The Long Term Investor

Hydrate is the key in this heat.....which as you say is extremely dangerous. When we do a show I will bring and often go through 1/2 to 1 gallon of water....in addition to grape juice for the sugar. I usually start out with 5 frozen 16oz bottles of water and a full 24oz plastic cup to begin with.

 

Here is one for Zukodany.

Wonder Woman comic debut sold for $1.6M at auction
‘Near mint’ condition 8th issue of All Star Comics was sold for more than a million dollars at Heritage Auctions

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/wonder-woman-comic-debut-sold-1-6m-auction

 

It is amazing that it is very RARE to see any mention of EARNINGS anymore. We are nearing the end of the second quarter and will soon have earnings to hopefully distract a bit from the constant inflation drumbeat.

Although I expect that the media line will be constantly negative about earnings just like it was at the end of the first quarter. This was in spite of the FACT that we had a relatively strong earnings season for the first quarter with a good number of "beats" of the expectations.....especially in the SP500.

As a long term....FUNDAMENTAL INVESTOR.....I always look forward to earnings. That is the key data that I want to see to evaluate how a business is doing quarterly and annually and historically.

 

YEP....green for me today. It is nice to replenish some of the lost money so I can stand the next round of bad days. I had seven of ten stocks UP today. My down stocks were.....TSLA, NVDA, and HON.

I was happy to see that I got in a good beat on the old SP500 by 0.83%.

 

HERE.....is an early harbinger of earnings.....FED EX.

FedEx profit rises as volume softens, shares up

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fedex-profit-rises-challenges-persist-202326474.html

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

"LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -FedEx Corp reported higher quarterly earnings on Thursday, despite persistent labor woes and softening demand in its Ground unit that handles the bulk of its e-commerce home deliveries and drives the company's growth.

Shares in the company, which are down roughly 20% from a year ago, jumped 3.7% to $236.52 in extended trading.

Memphis, Tennessee-based FedEx's adjusted net income for the fiscal fourth quarter ended May 31 was $1.8 billion, or $6.87 per share, up from $1.36 billion, or $5.01 per share, a year earlier.

Revenue grew to $24.4 billion from $22.6 billion a year earlier, boosted in part by fuel surcharges.

FedEx issued a full-year forecast for earnings per share of $22.50 to $24.50 excluding items. It set capital spending at $6.8 billion, with a priority on investments to improve efficiency, increase automation and modernize vehicles and facilities.

Last week, FedEx expanded its board under a cooperation agreement with activist investor D.E. Shaw Group, which has a 1% stake in the company."

MY COMMENT

I would think that this company was taking a big hit in the current environment. I guess the fuel surcharges helped them do well. Glad to see an early EARNINGS winner starting things off.

 

Every time I say this I regret it.....BUT.....I am expecting this little rally to continue tomorrow. Now that we are past the FED TALK.....there is nothing in the way of the markets tomorrow. There is simply nothing new and no news.

Yesterday was an odd day.....up all day.....but killed in the last half hour of trading. Some weird sh*t going on to cause that. Besides that oddball close....the week has been nicely positive. We need to end the week tomorrow the same way we started it on Tuesday.

 

We had a SOLID, STRONG day today.

US STOCKS-Wall Street posts solid gains, as defensives, tech shine

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-stocks-wall-street-posts-202730628.html

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

"June 23 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes posted solid gains on Thursday, fueled by strong performance from defensive and tech shares that outweighed declines for economically sensitive groups as worries persisted about a potential recession.

The benchmark S&P 500 swung between positive and negative during the session, but stocks picked up steam heading into the market's close. Benchmark U.S. Treasury yields fell to two-week lows, supporting tech and other rate-sensitive growth stocks.

Trading has remained volatile in the wake of the S&P 500 last week logging its biggest weekly percentage drop since March 2020. Investors are weighing how far stocks could fall after the index earlier this month fell over 20% from its January all-time high, confirming the common definition of a bear market.

“There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty about the outlook and so the market is confused,” said Walter Todd, chief investment officer at Greenwood Capital in South Carolina.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 194.23 points, or 0.64%, to 30,677.36, the S&P 500 gained 35.84 points, or 0.95%, to 3,795.73 and the Nasdaq Composite added 179.11 points, or 1.62%, to 11,232.19.

In his second day of testifying before Congress, U.S. central bank chief Jerome Powell said the Fed's commitment to reining in 40-year-high inflation is "unconditional" but also comes with the risk of higher unemployment.

U.S. business activity slowed considerably in June as high inflation and declining consumer confidence dampened demand across the board, a survey on Thursday showed.

“The Fed wants to see things start to slow and the data is starting to reflect that,” said James Ragan, director of wealth management research at D.A. Davidson.

Citigroup analysts are forecasting a near 50% probability of a global recession.

“Economic growth is slowing. Is it going to slow enough to go into a recession, that’s the big question,” Ragan said.

Defensive groups considered safer bets in rocky economic times were the top-performing S&P 500 sectors. Among them, utilities gained 2.4%, healthcare rose 2.2% and real estate added 2%.

The heavyweight tech sector rose 1.4%, with Microsoft gaining 2.3% and Apple up 2.2%.

The energy sector slumped 3.8%, continuing its recent pullback after soundly outperforming the market for most of 2022. Declines in Exxon Mobil and Chevron were the biggest individual drags on the S&P 500, with Exxon dropping 3% and Chevron falling 3.7%.

Other economically sensitive sectors also fell. Materials lost 1.4%, while industrials and financials dipped about 0.5% each.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.41-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.67-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week high and 40 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 32 new highs and 194 new lows.

About 12.4 billion shares changed hands in U.S. exchanges, compared with the 12.5 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions. "

MY COMMENT

It is way too early to call the end of the bear market. We all know about bear market rallies. BUT.....the past weeks have given me some hope that we......"might".....be in the process of looking for a bottom. If we find one....we can just bounce along on it for as long as necessary till the FED is done.

This is certainly good news.....at least to me as a long term ivnestor:

Worsening business activity data is 'setting the scene' for an economic contraction this year

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/worsening-business-activity-data-pmi-152945354.html


"The U.S. economy is showing more signs of deterioration.

The preliminary S&P Global Composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for June came in at 51.2, the weakest level since January, when Omicron-related disruptions were still weighing on growth. This was also the second-weakest reading for the index since the height of the pandemic in mid-2020. Consensus economists were looking for a print of 53.0, according to Bloomberg data, following May's final reading of 53.6. Levels above 50.0 indicate expansion in the economy.

"The pace of U.S. economic growth has slowed sharply in June, with deteriorating forward-looking indicators setting the scene for an economic contraction in the third quarter," Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said Thursday. "The survey data are consistent with the economy expanding at an annualized rate of less than 1% in June, with the goods-producing sector already in decline and the vast service sector slowing sharply."

Beneath the headline figure, both the services and manufacturing indexes registered month-on-month declines. The services PMI weakened to a five-month low of 51.6 in early June from May's 53.4 as a deceleration in new orders and rising costs stifled growth in the sector.

The manufacturing PMI registered an even larger decline, falling to 52.4 from May's 57.0 as the manufacturing output index slid into contractionary territory of 49.6 for 24-month low. Worse declines were only registered twice before in the 15-year history of the data — early on during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020, and at the height of the 2008 global financial crisis.

“Businesses have become much more concerned about the outlook as a result of the rising cost of living and drop in demand, as well as the increasingly aggressive interest rate path outlined by the Federal Reserve and the concomitant deterioration in broader financial conditions," Williamson added. "Business confidence is now at a level which would typically herald an economic downturn, adding to the risk of recession."

The report follows comments from key Federal Reserve officials, who have increasingly begun to acknowledge the risk of a recession as they work to address inflation by raising interest rates and tightening financial conditions this year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday that it was "certainly a possibility" that the U.S. economy could slip into a recession, while underscoring it was not the central bank's "intended outcome."

Others struck a similar tone.

“We could have a couple of negative quarters" of economic growth, Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker told Yahoo Finance in an interview Wednesday.

The definition of a “recession” is commonly referred to by investors as two back-to-back quarters of negative economic growth. The first quarter of 2022 already saw a real GDP contraction of 1.5% on an annualized basis. An initial reading on second quarter growth is due at the end of July.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, which is in charge of “dating” recessions, clarifies that they look beyond real GDP figures when declaring a recession. The NBER looks at real income, employment, among other economic variables.

Amid the souring in some economic data and the Fed's ongoing rate hiking path, a number of Wall Street banks have also warned that risks of a recession have mounted. Deutsche Bank, which has maintained for months that the U.S. economy is headed for a recession, said it now expects the formal downturn to begin in the third quarter of 2023. Goldman Sachs economists now see a 30% probability that the U.S. economy enters a recession over the next year, up from a 15% risk seen previously."

MY COMMENT

The above is.....GOOD NEWS. I want to see the economy give up and people sour. I think we are already in a recession. BAD GROWTH and bad expectations.....to me.....is positive going forward over the medium to long term. We need to see the economy deteriorate and get on with it from there. We are now seeing this for the second quarter in a row. This is how we move forward.

If we are lucky enough to see a mild recession for 2-4 quarters.....with OK earnings.....we can turn the corner.

 

Here is the other side of the short term coin....for those that dont want to get too carried away based on a couple of positive days this week.

S&P 500 could plunge another 20% as recession risks rise: Morgan Stanley
S&P 500 has already plunged in recent weeks as Fed rattles global markets

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/sp-500-could-plunge-recession-risks-rise-morgan-stanley

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

"The S&P 500 has gotten crushed in a widespread sell-off this month, and the benchmark index is likely to tumble even lower if the economy falls into a recession, according to Morgan Stanley analysts.

In a recent analyst note, Morgan Stanley strategists led by Mike Wilson said the risks of a downturn have climbed considerably, and that stocks could tumble another 20% if economic growth stalls out.

"At this point, a recession is no longer just a tail risk given the Fed's predicament with inflation," Wilson wrote in the analyst note. He predicted a 35% chance of a downturn over the next year, up sharply from his previous estimate of 20%.

The index has already plunged in recent weeks as concerns over hotter-than-expected inflation, rising interest rates and a darkening economic outlook continue to weigh on the market. The S&P 500 is down about 21% from the end of 2021, officially in bear market territory, but Wilson said that markets are not actually pricing in the real threat of a recession.

If the U.S. economy does indeed begin shrinking, the S&P 500 will likely drop sharply to about 3,000 – down about 20% from current levels, according to Wilson.

Even if the economy manages to escape a recession, Wilson sees more downsides for equities: The S&P benchmark is still likely to fall another 7% to 10% as markets digest what are likely to be lackluster corporate earnings.

"We recognize a lot of pain has already been inflicted during this bear market. Nevertheless, we can't yet get bullish," he said in the note. "We see a pretty poor risk reward over the next 3-6 months with recession risk rising in the face of very stubborn inflation readings."

The analyst note comes just one week after the Fed voted to raise interest rates by 75 basis points for the first time since 1994, underscoring just how serious policymakers are about tackling the inflation crisis after a string of alarming economic reports. The move puts the key benchmark federal funds rate between 1.50% and 1.75%, the highest since the pandemic began two years ago.

There are growing fears that the Fed will trigger a recession. Hiking interest rates tends to create higher rates on consumer and business loans, which slows the economy by forcing employers to cut back on spending. Bank of America, as well as Fannie Mae and Deutsche Bank, are among the Wall Street firms forecasting a downturn in the next two years.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged the U.S. central bank's war on inflation could force policymakers to raise interest rates so high they drag the U.S. economy into a recession.

"It’s certainly a possibility," Powell told lawmakers Wednesday while testifying on Capitol Hill. "We are not trying to provoke and do not think we will need to provoke a recession, but we do think it’s absolutely essential that we restore price stability, really for the benefit of the labor market, as much as anything else.""

MY COMMENT

Take your pick on where we go from here.....my guess is another 10% or more potential to the down side. If I had a big chunk of money to invest I would be doing it NOW. I would be more than willing to put money in right now and not try to find the absolute bottom. If we can hold potential losses from here to 10%....that would be great in my view. Any time I have money in a bear market and can get it in within 10% of the bottom I am very willing to take that risk.

The bottom line on how much further we have to drop.....no one has a clue. Some analyst giving percentages of 20% this or 35% that.....does not have any idea what they are talking about. they might be right they might be wrong. We will know it is over when we can look back and see when it all ended.

 

With upcoming FED rate increases....continued poor economic data......and......the media hammering any bad earnings as they come out over a period of weeks.....there is much left to drive the markets down. That is the potential that we are looking at for July.

The good news as I said above.....this is how we find the bottom.

COURAGE.

I continue to be fully invested for the long term as usual.

 

Come on down to Texas....DAX. You will look back and wish you had done it way earlier. Welcome to Texas DAX.....in the future.

 

I am DEFINITELY.....NOT going to talk about the Roe decision.

BUT......this will now TOTALLY take all eyes off the markets for the rest of today and perhaps for weeks to come. That is a good thing for the markets.....for a while. The markets need some time out of the spotlight and without the constant media harping.

 

HERE is where we are today in the investing world.

Stock market news live updates: Stocks rise as indexes head for weekly gains

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-lives-updates-june-24-2022-113334665.html

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

"US stocks rose Friday morning, with the S&P 500 on track to end a three-week losing streak as investors digested Federal Reserve officials' latest affirmations that they remained committed to bringing down inflation.

The S&P 500 rose by about 1%, setting the index up for a back-to-back day of gains and its first weekly advance since late May. The Dow rose by more than 250 points, or 0.9%, while the Nasdaq increased by nearly 1% ahead of the opening bell. The major averages held onto gains even after a closely watched print on consumer sentiment was revised down to a fresh record low, as Americans continued to grapple with elevated inflation.

The major US averages have traded choppily this week, but ultimately trended higher as investors considered the ongoing economic impact of the Fed's moves to bring down rising prices. Fed Chair Jerome Powell made his most explicit acknowledgement yet this week that a recession was "certainly a possibility" — albeit not the "intended outcome" — as the central bank hiked interest rates further this year.

"Really, investors want the chair to understand that inflation is a significant problem and that dealing with it earlier is actually better for the long-term," Diane Jaffee, group managing director and senior portfolio manager of TCW Group, told Yahoo Finance Live on Thursday. "So I think investors are taking heart that the Fed is going to do whatever it takes."

Still, Powell's nod to current recession risks tracked with increased warning signals from a series of Wall Street firms that have recently raised their own forecasts for the probability of a near-term recession. Powell's assertion that the Fed's commitment to bringing down inflation was "unconditional" also suggested the central bank would not stop hiking rates at the first signs of an economic slowdown.

Defensive stocks seen as more resilient during downturns advanced this week, with the healthcare and utilities sectors among the biggest outperformers in the S&P 500. Cyclical sectors lagged, with the energy and materials sectors each heading for weekly losses. West Texas intermediate crude oil futures hovered near $106 per barrel and headed for a third straight weekly loss, as well as its first monthly loss since November.

Treasury yields increased across the curve to steady after renewed recession concerns also sent yields tumbling earlier this week. The benchmark 10-year yield rose back above 3.10%, after topping 3.31% at the start of the week."

MY COMMENT

You can tell from this very skimpy article that there is absolutely NOTHING going on today. That is a very good thing. The markets can move based on fundamentals and the economy......which are TOTALLY BAKED IN at this point and known to everyone in the world.

 

SO......the real question is......are we in the process of finding a bottom? Or......is this a little rally in the middle of a bear market?

I am personally........not sure. But....that is the nice thing about being a long term investor.....you dont have to guess what or why anything is going on short term. You simply have to have the guts to sit and let the markets do the heavy lifting.

 

I think you are right Brownbrody.

 

I have been saying this for a while now......as we get back to a more normal business environment over the next 12 months following the shut down.....and.....move toward or into recession.......job hoppers had better be very careful.

‘It’s almost unbelievable’: People are having their job offers rescinded days before they start

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/23/why...getting-rescinded-days-before-they-start.html

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

"Joynese Speller was excited to start a new job as a project delivery specialist for a health care company on June 6.

As she wrapped up at her old nonprofit job on a Friday, she emailed her new company to confirm her start time on Monday. Hours later, she got another email: The company had some logistics to work out on their end, so Speller would actually start on Tuesday. That slid into Wednesday, and then Thursday.

On Friday, Speller got a phone call. Due to budget cuts, the job she hadn’t even started yet was being eliminated.

“I was told they were trying to find me a position in a different department, but it’s also the end of their fiscal year, so they’re taking a long time to get back to me,” Speller, 26, of Charlotte, North Carolina, tells CNBC Make It. “I left one job thinking I was going to another, so I wasn’t financially prepared for what was coming.”

Going back to her old workplace, which she says was “toxic” and had high turnover, wasn’t an option — but she needed to pay for a car repair and care for her 4-year-old son. She’s been doing Doordash deliveries to make ends meet for the past three weeks.

After taking a few days to process her rescinded job offer, Speller fired up LinkedIn to apply for jobs and saw more news of major companies doing layoffs and taking back offers. “I didn’t realize it was so prevalent until it happened to me,” she says.

The most recent Labor Department data shows that the U.S. labor market is still tight, andworkers have more bargaining power than ever. Job openings and quitting rates have shot up in the last year while unemployment ticked downward. As of April, there were roughly two job openings for every worker who wanted one.

But over the past few weeks, many employers started scrambling to tighten their budgets due to rising inflation, rumblings of a looming recession and swings in the crypto market. Tech giants like Uber and Meta said they’d scale back hiring, while others including Robinhood, Peloton and Carvana conducted layoffs.

Weeks after announcing its own hiring freeze, crypto exchange Coinbase laid off 18% of its workforce and began pulling job offers. Other companies including Twitter and Redfin have rescinded offers in recent weeks.

Most of these high-profile staffing cuts are from hyper-growth tech companies focused on nixing early-career jobs, says Sid Upadhyay, co-founder and CEO of the recruiting company WizeHire. There could also be trouble brewing for other employers tied closely to economic conditions, like in mortgage and financial sectors.

But the whiplash going from rapid hiring to rescinding offers, due to dramatic market swings, is “highly unusual,” Upadhyay says. “The broader economic environment has shifted so much: Tech companies were incentivized to grow at all costs, and in a matter of weeks, we’ve moved into a world where we’re focused on resiliency.”

Marquelle Turner-Gilchrist, 35, of Los Angeles thought he’d found a “match made in professional heaven” when he found an opening with a social commerce company in April. He hit it off with the team over interviews and dinner, and a few days later, an offer landed in his inbox.

Turner-Gilchrist took the weekend to think it over. On Monday, he emailed back with a few questions on the job details, and then “I didn’t hear from the co-founder for a few days, which was weird, because communication until then was great,” he says.

A few days later, Turner-Gilchrist got a call from the CEO, who rescinded the job offer — explaining that the company was largely funded by crypto investors whose digital assets were losing value by the day. “We’re revisiting what’s happening in crypto market which has taken an unfortunate turn, and as a result, we don’t believe it’s a good idea to bring on additional headcount at this time,” Turner-Gilchrist recalls the CEO telling him.

“I’ve heard of offers being rescinded,” Turner-Gilchrist says, noting that background checks or professional references sometimes don’t pass muster. “But it’s never happened to me [before].”

To an extent, he considers himself lucky: “I could have been laid off in three months, and that’d be worse,” he says. If anything, the experience taught him to be more cautious in interviews. He says he’s more inclined to ask about a company’s retention rates, thinks news of rescinded offers or recent layoffs should be noted on hiring boards, and believes senior leaders should be more publicly forthcoming about the financial health of their organization.

“I’m not looking at crypto-adjacent companies at all,” he adds.

Jennifer Bell, 27, was set to start a operations manager job with Walmart in Louisville, Kentucky, but within days of accepting the offer, got a call the role was being eliminated. “It’s almost unbelievable,” she says. “I had a day to be upset, and then the next day I started applying to jobs left and right.”

A Walmart spokesperson said the company isn’t currently eliminating open positions or rescinding job offers, and declined CNBC Make It’s request to further comment on personnel matters. Despite the experience, Bell says she’s still in touch with the hiring manager at Walmart — and would take another position with the company, if offered, calling it “recession-proof.”

“I’m hopeful, knowing it’s the type of company that has been stable for decades,” she says. Still, she adds, getting back into the job hunt is emotionally challenging: “It’s hard to work through and tell yourself every day, ‘Hey, it’s not you,’ when you know it’s not your worth or confidence or background.”

By contrast, Bell says she wouldn’t return to her prior employer even if asked. In May, Bell was one of 2,500 people laid off from Carvana. She says some people were escorted off the premises, while others at home were laid off over a Zoom call.

“If Carvana ever reached back out and wanted to bring me on, I don’t care what amount of money they’d offer me. I would say ‘no,’” Bell says. “That trust is betrayed.”

Bell may still have that latitude to turn down job offers: She says she’s taking lots of interviews these days, including for an HR manager job she says she’s excited about. Upadhyay confirms that it’s still a job-seeker’s market across most sectors, and economists say the demand for tech workers remains so high that anyone laid off in that industry will likely be snatched up quickly by recruiters.

Upadhyay urges candidates to remember: A rescinded job offer is a reflection of a business figuring out its balance sheet, not the job-seeker’s skills or abilities.

“Broadly speaking, we’re seeing rescinded offers in a minority of cases,” Upadhyay says. “There are still hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the market, and most organizations extending offers are resilient and profitable companies.”'

MY COMMENT

NO....it is not all about you. You better not believe everything you read about your POWER as a job hopper.....I mean hunter.

Companies will do what they need to do financially. This unusual, brief time period, of job hunters having some power is going to come to an end quickly. As the story notes.....even Walmart appears to be cutting back on some offers. We are DEFIANTLY seeing cuts in mortgage and other lending jobs.

You know.....even in work having a long term horizan is a good thing. As a former employer.....why would I want to waste the time and effort on a new employee that was just going to bail on me in a short time. I wanted long term employees that were productive and cared about their job.