked stocks in December are now “receding,” according to Credit Suisse’s chief U.S. equity strategist, Jonathan Golub.

“Investors might be pleased with the market’s recent performance, but it’s unlikely they find the underlying dynamics—a more favorable risk backdrop, with decelerating economic and earnings growth—particularly inspiring,” Golub said.

“More specifically, less hawkish comments from the Fed, declining inflation and recession fears, and the potential for a resolution to China trade issues are the primary forces driving volatility and spreads lower, and stocks higher,” he added.

The market has staged a strong comeback with the S&P 500 up 20 percent from its Christmas Eve low when it dipped into a bear market on an intraday basis. Many have credited the massive sell-off to fears of a too-aggressive Federal Reserve and a possible recession. Now with the central bank signaling a “patient” approach to tightening and better-than-expected economic data, the rally may have more room to run.

The average S&P 500 target from the 17 top Wall Street analysts is 2,947, a CNBC analysis shows.

Credit Suisse actually lowered its 2019 earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies to $170 from $174 despite raising its stock price outlook. The firm says the reduced estimates are due to lower oil prices and large tech companies’ worsening outlooks.

You want to be in growth stocks during the sluggish economy, strategist says
“We are lowering our estimates solely to reflect the decline in projections for the energy sector and Apple,” Golub said.

Credit Suisse’s new estimates represent an earnings growth rate of 4.4 percent in 2019, versus the Street’s consensus of 3.8 percent growth this year, according to FactSet.

With the Fed on hold and a trade deal in sight, that should be enough to lift the market despite the weaker earnings outlook.

The bank also noted low bond yields are implying a “much higher” market multiple. The forward price-earnings ratio for the S&P 500 is currently at 16.4 times, while the low rates are pointing to 20.4 times, the bank said.

“Our work indicates that investors have not fully re-risked portfolios following 4Q’s turbulence—despite a sharp decline in volatility and spreads—and that valuations will drift higher as they do so,” Golub said."

MY COMMENT:

LETS HOPE they are correct. BUT at this time with many months to go this is simply one of many opinions.