WOW.....with the bump up today my loss for the year is now ONLY......24%. It is pretty bad when you are celebrating a LOSS of 24%. But.....what the heck. It is better than the 28% loss that I had not too many days ago. Who knows......another week like this and I might get down to a loss of only......20%. Unfortunately every time I get down to the 18-20% loss range......the markets simply move me right back up into the mid to high 20's. WTF.....I dont care.....I will take and celebrate anything I can get.
i'm down about 15% from january highs. sure goes down faster than it goes up. i'm long term. life is good.
It seems like the real estate market here in my local level is STILL very hot. A house down the street from me just set a new record in my little.....personal....neighborhood of under 100 homes. It is pending......after just five days....... for nearly $2.5MILLION. At that rate per sq ft.....my house would be valued at about $1.65MILLION. Not too bad for a house that I purchased three years ago for $800,000. AND.....at that time.......I considered that the house was actually worth about $725,000. I was willing to overpay to get the house while it was still "coming soon" because it was a floor plan that I wanted and on a particular lot that I wanted. Of course over my lifetime of buying 10 houses it all averages out. Some of them I have made money....some I have ended even.....and some I have sold and probably ended up a bit in the hole as a result of trying to move on up...during a down market. The single most important lesson that I see from all my moving around to 10 houses over my adult life: The long term counts for houses....also. Looking up the houses that I have owned ALL of them are now SIGNIFICANTLY above where I sold them. If I had the mentality to buy a house and simply be content and live in it for 15-20 years.....I would probably be way ahead. I did enjoy all the different types of properties that we have owned......starter home, low bank Puget Sound waterfront, CEO type neighborhood, lake front, farm, Victorian, etc, etc. (not in this order). BUT.....I can see that staying put in one house for the longer term DOES.......or at least in my case......WOULD.......have resulted in a much bigger gain on my money.
yeah, that account (rollover IRA) has still doubled in last 5 years. if it repeats that over next 5 years, might give up the day job.
Yep a great day today. I was SOLID GREEN. AND....a nice beat on the SP500 on a big UP day.....by 0.44%.
I think there is a bit of reshuffling in some job sectors. Especially when you think about how some companies adapted throughout the pandemic with remote work and the like. Some of those positions are probably being eliminated with the return to more traditional type work setting in the office or at the facility. Also, when you further factor in some businesses are prepping for a slow down or reduced bottom lines...they are looking to streamline their process to cost efficient operations. There have definitely been a lot of job hopping as well. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out in the long run.
I am rushing to get out the door for my show this evening. Here is how we did for this week. A really good one....considering the year to date. DOW year to date (-13.31%) DOW for the week +5.39% SP500 year to date (-17.93%) SP500 for the week +6.45% NASDAQ 100 year to date (-25.82%) NASDAQ 100 for the week +7.45% NASDAQ year to date (-25.81%) NASDAQ for the week +7.49% RUSSELL year to date (-21.36%) RUSSELL for the week +6.01% WOW......look at those gains for the PAST FIVE market days.....four days this week plus last Friday. AMAZING. TGIF....TGIF. What a nice way to go into the weekend. PLUS.......the SP500 is now significantly below the bear market level. I have to zoom out of here now....but....I will be excited to look at my account in detail later when I get back.
Looks like you are close to full time producing, directing, and acting......Emmett. You can see the light at the end of the "work" tunnel.
and maybe buy a catalina 22 and sail up and down the left coast. that is, if i can get past the motion sickness.
Don't forget the water. It is a hot one out there. Yes, impressive little bump in a short period. With the year we have been having it is nice to see some fight back. I like to see it. With all of the day to day "noise" and predictions....it is nice to just sometimes defy the odds.
One of the fastest ways to destroy a forum is this topic. No point on discussing it for even a second. Pure Nitrogen triiodide.
Been seeing a few companies tangle with this lately. I think Amazon did a while back...now Apple. Most are far away from actually having a contract and those things can be a long process. In any case there is some dust being stirred up. Employees at an Apple store in Maryland voted to form a union on Saturday—the first of its kind at the company’s US locations. The vote, by a meaty 65–33 margin, shows that the recent labor organizing momentum in the retail industry has gained a foothold in the tech world. What started as a unionization drive at Starbucks locations has spread to Amazon, Verizon, REI, Trader Joe’s, and now the most valuable public company in the US. Because it’s Apple, and we in the media obsess over the company, experts say this particular vote could spark even more unionization activity. That train has already left the station at Apple. Employees at at least two other Apple stores, one in NYC and the other in Atlanta, have said they plan to hold a union vote. But for the Apple employees in MD, there’s still a long way to go from vote → union contract. The National Labor Relations Board has to certify the result, and only then can the two parties begin negotiating a labor agreement. Apple could drag its feet so the process takes a long time. Big picture: The tighter embrace of unions has coincided with a historically tight labor market coming out of Covid, where workers have gained more leverage over their bosses. It’ll be fascinating to watch whether that power dynamic changes when the labor market cools off due to the Fed’s interest rate hikes.
Yes, saw that All Star #8 sale… and here’s another one: https://www.barrons.com/articles/ba...l-cover-art-sells-for-2-4-million-01655493075 Iconic modern Batman cover. Very abstract but a popular piece. I have a bit of a surprise of my own which I will share here soon. Wifey and I are currently in NY to overlook another project which ended yesterday successfully. While we’re here we love going out to some of the jazz clubs/dinning places we always used to frequent. And no surprise there, the prices are now astronomically high, yet The Blue Note last night was at full capacity. See you guys back on Monday
Safe travels Zukodany. Have a good trip. Experienced the same on my little trip, a lot of venues and dining were full as well. Interesting on the comic collectors. Wow.
Ok Zukodany......we will hold you to that big announcement......some time soon. Inquiring minds want to know.
i saw my first robot food server the other day in a local restaurant. It came out of the kitchen and delivered a plate of food to a table near ours. It seemed to work well and the staff that we talked to were happy with how it was working. This is one of the BIG REASONS that I believe we are going to end up in a prolonged deflationary time period going forward. As technology continues to advance.....especially robotics and artificial intelligence.....we are going to see a HUGE number of jobs either eliminated or disrupted. This will be especially prominent on the corporate jobs level.
YES......my favorite government agency. FIRST.....here is a little article from a press release from the......IRS about a week ago. IRS says it’s making headway in clearing tax return backlog https://thehill.com/policy/finance/...aking-headway-in-clearing-tax-return-backlog/ The IRS claimed that they would have the backlog of last years returns cleaned up by the end of this month.....June. At the same time I see this information today......from the National Taypayor Advocate......about the current situation with the returns from this year. IRS tax return backlog swells to 21M as Americans await refunds As IRS wades through backlog of returns, millions of taxpayers awaiting refunds https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/irs-tax-return-backlog-swells-21-million-americans-await-refunds "The IRS still needs to process more than 21 million paper tax returns, delaying refunds for many Americans as the agency struggles to work through the backlog, a government watchdog said this week. National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins said in a recent report that the agency still needs to process about 21.3 million paper returns as of May 31 – a 7% increase from this same time last year, when there were 20 million unprocessed paper returns. "Unfortunately, at this point the backlog is still crushing the IRS, its employees and, most importantly, taxpayers," Collins wrote in the report. "These processing delays are creating unprecedented financial difficulties for millions of taxpayers and outright hardships for many." Although more than 90% of taxpayers submitted their returns electronically last year at the request of the IRS, some 17 million sent paper filings, exacerbating the pile-up of returns. It is disproportionately older Americans who file their returns via mail. As a result, some taxpayers who submitted paper-filed returns have had to wait an unusually long time to receive their refunds, with wait times routinely exceeding six months. Some Americans have waited 10 months or more, according to the report. In a statement, the IRS disputed the tax return figures presented by the national taxpayer advocate, suggesting the actual backlog is closer to 19 million – down slightly from last year's levels. "The IRS is committed to having healthy inventories by the end of this year and continues to make strong progress handling unprocessed tax returns," Jodie Reynolds, a spokesperson with the IRS, said in a statement. "The inventory numbers presented in the National Taxpayer Advocate report are neither the most accurate nor most recent figures." The IRS announced earlier this week that it is on the verge of processing all error-free tax returns that it received in 2021. However, the agency has about twice as many 2022 tax returns as normal that need to be processed, a Treasury Department official told reporters during a call on Tuesday, the result of directing employees' attention to the more-pressing backlog of 2021 returns. Those error-free, paper returns will likely be processed by the end of this year, the person said. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Charles Rettig testifies before the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee on March 17, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images / Getty Images) The heap of unprocessed returns stemmed from pandemic-related disruptions, including a worker shortage, the Herculean task of administering millions of stimulus checks and adapting to other tax changes in the different COVID-19 relief packages, like boosted child tax credit payments. IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig has previously noted that the agency is grossly understaffed. The IRS planned a massive hiring spree during the 2022 tax season in order to wade through unprocessed returns from previous years, but hired just 1,500 new employees. It plans to onboard about 10,000 workers in the next year. On top of that, workers who process original returns have recorded about a half million hours of overtime this year, while some 2,000 employees shifted from other parts of the agency to focus on processing returns. The IRS has laid out a goal to reach "healthy" levels of inventory by the end of 2022." MY COMMENT The ultimate.....in government incompetence. NO......it is not possible to process paper returns when you are working from home. I dont know......but I hope....that this agency is now fully back to working in-office. Unfortunately it looks like this backlog of about 20-25 MILLION returns is going to become a normal annual event for the IRS.
I hope this little article is correct.....at least as to the coming week. Quarter-end buying may lift stocks higher before the next market storm https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/24/qua...ocks-higher-before-the-next-market-storm.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points Stocks were on track to score solid weekly gains Friday and could continue to bounce in the week ahead, as portfolio managers adjust their holdings for quarter end. Strategists say, however, that any bounce could be the prelude to a sell-off in mid-July, once earnings season begins. There are a few economic reports in the coming week including May’s personal consumption expenditures inflation data on Thursday. The stock market is about to close out its worst first half in decades in the week ahead, setting the stage for a summer of uncertainty and volatility. But in the very near term, strategists see a window of positive momentum for an oversold market and say the end of the quarter could be a time for some quick gains. That period, leading up to the final trading day of the month, is when many portfolio managers shift their investments, or rebalance, to make up for the changes in the values of their stock and bond holdings. JPMorgan’s Marko Kolanovic, for one, sees a case in which stocks could surge 7% in the week ahead, based on rebalancing alone. With the S&P 500 down more than 13.7% for the second quarter and 17.9% for the year so far, investment managers will have to boost stock holdings to regain asset allocation levels. “Next week’s rebalance is important since equity markets were down significantly over the past month, quarter and six-month time period,” wrote Kolanovic, the firm’s chief global markets strategist. He emphasized that rebalancing activity is not usually the only driver of markets. Recent rebalances have been positive for stocks, and that could mean this one will be as well, he noted. For instance, near the end of the first quarter, the market was down about 10%, and there was a significant 7% rally in the final week heading into quarter end. The same type of move also happened in the smaller May rebalancing, when stocks rallied about 7% going into the month end after a decline of about 10%. “It is happening in a period of low liquidity. On top of that, the market is in an oversold condition, cash balances are at record levels, and recent market shorting activity reached levels not seen since 2008,” Kolanovic added. But after a rally, some strategists are already looking ahead to a choppy third quarter. “Historically, the third quarter, along with the second quarter, are the worst quarters of the 16 quarter presidential cycle,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA. “Once the uncertainty associated with mid-term elections has run its course, or once the third quarter has run its course, the fourth quarter as well as the next two quarters are the best of the 16-quarter presidential cycle.” According to CFRA, the S&P 500 fell an average 0.5% in the third quarter in the second year of a presidential term, after an average 1.9% decline in the second quarter. In the data, going back to World War II, there was an average bounce back of 6.4% in the fourth quarter. The mid-term elections are in November, and many political strategists expect a shift in power toward the Republicans in Congress. Stovall said for now, the market could trade higher into the start of the earnings season. “If history repeats itself, from a timing perspective, we get a tradeable bounce now,” he said. But he added that could be followed by a washout later in the quarter, and that could ultimately bring capitulation. If the second quarter ends near its current level, it would be the worst first half for stocks since 1970. But according to Stovall, a bad first half doesn’t necessarily mean a bad year. “Of the [previous] five worst since 1929, all five were higher in the second half and gained an average of 23.7%...Of the next five, four of the five are down and the average is a decline of 7.8%,” said Stovall. Market on holiday The week ahead of the long Fourth of July weekend looks to be fairly quiet, though there are some key economic reports. Corporations may also disclose some guidance on earnings, particularly if they expect to miss expectations in the coming reporting season. On the economic front, most important could be Thursday’s personal consumption expenditures data which includes the PCE deflator inflation reading, which is closely watched by the Federal Reserve. The durable good report is due out Monday. Consumer confidence and S&P/Case-Shiller home price data will be released Tuesday, and ISM Manufacturing Friday. “My guess is the market is trying to rally right now with bond yields coming down, and equities putting in a few decent sessions,” said Jimmy Chang, chief investment officer at Rockefeller Global Family Office. “It could probably rally into the July 4th holiday, and the real show starts with the earnings season.” Major banks begin reporting earnings July 14 and 15. “By the second week of July, we will see what the tone will be with the earnings, and I would expect a much choppier market given my expectations that some of these companies will take down guidance,” said Chang. He said what’s unclear is how much of the anticipated negative news is already priced in, given the market’s already sharp decline. “Guidance is crucial,” said Quincy Krosby, LPL Financial chief equity strategist. “What the market is trying to decide is whether or not we are headed into a recession and what kind of recession...The corporations in their guidance at this crucial stage are going to tell us whether or not the market is poised for a deeper sell-off.” Stocks were higher Friday, and bond yields were also recovering from a steep drop off after the prior week’s sharp run up. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield topped 3.48% on June 14, slid to 3% by Thursday. It was back at 3.13% on Friday. Bond yields move opposite prices. The S&P 500 closed the week at 3,911, with a 6.4% gain. A big source of angst for investors is whether inflation will continue to flare and drive aggressive Fed rate hikes, leading to a possible recession. The bond market this past week was reflecting some of that fear, after the Fed raised rates by 0.75 percentage point in the prior week and looks set to boost the federal funds rate by a similar magnitude in July. “It’s a narrative in overdrive. You go from inflation fears, and a 75 basis point hike... to only realize the more the Fed hikes, eventually they’re going to tip us into recession. All this in a matter of a week,” said George Goncalves, head of U.S. macro strategy at MUFG." "Week ahead calendar Monday Earnings: Nike, Trip.com 8:30 a.m. Durable goods 10:00 a.m. Pending home sales 6:30 p.m. New York Fed President John Williams Tuesday Earnings: AeroVironment 8:00 a.m. Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin 8:30 a.m. Advance economic indicators 9:00 a.m. S&P/Case-Shiller home prices 9:00 a.m. FHFA home prices 10:00 a.m. Consumer confidence 12:30 p.m. San Francisco President Mary Daly Wednesday Earnings: Bed Bath & Beyond, General Mills, McCormick, Paychex, MillerKnoll 6:30 a.m. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester 8:30 a.m. Q1 Real GDP (third reading) 9:00 a.m. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell at European Central Bank forum 1:05 p.m. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard Thursday Earnings: Micron, Walgreen Boots Alliance, Constellation Brands, Accolade 8:30 a.m. Initial claims 8:30 a.m. Personal income/spending 9:45 a.m. Chicago PMI Friday Vehicle sales 9:45 a.m. S&P Global Manufacturing PMI 10:00 a.m. ISM manufacturing 10:00 a.m. Construction spending 2:00 p.m. Bond market closes early for July 4 holiday" MY COMMENT Lets hope this is right for the coming week. It would be nice to build up some gains to cushion against the next dip. We are far from out of the woods right now......but we might be seeing a change from the constant down market to a more variable erratic market with up weeks and down weeks intermingled.......as we either bounce along the bottom......or......bounce along trying to find the bottom.. Earnings will obviously be the key factor for the next month and a half starting in mid July when the big banks kick things off. I agree that the forward guidance is going to be the story for earnings this time around......as it has been for the past few years. The tone of the media coverage will also be a key factor. As the list at the end of the article shows we are going to get some early earnings data this week.......Nike, General Mills, and Constellation Brands. I will be eagerly waiting to see how my Nike holding does this time around. I am also interested in the Pending Home Sales data that will come out on Monday. I want to see how housing prices and sales are holding up since a collapse of the housing markets and prices would be a big disaster for the economy and investors......on top of everything else that is going on.
