The Long Term Investor

For those that like or follow Cathie Wood here is her recent thinking in a nutshell.

Cathie Wood says inflation will 'unwind pretty quickly' and that stocks will probably be fine — here are 3 of her picks to keep riding the bull wave

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cathie-wood-says-inflation-unwind-203800523.html

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

"Cathie Wood, superstar stock picker and CEO of investment firm ARK Invest, believes the stock market is in a bull run that will continue putting smiles on the faces of investors — so long as the U.S. can avoid a recession.

Despite the sky-will-fall predictions of investors like Michael Burry, Wood recently told Barron’s that the market is “probably going to be fine,” explaining that value stocks, cyclical stocks and defensive stocks all continue to climb despite what COVID-19 and a disrupted economy have been able to throw at it.

Inflation, she said, will “unwind pretty quickly.”

Despite recent turbulence, Wood’s most well-known ETF, ARK Innovation, is up roughly 160% over the last three years— not too shabby. Let’s look at three companies the fund holds significant positions in that should benefit nicely from a continued bull run."

MY COMMENT

If you are interested in her picks click on the article. I dont want to PUSH particular stocks in this thread. Obviously she is positive for the BULL MARKET.........and.......like me, she continues to have NO concern about inflation.

 

As to the markets today:

Stocks Stared Down Omicron. Big Gains Closed Out the Day.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-today-51638440870?siteid=yhoof2

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

"Stocks finished Thursday strong, pushed up by investors swooping up shares on sale and a bipartisan deal in Washington on government funding.

The indexes have been on a roller-coaster ride since Friday, when South Africa revealed the discovery of a new Covid-19 variant, Omicron.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 618 points or 1.8%, after tumbling 461 points Wednesday to close at 34,022. The S&P 500 advanced 1.4% and the Nasdaq rose 0.8% after both indexes dropped more than 1% Wednesday.


In the morning, Republicans and Democrats in Congress agreed to extend government financing through mid-February, averting a government shutdown this weekend.

Stocks were up in premarket trading, before news of the deal broke, and just kept climbing during the regular session.

The gains came despite the discovery of a second confirmed case of the Omicron variant in Minnesota. On Wednesday, stocks slid on news of the first confirmed case in California, and a day after vaccine and treatment makers said their remedies were likely to be less effective in immunizing against the new strain.

Thursday was the second day in a row that investors bought the dip in the morning, though the good times lasted for the rest of the session.

“It didn’t take long for investors to go back to the buy-the-dip playbook,” wrote Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda.

But the risk to the market is growing. When the S&P 500 hit its all-time high in late November, “we ran out of buyers and now we’re left with investors wondering whether they should stay or go,” said Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research. “Fundamentally, there’s a great deal of uncertainty over the pandemic and the Fed’s pace of tightening.”

Indeed, the stock market has shown signs of weakness. The S&P 500 is still down nearly 3% from its peak last month and is trading just 1% above its 50-day moving average. That signals weakening investor confidence.

Before stocks ramped higher Thursday morning, the index briefly fell below its 50-day moving average. “Many technical analysts will see these events as a bearish sign for stocks, at least in the short-term,” wrote JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade.

The Dow, weighted heavily with economically sensitive stocks, is still down nearly 5% from its all-time high, hit in early November, and is still trading below its 50-day moving average.

The internals of the market, such as the number of stocks recently rising and the movements of various types of stocks, have been the worst since March 2020, according to The Bear Traps Report. The analysts there recommend selling S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 stocks after short rallies “until the Fed capitulates on the aggressive pace of accommodation withdrawal.”

In other words, Fed-related risk is still hanging over the market.

The bond market is signaling as much. The difference between the yield on the 10-year Treasury note and that of the 2-year Treasury is just 0.81 of a percentage point. That’s slimmer than the spread seen at Wednesday’s close, which was the slimmest spread since Jan. 5. That indicates that bond investors see high inflation in the short run, which could prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates soon, thereby lowering economic demand and inflation in the longer run.

“Historically the curve flattens when the Fed is tightening or is about to,” wrote Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of Bleakley Advisory Group.

There’s a kernel of good news seen in the market, though: just observing trading action on Thursday — and ignoring the past several trading days—the market looks optimistic. Not only were the index gains sizable, but the S&P 500 did in fact rise above its 50-day moving average. Plus, the index rallied on the strength of most of its stocks; 94% of them rose according to FactSet, not a mere handful. That signifies the stock market, on Thursday, was reflecting slightly more optimism on growth across sectors in the economy. It means that if the stock market’s pullback is over, it may very well have concluded this morning.

The latest economic data showed that initial jobless claims remained near pandemic lows at 222,000, better than the expected 240,000.

The real test for the jobs market comes Friday, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes its employment report for November. Economists are expecting payroll gains of 573,000, which would be higher than October’s result of 531,000. Such strength in the labor market would be a good sign for the economy, but might embolden the Fed to reduce economic support rather quickly."

MY COMMENT

YES.....I believe we are now starting to get past the OMI fear mongering. The inherent STRENGTH of the markets is starting to take hold and win out over the fear of the unknown. As far as I can see the info on OMI-Covid is STILL very positive in terms of the symptoms being extremely mild. AMAZINGLY the yield on the Ten Year Treasury stands at 1.444%.

I expect we will see the USUAL huge tidal wave of opinions on the weekend shows.....especially opinions playing up the FEAR and PANIC for viewers. No.....I will NOT be watching.

 

The NVIDIA/ARM merger is not looking good. I would be very surprised if it goes through with all the approvals that have to happen. Here is our government in action.

FTC sues Nvidia to block $40B Arm deal, calling it the largest ever semiconductor chip merger

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ftc-sues-to-block-nvidia-arm-deal-203958623.html

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

"The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued graphics card giant Nvidia (NVDA) to block its proposed acquisition of Arm.

"The FTC is suing to block the largest semiconductor chip merger in history to prevent a chip conglomerate from stifling the innovation pipeline for next-generation technologies,” FTC Bureau of Competition Director Holly Vedova said in a release.

"This proposed deal would distort Arm’s incentives in chip markets and allow the combined firm to unfairly undermine Nvidia’s rivals," Vedova added.

An Nvidia spokesperson responded to the suit saying: "As we move into this next step in the FTC process, we will continue to work to demonstrate that this transaction will benefit the industry and promote competition."

The company's stock was up slightly after the news.

Nvidia announced its plans to acquire U.K-based Arm from SoftBank in September 2020 in a deal valued at $40 billion. At the time Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the move would have "tremendous benefits for both companies, our customers, and the industry."

But the deal has faced criticism from both international regulators and industry heavyweights. The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority is in the midst of an in-depth probe of the acquisition to determine its potential antitrust and national security concerns.

Arm is considered a kind of neutral "Switzerland" in the tech industry. It provides chip designs and software to a litany of big-name firms including the likes of Qualcomm (QCOM), Microsoft (MSFT), Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Intel (INTC), Samsung, and Nvidia.

The FTC may believe the Nvidia deal would no longer allow Arm to act as a neutral third party, and could cut off competing companies from Arm's all-important designs. According to Bloomberg, Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm have already lodged their complaints about the potential deal with antitrust regulators. Nvidia, for its part, has said that it will maintain Arm’s neutrality.

In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Huang said Nvidia could help Arm's R&D capabilities.

"The benefit of Arm being part of Nvidia is that we could accelerate their R&D scale,” he said. “Arm, as you know, are quite successful in mobile devices. But we could help them be much more successful in all other areas of computing.”

An administrative trial for the suit is scheduled for May 10, 2021."

MY COMMENT

I dont think this merger has much of a chance. there are too many big names lined up against it with too much political power. In addition it would have to get approval from the UK and China and others. I would love to see it happen as a shareholder....but.....dont think it will happen. This is probably not news to anyone.

 

As to the OMI-COVID.......CIRCUS.......well nothing but CLOWNS. (sorry again Emmett)

Stock market news live updates: Stock futures extend gains after S&P 500's best day in seven weeks

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-updates-december-3-2021-231514628.html

(BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content)
"Stock futures opened higher Thursday evening to hold gains after a recovery rally, with an initial wave of concerns over the economic impacts of the Omicron variant at least temporarily easing.

Contracts on the S&P 500 advanced. The blue-chip index closed higher by 1.4% during the regular session, marking its biggest jump since Oct. 14 Thursday. The Dow and Nasdaq each also advanced. Volatility from earlier this week retreated, and the CBOE Volatility index (^VIX) dipped 10% to below 28. And travel stocks including airlines, hotel and lodging firms held onto earlier gains in late trading as traders bought the pullback in these virus-sensitive areas of the market.

The move higher in stocks on Thursday came as market participants digested recent headlines on the Omicron variant, including the discovery of multiple cases in the U.S. While vaccine-makers and epidemiologists have still been assessing the new variant's transmissibility and severity of infection, investors have at least temporarily eased back from peak levels of concern.

"The markets ... have been pricing in, really, a worst-case scenario," Jim Smiegiel, SEI chief investment officer, told Yahoo Finance Live. "So obviously, there was a ton of uncertainty ... [but] you're seeing today some signs of positive outlooks coming into play. The cases that we've seen so far in the States have been mild."

"I think the market is now switching gears a little bit and perhaps lessening the intensity on the potential for negative outcomes," he added. "The big issue still remains more about the world government's reaction to the variant and what that means from a lockdown perspective. And that's what the market is still kind of struggling with at this stage."

Others have struck an even more optimistic tone, suggesting the economic impact of the Omicron variant will ultimately prove less drastic than initially feared.

"If you look back at Delta, there really wasn't a meaningful impact in terms of actual consumption ... maybe we saw a little bit of a shift away from services in the early stages of the reopen back towards goods, but overall consumption held up just fine," Garrett Melson, Natixis Investment Managers Solutions portfolio strategist, told Yahoo Finance Live on Thursday.

"And on the capex front, we still see signs that companies are saying they're going to invest in their businesses and they're doing just that," Melson added. "Lockdowns are certainly not happening here in the U.S. There's no appetite from the government and certainly no appetite from consumers."

Traders are also awaiting the U.S. Labor Department's latest monthly jobs report Friday morning. The November jobs report is expected to show another more than half a million payrolls returned last month, with the unemployment taking another step down to reach a March 2020 low of 4.5%. The report comes following a slew of other positive data points on the labor market in recent days, with weekly unemployment claims coming in lower than expected, and ADP's private payrolls report topping expectations on Wednesday."

MY COMMENT

Unless something changes......this event has been a BAD JOKE from the start. The medical authorities in South Africa were SHOCKED at how this was being reported and fear mongered around the world. This whole event should makes people question the SANITY and the TRUTHFULNESS of.........everyone......involved in spreading this information to the public.

Time will tell if any of this HYSTERIA was justified. If not.....there SHOULD be some critical investigation of how this was allowed to get so out of control to the point where it is shutting down world economies and travel. I say......."should"....but in the end if it turns out like it looks......a BIG FAT NOTHING-BURGER........nothing will happen and it will all simply be swept under the rug.

 

Another day.....another dollar.

NOT a great jobs report..........will anyone care? Probably not.

November jobs report: Payrolls grew by 210,000, unemployment rate falls to 4.2%

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/november-jobs-report-payrolls-labor-department-2021-195757677.html

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

"The U.S. economy added back fewer jobs than expected in November, while the unemployment rate fell further than anticipated to the lowest since February 2020.

The Labor Department released its November jobs report Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here were the main metrics from the print, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:

• Non-farm payrolls: +210,000 vs. +550,000 expected and a revised +546,000 in October
  
• Unemployment rate: 4.2%vs.4.5% expected, 4.6% in October
  
• Average hourly earnings, month-over-month: 0.3% vs. 0.4% expected, 0.4% in October
  
• Average hourly earnings, year-over-year: 4.8%vs. 5.0% expected and a revised 4.8% in October
  

U.S. employers have added back jobs on net in every month so far in 2021 as vaccinations, reopenings and a recovery in the high-contact services industries helped boost hiring.

Service sector employment growth did decelerate notably in November compared to October, however. Leisure and hospitality industries, which had seen some of the biggest job gains in recent months, added just 23,000 payrolls after October's increase of 170,000. Retail trade employers shed payrolls on net, with these dropping by more than 20,000 after job gains of nearly 40,000 in each of October and September. In the goods producing sector, motor vehicle and parts employers also shed jobs, erasing more than 10,000 positions after adding 19,300 in October.

"The headline miss was largely due to a muted 23,000 rise in leisure and hospitality payrolls, indicating that the nascent winter wave of virus infections was now weighing on the sector. With new cases now on the rise again even before the potential impact of the Omicron variant, leisure sector employment growth looks set to remain weak over the winter," Andrew Hunter, senior U.S. economist for Capital Economics, wrote in a note on Friday.

"Moreover, we remain skeptical that a further significant recovery in the labor force lies ahead – particularly given the worsening virus situation and the potential Federal vaccine mandate," he added.

Though the payroll gain in the November jobs report disappointed sharply compared to expectations, job growth for October and September were each upwardly revised. Payrolls grew by 546,000 in October, versus the 531,000 previously reported, while jobs grew by 379,000 in September compared to the 312,000 posted in the first estimate.

But despite the solid rehiring throughout the year, labor force participation remains short of pre-pandemic levels. As of November, the civilian labor force was still down by about 2.4 million participants, compared to February 2020. The labor force participation rate ticked up slightly more than anticipated in November, however, to reach 61.8%, versus the 61.7% consensus economists were expecting and the 61.6% posted in October. The labor force participation rate had been 63.3% in February 2020 before the pandemic meaningfully impacted the job market.

Economists have attributed the stubbornly depressed participation rate to a host of factors, including lingering concerns about COVID-19 infections, difficulties finding child care and a desire by many workers to leave their jobs and pursue roles with more flexibility, wages or benefits. With the latest emergence of the Omicron variant, these myriad factors may further inhibit a rebound in labor force participation.

"Labor supply shortages do not show material signs of improvement, and could actually worsen in coming months with the federal vaccine mandate taking effect on January 4, 2022. As such, labor market conditions should remain tight, perpetuating strong wage growth," Sam Bullard, managing director and senior economist for Wells Fargo, wrote in an email ahead of Friday's report. "On balance, robust labor demand and further COVID improvements should support strong labor market gains last month, though we are mindful of the challenges the are likely to persist in the labor market for the foreseeable future."

As worker demand remains elevated, wages have also risen and contributed to the inflation seen across the economy this year. Average hourly earnings rose for an eighth straight month, increasing by 0.3% in November compared to October. Average hourly wages rose by 4.8% in November over last year, matching October's annual rate but coming in slightly cooler than the 5.0% increase expected.

Inflationary trends have also been reflected in other recent economic data. The government's latest report on October core personal consumption expenditures, or the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge, showed an increase of 4.1% year-over-year – the most in three decades.

And key members of the Fed have signaled they are inclined to shift their focus to staving off inflation, even as the labor force participation and unemployment rates have yet to return to their pre-pandemic levels. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said earlier this week that the central bank's asset-purchase tapering program could end "a few months early," voicing confidence that the economic recovery had progressed enough to warrant a quicker end to the bank's crisis-era support.

"Don’t be fooled by the measly 210K payroll jobs gain this month because the economy’s engines are actually in overdrive as shown by the plunge in joblessness from 4.6% in October to 4.2% in November." said Chris Rupkey, chief economist for FWDBONDS, in an email. "Unemployment is tumbling as companies snap up workers to meet the economy’s very strong demand. The U.S. economy is back on a tear with full employment right around the corner. Fed rate hikes are coming."

And heading into Friday's report, other labor market data have also underscored the present tightness of the labor market. ADP's jobs report on Wednesday, while an imperfect indicator of the monthly government data, nevertheless showed an encouragingly stronger-than-expected rise in private-sector employment growth last month. And weekly jobless claims from the Labor Department slid to the lowest level in 52 years in mid-November during the survey week for the monthly jobs report. "

MY COMMENT

I believe the economy is more at risk of recession right now than any time over the past 4-5 years. The labor markets are disrupted. those in power REFUSE to see the truth as they continue to blame lack of child care and Covid. The real reason....free money and benefits that is disrupting human behavior. This is causing quickly rising wages........and .....price gouging by many businesses. At the same time the government economic beurocrats are now going to focus on inflation. There is some potential for a perfect storm of government action and incompetence creating a NICE RECESSION starting some time over the next year.

At the moment we are ok.....but what happens and how it happens over the next 6-12 months will decide this issue going forward.

 

I will be out of touch for most of the day. I am going to help a friend hang some art. I have my long level, short level, plumb bob, picture wire, hanging hooks, wire cutters, duct tape, masking tape, etc, etc, etc all ready to go.

SO.......Emmett, Zukodany......you guys kick the markets into high gear today. TIME TO MAKE SOME MONEY.

 

I see that MUSK will continue to sell shares till about the end of the year. I think his sales are impacting the price of Tesla shares over the past 3-4 weeks making it difficult for the stock to get much traction lately. It will be nice when his sales are done and the stock can simply be subject to NORMAL market forces.

 

Easy come......Easy go.

Sorry....I left you guys with an impossible task today. I ended up like EVERYONE.........in the medium red once again. And.....once again I got beat by the SP500.....this time by 0.43%.

Best thing I can say about today is that it is Friday and this week is.........OVER. GOOD RIDDANCE.

 

So here is the SAD tale of this week. ACTUALLY the SP500 did not do that horrible.....only down by (-1.22%) for the week.

DOW year to date +12.98%
DOW for the week (-0.91%)

SP500 year to date +20.83%
SP500 for the week (-1.22%)

NASDAQ 100 year to date +21.91%
NASDAQ 100 for the week (-1.96%)

NASDAQ year to date +17.05%
NASDAQ for the week (-2.62%)

RUSSELL year to date +9.34%
RUSSELL for the week (-3.86%)

THE FINAL FOUR.......no....not basketball. It is the final four market weeks of the year starting next Monday. Thank goodness it is the weekend.

 

This has been pretty obvious for a while now. I think it has been a long time since anyone was anticipating this merger would happen.......or........was pricing this stock on the merger happening. It has been clear for at least 4-6 months.......and probably more.....that the number of countries that would have to approve this merger.....was going to kill it.

Nvidia’s $40 billion Arm deal is all but dead — but it’s not a huge loss

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-40-billion-arm-deal-is-all-but-dead-194051180.html

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

"Graphics card giant Nvidia’s (NVDA) plans to buy Arm, which licenses chip designs, looks all but dead after the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal on Thursday. The move is just the latest blow to the $40 billion deal and would seem to strike the final blow to a deal that would have been one of the largest chip industry mergers in history.

Nvidia’s stock, however, was up slightly on the news late Thursday, though it was down Friday along with the broader market. That could point to a recognition among investors that the deal with U.K.-based Arm was on life support as is and unlikely to go through.

Susquehanna senior equity analyst Chris Rolland told Yahoo Finance after Nvidia’s Q3 earnings in November that the deal’s demise was already built into Nvidia’s stock price.

Rolland further explained that Nvidia leadership’s own language during its Q3 earnings call seemed to point to an expectation that the acquisition would fail.

“I think some of the commentary [on Wednesday] kind of puts the final nail in the Arm coffin here,” Rolland said.

In its suit, the FTC says that the Nvidia deal would give one of the largest chip companies power over technology that rivals depend on to build their own chips.

“The FTC’s complaint alleges that the combined firm would have the means and incentive to stifle innovative next-generation technologies, including those used to run data centers and driver-assistance systems in cars,” the commission said in a statement.

Nvidia responded to the suit via a spokesperson’s statement saying: “As we move into this next step in the FTC process, we will continue to work to demonstrate that this transaction will benefit the industry and promote competition.”

The FTC’s suit comes after the U.K.’s competition commission launched an in-depth probe into the proposed deal. China and the E.U. would also need to sign off on the acquisition. Industry leaders like Qualcomm (QCOM), Intel (INTC), Microsoft (MSFT), and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) — which rely on Arm’s designs to build their own chips — have all come out against the deal.

In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pressed the case for the Arm acquisition saying, “The benefit of Arm being part of Nvidia is that we could accelerate their R&D scale.”

The loss of the Arm deal wouldn’t necessarily hurt Nvidia, though. The company already builds processors based on Arm’s designs and can continue to do so into the future. No, it won’t reap the rewards of charging competitors to use Arm’s designs, but it also won’t face any setbacks in its production pipeline.

What’s more, Nvidia is a graphics and AI company. It will be more interesting to see how the company can innovate in those areas, such as how it’s using its Omniverse to teach self-driving cars how to maneuver on streets.

So while the Arm deal looks finished, it’s not exactly a total loss for Nvidia."

MY COMMENT

This deal has been a......HAIL MARY.......for a long time now. There is no way that all the various countries and entities were going to approve this deal. Nvidia has been going through the motions for many months now.....but my feeling is they knew long ago it was not going to happen.

Just a bump in the road.........as this great company moves forward from here.

 

As to TESLA.........totally understandable why they were down today and the past 2-3 weeks. When you have this much selling happening it DOES have an impact.

"EV giant Tesla plunged more than 6%, though volume was not especially high. The stock sliced below its 21-day exponential moving average and is now close to the key 50-day line.


The stock was punished after regulatory filings revealed Thursday that CEO Elon Musk had sold more than 934,000 shares. The value of the stock came in at just over $1 billion.


Musk also exercised options to buy 2.1 million shares. The eccentric executive has now sold more than 10 million Tesla shares since Nov. 8."

https://www.investors.com/market-tr...-plunges-docusign-stock-collapses/?src=A00220