OH YES........by the way, NKE had a record quarter in spite of the TRADE WAR which according to the political hacks and the DOOM&GLOOM media is going to destroy American business and cause all sorts of financial pain for the public. NEVER MIND. MORE baloney as usual when it comes to the media and daily fearmongering headlines. DONT fall for this STUFF. To date there has been little to no impact from the so called trade war. Although doesnt seem like much of a war to me. On one side we have our country raking in billions from China. On the other hand we have a criminal communist country, that steals technology, blackmails anyone doing business there to give up their business info, counterfeits everyone's goods, puts up massive trade barriers, is one of the top brutal dictatorships in the world, etc, etc. It is ABOUT TIME someone has the guts to do what needs to be done with CHINA. It was IDIOCY to ever allow them into the WTO. This stuff was not happening like it is now before that seminal event. Once we finish with them it is my fantasy that we will than turn our attention to all the millions of foreign workers being imported into the country taking jobs away from our own college graduates. I notice that no one even tries to justify this with the OLD excuse that we dont produce enough STEM graduates to do these jobs. AND no one ever seems to enforce any of the laws and rules about not giving those jobs away if there are American workers available. If Millenials and others want to GRIPE about their job prospects......this is where you look. I do love the work ethic, family orientation, values, friendliness, mix of Indian and British culture, business orientation, etc, etc, of all of the Indian people that I have met and lived around. But we should be protecting our own children first. But than........whats new. Most colleges are 20-40% foreign students, perhaps higher in the graduate programs. My opinion, any school that is private can do whatever they want. Any school that is public and supported by state taxpayers should NOT be admitting ANY foreign students until EVERY qualified American applicant has been admitted first. Of course, that would mean NO foreign students and that great BIG PILE OF MONEY that they produce for the schools would disappear.
I have really been enjoying your posts WXYZ. Could you recommend any books that teach how to analyze a companies fundamentals. I have been wanting to get into individual stocks but not exactly sure how to go about it and am having trouble figuring out income statements, balance sheets, etc. Also, do you have any recommended reading on learning about business and economics more broadly. Thanks
NICE little market drop over the past few days. WORKS for me since I had some funds in the neighborhood of $350,000 to invest in one of the accounts that I manage. SO.......I just (a few minutes ago) put in the orders.....all in all at once. This is my usual approach, I do not do dollar cost averaging or market timing. the funds were divided between BA, GGOGL, HD, HON, JNJ, MMM and MSFT. I did NOT add to AMZN, COST, NKE, or AAPL since these holdings have outpaced the rest of the portfolio and are much larger than the other holdings. So, using this purchase to re-balance a little bit. As a LONG TERM INVESTOR I continue to be confident in the markets going forward, although with my time horizon of......FOREVER.....I really dont care about the potential for recession or the normal little corrections we see which recently are mostly NEWS/MEDIA driven. Over the next few days I will have another approximately $120,000 to put into the mutual fund side of the portfolio. This particular portfolio follows the portfolio model that is listed every few pages in this thread.
Current market action shows that we continue to be in a news driven market. Daily events continue to have an OVERSIZE impact on a week to week basis. Obviously AI/PROGRAM trading is driving much of this action on a short term basis. We continue to see the USUAL SUSPECTS driving the markets by headline......interest rates, the EU, deflation fear, recession fear, and politics. All in all what I am seeing tells me that this BULL MARKET may have a good while to run. We are certainly NOT seeing a run away bull market. We continue to climb a very big wall of worry. Negative possibilities......I said possibilities not probabilities......the politicians/ markets will talk themselves into a recession, or, the political IDIOTS will tank the economy with their ridiculous posturing and actions. REGARDLESS, as usual, I will continue to be fully invested for the long term.
My largest holdings are Nike, Amazon, Costco, and Apple. ALTHOUGH to be fair my largest single holding is the SP500 Index. This holding dominates my three mutual funds. Costco reported earnings recently and here is the news: Costco Earnings Beat But Revenue, Comps Fuzzy; Stock Seesaws https://www.investors.com/news/costco-earnings-q4-2019-due-costco-stock-in-buy-zone/ (BOLD is my opinion and what I consider important content) "Costco Wholesale (COST) reported strong fiscal fourth quarter earnings late Thursday but revenue and comp sales were less clear. Costco stock dipped, after the discount chain broke out into buy range on the success of its debut in China. Costco Earnings Estimates: Wall Street expected Costco earnings per share to rise 8% to $2.54, according to Zacks Investment Research, snapping a nine-quarter streak of double-digit growth. Revenue was seen up 6% to $47.12 billion. Three analysts have upped Costco earnings estimates in the past month. Same-store sales, excluding gas and foreign exchange impact, were seen rising 5.1%, according to Consensus Metrix. They were seen rising 5.3% in the U.S., 4.6% in Canada and 5.1% in other international stores. Results: EPS of $2.69, excluding expenses of 22 cents per share related to a product tax assessment, on revenue of $47.5 billion, though that fell short of other estimates. Same-store sales grew 5.1%, though that also was below other estimates. E-commerce sales jumped 20%, or 22% after adjustments. Adjusted same-store sales rose 5.2% in the U.S., 4.7% in Canada and 5% overseas. Analysts have said the runaway success of the firm's warehouse opening in China in August proves the firm can resonate with customers outside the U.S. Costco Stock Costco stock initially fell late, then reversed higher but turned lower again, down 1.4%, after closing up 1.4% at 289.00 on the stock market today. It is currently in buy zone after breaking out from a five-week flat base with a buy point of 284.41, MarketSmith analysis shows. Among rivals, BJ's Wholesale Club (BJ) fell 1.1%, Sam's Club parent Walmart (WMT) edged up 0.2%, and Target (TGT) added 1.4%. An approach highlighted by Investor's Business Daily is to use options as a strategy to reduce risk around earnings. It's a way to capitalize on the upside potential of a stock's move around earnings, while reducing the downside risk. Costco stock has been testing its 50-day line in recent sessions, but has managed to hold above the key technical support. Another positive sign for Costco stock is its relative strength line. It has been bullishly moving higher since the beginning of March. Costco stock has an IBD Composite Rating of 94. The highly rated stock is up almost 40% so far in 2019. The Stock Checkup tool shows earnings are largely keeping pace with its excellent price performance, which is why it has a strong, but not ideal EPS Rating of 94. Over the past three quarters Costco earnings have grown by an average of 23%, which is just short of the 25% benchmark for CAN SLIM stocks. Analyst Rates Costco Stock CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson was rating Costco stock as hold with a 285 target. He believes the shares are fairly valued at current levels and sees a mix of tailwinds and headwinds. "We see the shares' valuation being maintained by relatively strong near-term sales growth trends," he said in a Sept. 28 research note. "However, we think the lack of margin expansion and increased competition from low-cost grocers (particularly Walmart, which has invested heavily in growing its e-commerce business over the past few years) represent significant risks in the coming quarters."" MY COMMENT What I see as the most important data above is the 5%+ same store sales growth. I also like the earnings per share of $2.69 versus an expectation of $2.54. The SLIGHT revenue miss is nothing to write home about and irrelevant in my opinion. The FUTURE growth for this stock is significant if the success in China can be sustained and duplicated. NOW.......here is one company that I have no issue doing business in China. I dont see much that China can steal, counterfeit, or rip off in this business. I have held this stock for a long, long, time. We used to shop at one of the first Costco stores in Washington state many years ago. That shopping experience along with the packed parking lot and frenzy of shoppers in the store was an eyeopener to me and led to my purchase of this stock fairly early in its history.
When I opened my M1 Finance account a few months ago, COST was one of the easy picks for my holdings pie chart. My pie also includes AMZN, GOOGL, PEP, ILMN and SPY. I shop at Costco regularly. They are always busy yet their checkout process is streamlined and quick. ILMN is my wild card pick. I believe DNA sequencing will be an instrumental tool. Whether ILMN will lead that sector remains to be seen.
Good comment, weight333. I ran into the article below while doing some reading tonight. As I have posted on here a few times, I retired early, at age 49. Up till that time I was a business owner and investor for 22 years. I understand very well what is involved in retiring early and living off personal assets for an extended period of time. I have been living off investments and personal assets for 21 years now and will continue to do so for the remainder of my life. I have no company or government pension. We have done well over that time as LONG TERM INVESTORS living off and managing personal assets. HOWEVER..........I have seen much over the past 21 years to realize that the vast majority of people that retire early or retire at a normal retirement age will have a very difficult time managing their assets and making them last for a lifetime. The elimination of virtually ALL pensions.........except for government workers.....is one big SOCIAL EXPERIMENT that will play out over the next 30 years as the baby boomer generation enters and goes through retirement. So I thought this little article was interesting and relevant: Opinion: Nearly 2 years into early retirement, here’s all that I’ve gotten wrong https://www.marketwatch.com/story/n...ten-wrong-2019-08-19?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo "In a comment responding to my recent blog post about making better decisions in the face of uncertainty, a reader wrote: “Life is inherently risky. To try to compensate for every contingency is irrational. We can “what if” ourselves right into a straitjacket! You retired early … you won!” As a lifelong football fan, this comment reminded me of Super Bowl LI. At the 8:31 mark of the third quarter, Tevin Coleman hauled in a six-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Matt Ryan, putting the Atlanta Falcons ahead of the New England Patriots 28-3. Game over. Even with future Hall of Fame coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady on the other sideline, there was no chance of New England overcoming a 25-point deficit in a game in which they were being dominated by a formidable foe. Except they did. New England scored the last 25 points in regulation to force overtime. Four minutes into overtime, James White ended the game with a two-yard touchdown run. Final score: New England 34, Atlanta 28. Atlanta took its foot off the gas pedal. It tried to run out the clock. And it lost. There’s a valuable lesson there that we can all apply to retirement planning. . . It ain’t over ‘til it’s over. If you’re retiring at the traditional retirement age, you may only be in the third quarter of life. If you leave your career early, like I did at age 41, it may not even be half-time. You haven’t won yet. Traditional retirement planning, assuming earning no more income and focusing on safe withdrawal rates, is akin to trying to run out the clock. It’s playing not to lose. Let’s look at why you should continue to play offense in retirement, especially if you’re planning to retire early. Preparing for white swans Author Nassim Taleb popularized the term “black swan events.” Wikipedia summarizes black swan theory as follows: 1. The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology. 2. The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities). 3. The psychological biases that blind people, both individually and collectively, to uncertainty and to a rare event’s massive role in historical affairs. Many people talk about planning for black-swan events, which by their very definition can’t be predicted and thus planned for. Conversely, my blogging friend Doc G writes on his blog about the idea of planning for white-swan events. He writes: “White-swan events are much more common but can be no less devastating to a financial plan. So why do we spend so little time thinking about them?” A few examples of what he calls white-swan events are changes to your health or tax laws. This idea that life and thus spending is dynamic is firmly rooted in reality, in contrast to modeling based on the assumption that retirement spending remains fixed over time, adjusted only for inflation. I would add another “white swan” that few people like to talk about to his list. Divorce. Divorce rates are generally decreasing. But for those age 50 and older, the trend is strongly moving in the opposite direction. Researchers have termed this Gray Divorce. For those who think early retirees are different and early retirement is some panacea, I refer you to Mr. Money Mustache’s eloquently written post about his recent divorce. In my own case, my wife and I didn’t go down the road to divorce. But the massive life transitions during the first year of my early retirement contributed to the most tumultuous period in our otherwise happy 18 years of marriage. Prior to going through the experience, I would have never predicted this happening. Which leads perfectly to my next point. We’re horrible with predictions Retirement planning requires making many assumptions. We have to predict the unknown. The longer our retirement horizon, the greater our errors become magnified as they are compounded over many years. Before you try to forecast decades into the future, it is wise to start with a healthy dose of humility. This Freakonomics podcast reminds us of “The Folly of Prediction.” You need to predict life expectancy. The Atlanta Falcons couldn’t hold on to their 25 point lead for 22 minutes! How much harder is it to develop a plan when you don’t know how long the game will last? We need to predict economic factors which include future stock market returns, sequence of returns, interest rates and inflation rates. Few of us are economics experts. Even the “experts” are generally terrible at predicting these things. Studies have shown it is very difficult to predict recessions, interest rates or financial markets. We need to predict future political conditions that will affect tax rates, the health-insurance marketplace and Social Security. Most political “experts” couldn’t accurately predict the outcome of our last presidential election the day before it occurred. We also need to predict ourselves. What will make us happy? What do we really want for our lives? This intuitively seems much easier than making economic or political predictions. But science tells us otherwise. Harvard psychologists’ studies have shown that “when people try to estimate how much they will enjoy a future experience, they are dependably wrong.” As I approach two years of early retirement, the only thing I feel comfortable predicting with confidence is that my future will end up differently than I would have predicted. Errors in our first two years 1. Semiretirement plan My wife and I spent several years researching and planning for early retirement. Despite that, in just nine months between telling my employers I would be leaving my job on Feb. 28 and before actually leaving my job on Dec. 1, 2017, our plans changed dramatically. My initial plan was to ease into retirement by finding casual part-time work or possibly working a couple of weeks a year doing a travel rotation as a physical therapist. Doing so would allow me to test the waters of early retirement for a few years. easing financial strain, avoiding sequence of returns risk and providing a more gradual psychological transition. In spring 2017 I pitched an idea for a book I’d been wanting to write to the guys who created the Choose FI podcast, and they agreed to partner with me. A few months later, I read one of Darrow Kirkpatrick’s posts on the “Can I Retire Yet” blog and sensed he might be burning out on writing and managing a blog of substantial size. So I proposed a scenario for partnering on the blog. He agreed to do it. I decided to completely leave my career as a physical therapist to focus on these passion projects. I’ve spent my first two years of early retirement working much more and earning much less (at least in the short term) than I anticipated in our original planning. 2. Housing budget We closely tracked our expenses for five years leading up to starting our transition. Our goal for the first few years of our transition was to stop saving, but not draw down investments (plus or minus a few thousand dollars in either direction). Despite our detailed planning, our projections have been off significantly. In 2018, the biggest miscalculation was a positive one. We were able to sell our home without having to use a real-estate agent. This saved us about $15,000 we expected to spend and gave us a significantly positive savings rate for the year. 2019 has been a far different story. We downsized with our new home, thinking it would give us the lifestyle we desired. We love our location and like having less space to maintain, but we hated how inefficiently that space was used in the dated floor plan. So we’ve spent this summer working through a major home renovation. When it’s done, we’ll have spent over $30,000 we didn’t anticipate spending on renovations in the first year living in our “move-in-ready” house. This means taking more from our portfolio than we anticipated. 3. New hobbies and interests We moved from Pennsylvania to Utah to be in the mountains and pursue a lifestyle of outdoor adventure. While we get out into the mountains with regularity as planned, we are not doing what we would have predicted in the mountains. My wife and I envisioned doing a lot of rock climbing with abundant opportunities surrounding us. But the combination of having a young child and my wife’s struggles with repetitive hand injuries make climbing regularly a challenge. So I’ve become an avid mountain biker, riding two to three days every week. My wife also has started riding a bit, and she has also found a love of trail running. We also decided to try growing our own food this year. This was something we have talked about for years, but never seriously considered until my daughter got interested after planting a garden at her school. It has turned out to be an incredibly fun and rewarding experience for our family. New hobbies, even when pursued with a frugal mind-set, come with costs. We bought a mountain bike for my wife. She also got running spikes for the months when the trails are icy. My “free” bike from a friend still has cost me close to a thousand dollars in upgrades and maintenance. We also bought a bike rack for our car, helmets and other accessories related to our new hobbies costing thousands of dollars. We bought lumber to build garden boxes and had a couple tons of dirt hauled in before buying plants and seeds and then spending the summer watering them. Our “free” vegetables cost us well over $1,000. Be humble, live large As I approach two years since leaving my career, I would advise others contemplating the retirement decision to be humble. Retirement planning comes with a lot of uncertainty. You have to embrace the fact that there is a lot you don’t know and can’t predict. The alternative is to spend your life trapped in fear. That fear can prevent you from leaving your career, or it can manifest as constant anxiety around spending in retirement. Neither is desirable. I would also advise that you live large. It doesn’t make sense to do everything it takes to escape mandatory work if you are going to trap yourself in a life constrained by a tight budget with no room to grow, explore and pursue new opportunities as they present themselves. These seemingly contradictory pieces of advice have the same solution. Don’t limit your view of retirement. Continue to play some offense. Never stop growing and learning. Consider fun and interesting ways to earn some ongoing income. Give yourself options. Life is more fun when you’re playing to win, rather than trying not to lose." MY COMMENT: Fortunately my planing was done in such a way to allow me to remain a fully invested, all the time, long term investor, for life. I can not imagine someone being able to go through decades of retirement without the long term gains that the stock markets provide. At the same time, those long term gains are only made with MUCH short term risk and danger to capital. It will be very interesting to watch the first generations that are retiring without a pension over the next 20-30 years. I have a bad feeling that many are going to end up very short of funds.
Brilliant words about retirement. There is no question, retiring with a few weapons to take to the markets will be far more interesting to a passionate investor than converting to fixed income and switching to austerity mode. For people who don't care about investing, it might be fine. We hung in our careers for a while so we can endure higher risk after retirement.
Talk about RISK......not really. Today a few minutes ago I invested $830,000 in stocks and funds in a couple of the accounts that I manage. All funds were split between the 11 stocks that I hold and the three funds. Roughly equal split between the funds and the stock side of the accounts. I debated waiting till later in the week to try to get a good DOWN DRAFT in the markets to invest this money. BUT, decided to just bite the bullet and do what I have always done.........just go all in all at once and NOT try to time the markets. I have no idea what will happen over the short term of a few days to a week or two. It is just too random. So I went ahead and made the trades today. No guts no glory. NO DOUBT since I made this investment the markets will be down significantly over the rest of the week. If I had held off they would have been up significantly. I guess you can blame me for JINXING the markets for the week. Over the next 10-20 years, I doubt the timing of this trade will matter. At least these are funds that are committed for the very LONG TERM and as such, what happens over the next weeks or months will not matter. I continue to be fully invested for the long term as usual.
I ALWAYS use market orders. When I decide to invest money, I want it to be invested at that time. I dont want to sit around for a few days or a week or two waiting for a certain price as the market goes up and leaves my money siting. I prefer to take whatever the price is and get rid of the cash. I want the money in the markets, invested in the particular business or fund that I have chosen. I don't obsess over some minute entry point when I am talking very long term, always invested, money. Since I do not trade actively or in and out of the markets, entry points are not critical to me..........usually. There could be some situations when that is not true.
As to active trading.......active management......NO it does not work over the long term. What works over the long term is investing in the cream of the crop, the best companies in the world. What also works is investing in a broad, cream of the crop, average like the SP500 via an index fund. The key to financial success and wealth creation in the markets and life is investing in the best probability for success and allowing time and the power of compounding to do the heavy lifting. What you have to do as an investor is GET OUT OF THE WAY.........ignore your emotions and primitive brain and do nothing in response to all the short and medium term GARBAGE that will try to lure you into doing something STUPID. Now........that does not mean that you sit there with your head in the sand. If you are invested in individual stocks (businesses) you need to follow the financials of those companies at least on an annual basis and educate yourself to be able to read and compare and analyze basic financial reports. Once again – active fund managers are no better in bear markets than in bull runs https://moneyweek.com/516243/active-fund-managers-and-passive-investing/ (BOLD is my opinion and what I consider important content) "How many times have you heard this old chestnut? “Passive funds are fine when the market is going up. But when the market falls, and the bear starts to bite, that’s when active managers really earn their keep.” It sounds like it makes sense. Passive funds can only follow the market up and down. They can’t take action to insulate you from a fall. If the market crashes, so does your passive fund. An active manager, on the other hand, can take evasive action. And they can hold more cash – something a passive fund can’t do. It all makes a lot of logical sense. Sadly, it’s also tripe. Guess what? Most active managers underperform when markets fall too In the year to the end of June, just over 80% of UK equity fund managers failed to beat the UK index. That’s according to the latest scorecard from S&P Dow Jones Indices. What’s all the more painful for active managers, is that this came at a time when they’re meant to demonstrate their value (at least, according to popular myth). The latter half of last year was a rough year for markets. Indeed, it’s easy to forget now because the early 2019 rebound was so strong, but in the last quarter of 2018, markets really fell hard. It looked as though it might all be over. And yet, despite the widespread bear market, active managers failed to take advantage. As Andrew Innes of S&P Dow Jones points out, “the steep declines seen across equity markets in late 2018 were accompanied by near-ubiquitous underperformance across the fund categories’ asset-weighted returns.” In other words, while markets fell, active funds fell harder. And that goes for whichever benchmark you want to choose. Worse still, the managers were unable to make the money back during the rebound in 2019. Talk about adding insult to injury – for their investors, at least. The one thing you can take charge of We’ve said it many times before and I’ll warrant we’ll say it many times again in the future: if you want to maximise your returns as an investor, the key thing to focus on is costs. None of us can predict the future. And even if you did know what was going to happen next, markets in general take an almost perverse delight in confounding expectations. So you can never be sure of how they’re going to react in a given situation. So you have to focus on the things you can control. The nice thing about doing that is that it narrows down your options very rapidly. Because as an investor, there’s very little you can control. You don’t know which active fund manager is going to be the one to succeed (you can increase your odds of finding them – stick to investment trusts – but that’s a story for another day). You don’t know what the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve are going to do next. You don’t know how Brexit is going to turn out, or how the market will react if it does. But there’s one thing that you can control: how much you pay to invest. One of the main reasons that active managers struggle to beat their benchmarks is because they not only have to beat the average, they also have to make enough on top of that to pay for their own fees before you start seeing the benefit. This, of course, is where passive funds come in. Passive funds don’t try to beat the market. Instead, they aim to track the market. Tracking the market isn’t hard, because you just have to invest in the same stocks that the market does. In turn, that means that the fund doesn’t require an expensive fund manager or management team to run it. As a result, it can charge lower fees. So you have a fund that promises to give you the average in a world where achieving the average is – counterintuitively – an above-average result. Not only that, but it promises to deliver you this result at a lower cost than any active fund. In short, if you want to invest the straightforward way and you have no desire to spend ages picking over research to try to find the best fund manager (and potentially then getting it wrong anyway) then you should favour the passive route every single time. Don’t get me wrong – this is just the beginning. You then still have to consider which passive funds you might buy. That all comes down to your asset allocation – how much money do you want to invest in bonds? How much money do you want to invest in equities? Which bond markets? Which equity markets? This is a topic I’ve covered many times before, and which I will no doubt cover many times again. But, for now, this is the point to bear in mind: watch your costs. Over a working lifetime it can make tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds of difference to your eventual retirement pot." MY COMMENT YES.......learn how to manage your own money. If you are investing in stocks, learn how to evaluate a company and thier prospects. If you dont want to do this, than simply invest in one of the broad averages like the SP500 or the Total Stock Market and let the probability that the markets will be up more than they are down over the long term do the rest.
McDermott International Inc MDR Going to hit 31$ short term Reason Saudi Aramco, chevron Project Direct Maintenance deal going sign Soon, Heavy Bullish short term. Long term 121 $
Hi Nifty, welcome and feel free to contribute when you can. NOW.......remember that I invested, all in all at once, $830,000 on October 7, three days ago. This was done as I usually do, all in all at once, no market timing. This was done in a week with the usual media headlines about global recession, China negotiations starting today, and during one of the most erratic, bouncing around, fear mongering media, political hack, markets in a long time. About $700,000 of that money went into an account that allows me to easily see the result. WELL here is where this money is over the VERY SHORT term........three days. Half the money was divided between eleven stocks. At the moment: Six of the positions show a gain. Five of the positions show a loss. The largest gains is $793. The largest loss is $866. The total investment is down about $2000 and "IF" we continue.......very big "IF".....with the markets up as they are at the moment, I expect that the fund gains for the day in the account will put things back to about EVEN for the first three days. I made this investment knowing that over the very short term it was just as likely that I would lose money as gain. I wanted to get this money invested and out of my mind and working. My focus, OBVIOUSLY, is the very LONG TERM and being a very experienced long time investor with an extremely clinical investing personality I did the trade.
I SUPPOSE it is possible that the stock markets and stock investing could be killed off over the span of 15-30 years. How IRONIC it would be to see the Millennial generation and the "modern" style of TOXIC, dishonest journalism, TOXIC, dishonest politics, superstition based, dark ages emotion based pseudo science, etc, etc, kill off stock and fund investing. It would be interesting since there is NOTHING else to support the entire private retirement system where NO ONE other than government workers and teachers has a pension. To a large degree our investing and financial system is STILL based on TRUST. TRUST in financials, trust in the system, trust in the future of the country, and trust in businesses and the capitalistic system that has produced all that we enjoy in the USA every day regardless of net worth, status, or rank in society. Even more IRONIC if the MEDIA turned out to be the primary catalyst to destroy the systems and society that make us the greatest financial and economic power in the world. In my opinion, we are at a tipping point at this moment and over the next 10-50 years. My GUESS........I wont be around to see it......over the next 50 years we will develop into the typical science fiction plot line where the country is made up of the small number of Elites that live in their compounds and protected areas. The rest of the people will be made up of the servants of the elites and bureaucrats and the great majority.....perhaps 80% of the population....will live a daily life of trying to scrape by. The BOTTOM LINE, you get to live in the world, and future that you create and deserve.........SO I DONT CARE. My job is to try to set things up financially to take care of the next two or three or four generations of MY FAMILY over the next 50-75 years. I like this very "little" article.......a perfect reflection of where we are in the modern investing world: Nonsense Market Moves Have Investors ‘Exhausted’ by Trade Talks https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nonsense-market-moves-investors-exhausted-181659112.html (BOLD is my opinion and what I consider important content) "As noon struck Thursday amid the latest U.S.-China trade talks, the S&P 500 turned south for no apparent reason. “They order the wrong lunch for the meeting?” @selling_theta tweeted. It was a joke, but investors could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. While trade headlines have whipsawed markets for nearly two years, the heightened sensitivity this week has turned almost comical. The equity benchmark shot higher Wednesday after the Global Times said China’s delegation would be huge. It jumped again early Thursday on news the bunch had landed. It took another leg up mid-morning when Donald Trump signaled the talks will go into Friday as planned, even as he cast doubt on whether he wanted to make a deal. “It’s getting kind of ridiculous,” Matt Maley, equity strategist at Miller Tabak + Co., said by phone. “The market moves from every little blast.” That’s not to say traders shouldn’t pay attention. They’ve waited weeks to get some sign that the dispute would move toward a resolution as indications mount that it is taking a toll on the global economy. And there’s been some signs that the two nations may be willing to compromise, including reports of a potential currency pact in a mini deal, more agricultural purchases and the allowance of some sales to Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Still, it’s been a long week -- with another 26 hours before the market heads to the weekend. “I’m exhausted from it,” Lale Topcuoglu, a senior fund manager at JOHCM, said on Bloomberg Television." MY COMMENT YES......the modern world of investing. The solution for a small investor like myself.......SLOW DOWN.....DO NOTHING....SIT AND WAIT. Let everyone else run around like a chicken with its head cut off. The more they trade and deal in FRENZY the more I need to go slower and do nothing. Of course, that is what I do anyway.
Oh yes......as I type this, DOW up over 380 points. I am sure we will jump around up and down all day as is the current norm. BUT.....we are still well below the all time market highs and have plenty of room to run over the rest of the year. As of the moment: DOW year to date +15.19% SP500 year to date +18.96% The above numbers seem IMPOSSIBLE when you look at all the garbage that is being spouted in the media every day by so called journalists. You would think that the economy and business was in the toilet. REALITY is a bitch.......well NOT for some of us that live and invest in reality.
BRAVO to SOUTH PARK. I just watched the entire episode of "Band In China" (Tegridy Goes To China) on South Park. They just TOTALLY skewer China, Disney, the NBA, and all the other China apologists. HIGHLY recommend watching this entire episode to ANYONE. At the same time I searched the internet for media comment and reaction. It made me realize how muted and censored what the media was saying about this episode was. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME. HIGHLY recommend that everyone watch the entire episode and forward it to anyone you know. It goes WAY WAY beyond what is being characterized in the media. HILARIOUS, yet so sad and true. BRAVO.
WELL........nice close to the week for the money ($830,000) that I invested in stocks and funds on October 7, Monday. Invested in the stocks and funds in my portfolio model. NICE to get a good bump up this difficult week for those funds. As of today have a gain in the neighborhood of $6000 to $7000 depending on the SP500 Index Fund value when it reports results later today. Does not mean much, but it is always nice to start out new money with a gain the first week even if it can easily get taken away over the coming weeks.
Posting some more data on the $830,000 that I invested......all in all at once.......on Monday, October 7. OBVIOUSLY this data for ONE WEEK is worthless and irrelevant to anyone, especially me as a LONG TERM INVESTOR. BUT...I thought this might be interesting to those that are simply curious or surprised that someone would invest that large of an amount of money in the face of recent market conditions and events and all in all at once in the current market. I suppose some people would even be shocked at making such an investment in the current environment all at once. BUT.....since I dont use or believe in market timing or dollar cost averaging I try to NOT let the dollar amount of an investment scare me off from my normal approach. I will not cite the research.......but, the vast majority of academic research supports my opinion that market timing does not work and that all in all at once will beat dollar cost averaging. So.......big or small investment, as always, I go with..........PROBABILITY..........rather than emotion, guesswork, hope, prayer, superstition, etc, etc. So for the week the portion of the investment that I am easily able to track with figures without having to do any calculating.......$675,134........gained $6480. The stock portion of the money gained 1.23% on Friday alone. The mutual side of the money gained 1.21% on Friday. ALL of the mutual fund investment is positive for the week. Eight of the eleven stocks are positive for the week with the remaining three having a loss of less than $200 each. MORE irrelevant data. For the week the stocks gained .88%. The three mutual funds gained 1.08%. The total account had a gain of .96%. The reason that I am able to track the $675,134 easily is because it went into a new account with "0" balance to start. The other portion of the funds went into an existing account and is mixed in with the positions that were already in the account. ALL of the accounts that I deal with and discuss on here are either owned by me or managed by me for family and are taxable brokerage accounts. ALL are invested in the same way, in accordance with the PORTFOLIO MODEL that I post on here every few pages.
