The Long Term Investor

NICE WEEK. Earnings are basically over with except for a small number of companies. We have gotten past that event with FLYING COLORS. I was EVEN with the SP500 today and very green in my account. It was a very nice week. For the week the Dow was UP.....2.56%.

We are starting to see more and more POSITIVE days and we are seeing WAY LESS of those BIG market moves.

At the close today:

DOW year to date (-14.74%)
SP500 year to date (-9.32%)

The SP500 has now dropped below correction level. We DID NOT retest the March 23 lows and in my opinion WILL NOT. the markets have SURVIVED the virus "stuff" and from here on it is simply a SLOG back to the highs. FULLY invested for the LONG TERM as usual.

 

A REASONABLE open today. Down so far.....with over 200 points down on the DOW at the open. At this moment we are down 180. I dont sense a lot support for a drop in stocks today. Seems like we have been slowly trending toward the positive as the day has progressed so far. I suspect we are in for a VAGUE, WAFFLING day today. I am GUESSING that we will flail around all day and close in a ho-hum fashion. ALTERNATIVE view....as the day progresses we will slowly go positive and will close positive.

Doing some ECLECTIC reading on the financial front today. I have not seen a lot of interest by the general press and public lately in BITCOIN. I AM a BITCOIN investor........I own slightly less than.......ONE BITCOIN. MY ONE Bitcoin..........well little less than one....I have a gain at the current price of about $8900 of about 325%. I purchased in the early stages of the BIG run-up that we had a year or two ago. I was seeing a lot of "STUFF" in the media about Bitcoin going to stratospheric levels......$100,000, $250,000, or higher. So I decided....I will take a FLYER and buy ONE BITCOIN. I established an account at COINBASE and did my one coin purchase. I later cashed in about 20% of my one coin and recouped my entire purchase price plus a nice profit. I WILL hold my remaining.....nearly one coin.....for the very long term as a LOTTERY type gamble on those EXTREME VALUATIONS happening at some unknown time far in the future.

Coronavirus sows doubt over bitcoin's rally after third 'halving'

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...coins-rally-after-third-halving-idUSKBN22K2KW

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

NEW YORK (Reuters) - As bitcoin investors brace for a long-awaited technical adjustment that will halve new supply of the cryptocurrency, the coronavirus pandemic has cast uncertainty over the expected rally that has historically accompanied such events.

This “halving,” the third in bitcoin’s 11-year history, has been widely flagged. The previous events fueled huge surges in bitcoin’s market value, but there is a wildcard this time in the form of the coronavirus pandemic, some analysts said.

“From an efficient market perspective, any fundamental reaction to the halving should be heavily priced in at this point,” said Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital. “After all, it’s hard to imagine a more predictable event than an unalterable supply reduction that has been scheduled for more than a decade in a liquid, heavily-traded ... asset.”

Bitcoin relies on “mining” computers that validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. In return, the first miner to solve the puzzle and clear the transaction is rewarded new bitcoins.

The technology was designed in such a way that it cuts the reward for miners by half after every 210,000 blocks mined or roughly every four years, a move meant to keep a lid on inflation. That reduction in the rate at which new bitcoin enters the system should theoretically push the price up.

The halving could happen as soon as Monday or Tuesday, with most Bitcoin platforms showing that only about 100 blocks needed to be mined before hitting the halving threshold.

The mining reward is currently 12.5 bitcoins per block mined. In this week’s halving, the reward will fall to 6.25 new bitcoins.

In the run-up to this week's halving, bitcoin had surged nearly 40% since the beginning of the year and climbed more than 85% from its lows. It was last at $8,630 BTC=BTSP, down 14% from last week's peak.

By comparison, the dollar index =USD is up 3.3% so far this year.

HALF, AND HALF AGAIN
The first halving occurred in November 2012 when the mining reward was reduced from 50 bitcoins to 25, and the second occurred in July 2016 when it was further cut to 12.5 bitcoin. This deflationary event has historically signaled the start of bitcoin’s most dramatic bull runs over a period of several years, although not before a brief sell-off.

The previous two bitcoin halvings propelled rallies of about 10,000% from late 2012 to 2014, and roughly 2,500% from mid-2016 to the currency’s all-time high just shy of $20,000 in December 2017, according to traders.



“Historic events don’t necessarily predict future events, but there’s a psychological level to it as well,” Changpeng Zhao, Founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

“As it will cost the miners almost double to produce bitcoin, they are not willing to sell when the price goes below the psychological level.”

There are only 21 million bitcoins in existence and more than 18 million are already in circulation.

Ryan Watkins, a research analyst at crypto data platform Messari, believes the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak could be one major obstacle to bitcoin’s bull run after the “halving”.

Jake Yocom-Piatt, co-founder and project lead at cryptocurrency Decred, however, believes halving will be a positive event for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, especially in a pandemic.

“A pandemic is very much a deflationary type event. Economic activity is going to take a real nosedive. The ‘halving’ of bitcoin is a necessarily deflationary action,” said Yocom-Piatt, adding that such a scenario would be bullish for cryptocurrencies.

Some analysts said there are signs a major rally may be under way, with retail or individual investors involved.

Bitcoin bulls say the price should go up as supply runs down and assuming demand is steady.

MY COMMENT

NO.....I am NOT going to invest in BITCOIN. My....less than one coin....is a simple FLYER with mad money and is NOT an investment. It is simply for fun and games. It has also given me a little bit of an understanding of this so called currency and how it works. NOT suggesting that anyone put money into this extremely speculative gamble. A WASTE OF MONEY compared to mainstream stock and fund investing.

 

Other items that are in my eclectic reading today are below. As I said, kind of a HO-HUM day today with stocks so my interest is elsewhere in terms of reading and posting. I will say.........a HO-HUM, boring day.....up or down is welcome after the past couple of months.

As deaths mount, Trump tries to convince Americans it’s safe to inch back to normal

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...-it-s-safe-to-inch-back-to-normal/ar-BB13QL8U

HERE is what I believe is important in this FEAR MONGERING article once you get past the INSANE statistical argument that cases are SOARING. Of course....these sorts of articles NEVER mention that the increasing statistics are based on the fact that we are doing lots of additional testing. CASES are NOT soaring....we are simply identifying the cases by additional testing that have ALWAYS existed. AND, all these additional cases will greatly decrease the death rate per million of population.

FROM THE ARTICLE:

"During a task force meeting Wednesday, a heated discussion broke out between Deborah Birx, the physician who oversees the administration’s coronavirus response, and Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Birx and others were frustrated with the CDC’s antiquated system for tracking virus data, which they worried was inflating some statistics — such as mortality rate and case count — by as much as 25 percent, according to four people present for the discussion or later briefed on it. Two senior administration officials said the discussion was not heated.

“There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust,” Birx said, according to two of the people.


The flare-up came two days after it was reported that an internal government model, based on data from the CDC and other agencies, projected the daily death count would rise to 3,000 by June 1.

Redfield defended his agency, but there was general agreement that the CDC is in need of a digital upgrade.

Birx said in a statement: “Mortality is slowly declining each day. To keep with this trend, it is essential that seniors and those with comorbidities shelter in place and that we continue to protect vulnerable communities.”"

AND........UNDER the category of..........me, me, me, it is all about me and my little life. Or the subheading.......there is no history before the lifespan of the internet generation........ie: prior to about year 2000.

No Lockdowns: The Terrifying Polio Pandemic of 1949-52

https://www.aier.org/article/no-lockdowns-the-terrifying-polio-pandemic-of-1949-52/

"World War II had ended four years earlier and the U.S. was trying to return to peace and prosperity. Price controls and rationing were ended. Trade was opening. People were returning to normal life. The economy started humming again. Optimism for the future was growing. Harry Truman became the symbol of a new normacy. From Depression and war, society was on the mend.

As if to serve as a reminder that there were still threats to life and liberty present, an old enemy made its appearance: polio. It’s a disease with ancient origins, with its most terrifying effect, the paralysis of the lower extremities. It maimed children, killed adults, and struck enormous fear into everyone.

Polio is also a paradigmatic case that targeted and localized policy mitigations have worked in the past, but society-wide lockdowns have never been used before. They weren’t even considered as an option.

Polio was not an unknown disease: its reputation for cruelty was well earned. In the 1916 outbreak, there were 27,000 cases and more than 6,000 deaths due to polio in the United States, 2,000 of which were in New York City. After the war, people had living memories of this horror. People were also used to adjusting their behavior. In 1918, people left cities for resorts, movie theaters were closed for lack of customers, groups cancelled meetings, and public gatherings dwindled. Children avoided swimming pools and public water fountains, fearing that it was transmitted through water. Whatever the therapeutic merit of this, these actions required no force; it happened because people do their best to adapt to risk and be cautious.

In 1949, the new polio epidemic appeared and swept through selective population centers, leaving its most tragic sign: children with wheelchairs, crutches, leg braces, and deformed limbs. For children with polio in the late 1940s, the disease caused paralysis in 1 in 1,000 cases of children aged 5 to 9. The rest had only mild symptoms and developed immunities. In the 1952 season, of the 57,628 cases reported, 3,145 died and a shocking 21,269 experienced paralysis. So while the infection, death, and paralysis rates seem “low” by comparison to the 1918 flu, the psychological impact of this disease became its most prescient feature.

The “iron lung” that became widely available in the 1930s stopped asphyxiation of polio victims, and it was a triumph of innovation; it allowed a dramatic reduction in the death rate. Finally, by 1954, a vaccine was developed (by private labs with very little government support subsidies) and the disease was largely eradicated in the U.S. twenty years later. It became a signature achievement of the medical industry and the promise of vaccines.

Here is the data on infection and death.

Throughout the country, the quarantining of the sick was deployed in a limited way as one medical response. There were some shutdowns. The CDC reports that “travel and commerce between affected cities were sometimes restricted [by local officials]. Public health officials imposed quarantines (used to separate and restrict the movement of well people who may have been exposed to a contagious disease to see if they become ill) on homes and towns where polio cases were diagnosed.”

President Harry Truman spoke frequently about the need for a national mobilization against polio. But what he meant by this was to rally people to be cautious, follow medical guidelines, isolate the infected, and get the medical community inspired to find means of treatment and cure.

Though there was no cure, and no vaccine, there was a long incubation period before symptoms would reveal themselves, and while there was a great deal of confusion about how it was transmitted, the thought of locking down an entire state, nation, or world was inconceivable. The concept of a universal “shelter in place” order was nowhere imaginable. Efforts to impose “social distancing” were selective and voluntary.

In an earlier 1937 outbreak in Chicago, for example, the superintendent of schools (not the mayor or governor) closed the public schools for three weeks and encouraged learning from home. In many localities, when there was an outbreak and depending on the level of fear, bowling alleys and movie theaters were closed, but not by force). Church services were cancelled sporadically, but not by force. The churches themselves were never shuttered.

In Minnesota in 1948, the state board of health cautioned against going ahead with the state fair. It was cancelled. In 1950, James Magrath, president of the Minnesota state board of health warned against large gatherings, and regretted how much people persisted in gatherings of children, but added: “Nobody can shut down intercourse of people in communities… We will just have to say, ‘Do everything you can within reason.’ You can’t close up everything…”

In May 1949, after an outbreak in San Angelo, Texas (my father remembers this), the city council voted (voted!) to close all indoor meeting places for one week, according to the wonderful book Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky, with a promised ending period.

But the local epidemic didn’t pass that quickly, and by June hospitals were filled with patients. Tourism stopped because people didn’t want to be there. Cleaning fanaticism was the rule of the day. Most indoor theaters and bowling alleys stayed closed simply because people were afraid (no evidence of any prosecutions). In the end, writes Oshinsky, “San Angelo saw 420 cases, one for every 124 inhabitants, of whom 84 were permanently paralyzed and 28 died.”

And by August, polio was gone again. Life in San Angelo gradually returned to normal.

This experience repeated itself in most places in the country where there were outbreaks. City councils would encourage the following of the directives of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (later the March of Dimes), which circulated a list of “polio precautions” for parents to follow. Some towns and cities across the United States tried to prevent the spread of polio by closing swimming pools, libraries, and movie theaters (not restaurants or barber shops) on a temporary basis but mostly in a way consistent with the public mood stemming from fear and confusion.

The only protests against authorities in a half-century of confusion came in New York when it seemed in the 1910s that authorities were targeting immigrant children with a burdensome demand that they be polio-free before integrating themselves into the community. “If you report any more of our babies to the Board of Health,” wrote the Italian Black Hand in blood, “we will kill you.”

What’s remarkable in light of the near-global coercive lockdown for COVID-19 is how the terrible and terrifying disease of polio was managed almost entirely by a private and voluntary system of health professionals, innovators, parental responsibility, localized caution, and individual volition and caution where needed. It was an imperfect system because the virus was so vicious, cruel, and random. But precisely because there were no national or state lockdowns – and only very limited local closures done mostly in a way consistent with citizen fear – the system remained adaptive to changing conditions.

Meanwhile, “Guys and Dolls” and “The King and I” appeared on Broadway, “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “African Queen” rocked the movie theaters, the steel mills hummed as never before, the oil industry boomed, domestic and international travel continued to roar and become democratized, the civil rights movement was born, and the “golden age of American capitalism” took root, all in the thick of a terrible disease.

This was a time when, even for this ghastly disease that maimed innocent young children, medical problems were widely seen to have medical solutions and not political ones.

Yes, there were clear policy responses to these past pandemics, but they targeted the most vulnerable populations to keep them safe, while leaving everyone else alone. Polio was especially bad for school children, but that meant they closed the schools temporarily, in cooperation with parents and the community.

The current pandemic is different because, instead of targeting the vulnerable populations, we’ve gone for society-wide one size fits all at nearly the national and global level, and certainly the state level. That’s never happened – not with polio, not with the Spanish flu, the 1957 flu, the 1968 flu, or anything else.


As the health official quote above said of the polio epidemic: “Nobody can shut down intercourse of people in communities.” Our rights survived. So did human liberty, free enterprise, the Bill of Rights, jobs, and the American way of life. And then polio was eventually eradicated.


The slogan for polio eradication – “Do everything you can within reason” – seems like a good rule of thumb for the management of future pandemics.

* * * * *

In 2012, National Public Radio ran an excellent 7-minute summary of the 1950s experience from terror to near-eradication. It’s worth a listen to get a sense of the social and political context of this disease."

AND.....more.......just for fun, eclectic reading.......on a BORING market day:

Germany’s Das Bild Says ‘Lockdown Was a Huge Mistake’

https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/05/11/germanys-das-bild-says-lockdown-was-a-huge-mistake/

"Europe’s best-selling newspaper announced this weekend the lockdown in response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic was a “huge mistake,” citing a number of public intellectuals critical of the country’s official response.

Reproducing comments from seven well-known intellectuals, Das Bild underscores the importance of “warning, doubting, and arguing” in the case of a public crisis that involves the suppression of the fundamental rights of citizens.

In presenting the opinions of highly esteemed “lateral thinkers,” the newspaper notes Germany’s political leaders, on the contrary, “pushed the recommendations of other luminaries to justify the lockdown of the economy and public life, as well as the severe interference with everyone’s freedoms,” while ignoring contrary voices.

Prof. Klaus Püschel, for instance, a respected pathologist and head of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Hamburg University Hospital, argues that “in the end, COVID-19 is a viral disease like the flu, which in most cases is harmless and is only fatal in exceptional cases.

“It is important to look at the aftermath of the epidemic to see if COVID-19 really was the cause of death,” Püschel observes. “Of the approximately 180 deceased with coronavirus that we have now examined, all suffered from severe pre-existing conditions and were not children or adolescents. The COVID-19 infection was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

University of Hanover Professor Stefan Homburg, a former adviser to the federal government, agrees official figures in Germany in no way justified the lockdown.

“In Italy, the coronavirus epidemic was worse than a flu epidemic, in Germany it was less severe,” Homburg said. “With the lockdown, the federal and state governments have made a huge mistake.”

“The damage is increasing every day, all bans must be lifted immediately,” he continued. “Empty soccer stadiums and half-empty restaurants are of no use to anyone.”

For his part, Professor Hans-Jürgen Papier, former president of the Federal Constitutional Court, said the debate was too short and state interventions went too far.

“The balance was between the protection of life and health on the one hand and the protection of constitutional goods on the other,” he said. In principle, “there should have been a broader and more detailed parliamentary and public debate. To this end, the legal goods to be weighed up were too important and the consequences and interventions too great.”

Julian Nida-Rümelin, Germany’s former Minister of Culture, said statistics without contextualization create fear and panic but do not promote a rational debate.

“With COVID-19, new, huge numbers appear every day, which make us frightened and perplexed,” he said. “These figures must be understood by asking: how many people die every day in Germany in total? How many have heart attacks? How many from cancer? How many from COVID-19? Little is being done to this effect.”

For “legendary” journalist Patricia Riekel, warnings and an appeal to personal responsibility would have been preferable to the lockdown.

“I would not have thought the measures necessary,” Ms. Riekel states. “I am in favor of the Swedish way, with recommendations that distance be kept and that people who are at risk stay at home.”

“What we have seen in the last six weeks has been excessive,” Riekel adds: “We have become a people of compliers and snitches.”

 

We have been out to eat in four restaurants since things started to reopen a few weeks ago locally. Yesterday they required a reservation for Mothers Day. It is TOTALLY OBVIOUS that people are able to FUNCTION without the heavy hand of government health bureaucrats around their throat limiting liberty and choking the economy to death.

EVERYONE I have seen is doing a good job of sanitation, limiting close contact, providing disinfectants, and operating in a safe and REASONABLE and VOLUNTARY fashion. REOPENING.....at least here locally......is happening slowly and steadily with NO BIG RUSH of people into businesses in a way that will create unnecessary risk or danger to customers.

AFTER all the above posting the DOW is about where it opened......down about 211 points. I expect that.....this being a normal feeling day so far......the EAST COAST lunch hour will set the tone for the markets heading to the close.

 

As an AAPL SHAREHOLDER this is REALLY good news......if it happens. It is just plain management malpractice to depend on China in any way. They will ALWAYS STEAL your technology.....by they I mean the Chinese government. YOU are setting up your own competitor that WILL cut your throat and costing your shareholders BILLIONS of dollars in lost value. This deal with India....if it happens.......will be a win win. Substitute one Billion plus population country for another billion plus population. BUT....the level of technical knowledge in India is superior and there is an extremely large population of people that are in need to a job.

Apple reportedly considers moving almost a fifth of its production capacity to India

https://www.mactech.com/2020/05/11/...-a-fifth-of-its-production-capacity-to-india/

"The Indian Economic Times reports that senior execs from Apple and top ranking government officials in India have been meeting for several months to discuss the possibility of the tech giant shifting nearly a fifth of its production capacity from China to India and scaling up its local manufacturing revenues, through its contract manufacturers.

The article says this could amount to about US$40 billion over the next five years, say officials familiar with the matter. If this happens, iPhone maker could become India’s largest exporter, say experts."

AND

Apple Reportedly Seeking to Move Significantly More Production From China to India

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/11/apple-moving-more-production-china-to-india/

"In a bid to reduce its reliance on China as a base for operations, Apple could be planning to produce up to $40 billion worth of smartphones in India through contract manufacturers Wistron and Foxconn, reports The Indian Economic Times.

Several meetings between Apple's senior executives and top ranking government officials over the last few months have paved the way for the iPhone maker examining the possibility of shifting nearly a fifth of its production capacity from China to India and scaling up its local manufacturing revenues, through its contract manufacturers, to around $40 billion over the next five years, say officials familiar with the matter.

A senior government official told ET the decision is being linked to India's production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, which was introduced to boost local manufacturing of electrical products, particularly smartphones.

A company must manufacture at least $10 billion worth of mobile phones in a phased manner between 2020 and 2025 to benefit from the PLI scheme and are required to meet target on a yearly basis.

Currently, Apple sells $1.5 billion of phones in India, but less than $0.5 billion of those are locally manufactured. In contrast, in 2018-2019 Apple produced $220 billion worth of products in China.

According to ET, government officials are willing to look into concerns that Apple hs with the PLI scheme, including how it values plant and machinery already in use in China, and the extent of the business information required under the scheme."

MY COMMENT

As a shareholder I WELCOME this and any other change that could be made to get out of China. EVERY American company should be doing the same. There is plenty of cheap labor available all around the world with NONE of the detriment and loss of value due to stolen technology that exists in China. India, Viet Nam, Indonesia, all over Africa, etc, etc. There is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for large American companies giving away their trade secrets, manufacturing techniques, materials techniques, and technology to China.

 

As I said at the open today......it was a REASONABLE day in the markets. Kind of a LAZY day, boring.......but boring is a good thing. My account had a double BEAT today. Versus the SP500 positive by .66% as well as nine of eleven positions being positive for the day. Today was a nice normal feeling market day. It is nice to get away from the CRAZY market days we have seen off and on over the past two months. With earnings behind us and the reopening.......which will gain momentum every week from here on....we are all set up to be able to RELAX for a while till second quarter earnings.

The ONLY BUMMER will be the constant HECTORING and WHINING of the MEDIA........but......that is easy to just IGNORE and is irrelevant to me as a LONG TERM INVESTOR. BEWARE the damage that an obsession with the daily media FLUFF and FEAR MONGERING can have on investing results.

 

Today was one of those old fashioned news driven negative days.....oh well. ALL positions down today. Only consolation is beating the SP500 by ONLY LOSING (-1.93%)

TOMORROW is a new day.....

 

Thank you and WELCOME Mark22. Feel free to post your investing experiences, ideas, etc, etc. Everyone else......also. As to MY experience today..........well about like everyone.......DOWN. All positions down today except for AMZN. YES........a red day. As is often the case on these days.......the ONLY consolation was beating the SP500 by .45%. My account (-1.3%)......SP500 (-1.75%)

OBVIOUSLY, if I can continue to beat the SP500 more often than not, I will see the results come through as the markets gradually move upward over the LONG TERM. Been busy lately the past few days, so not spending a lot of time on the markets. BUT....that is the nice thing about being LONG TERM......I really dont have to do ANYTHING daily, weekly, or monthly. Just let the markets and my portfolio do their thing. One thing is certain.....we are in a totally.....daily news........driven market now that earnings are off the table........at least in regards to the short term. OBVIOUSLY there is STILL a lot of fear and restrained panic out there among investors.

 

AURI

I have a favor to ask. Would you keep the IDEX "stuff" out of this thread? No matter how much you push this "penny stock" is not gong to make any difference. In my opinion there is NO WAY any long term, or for that matter, ANY INVESTOR should be considering this stock as an actual "investment".

NO NEED for you to PUSH this company on this thread. You have made over 700 posts on this board ALL dealing with this JUNK COMPANY. It is followed by ZERO analysts. The current price is......41Cents......thats right......41CENTS per share. BUYER BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!

 

BACK to real investing talk......

Looks like a repeat of the past few days.......at least at the open. We may be in a little mini-correction for this week and who knows how much longer. That is to be expected and is NORMAL. In this panic and fear driven......very skittish.......market, we are going to have many weekly and monthly time periods that stocks are down. As a LONG TERM investor, there is NOTHING that I will do to respond to this short term "stuff". Investors........do NOT lose hope, reason, and logic.

It is ABSOLUTELY reasonable as we and the economy STRUGGLE with the IDIOCY of this virus shut down that we are going to see this type of market action for a good length of time. ADD IN the political component and........it is what it is. HOPEFULLY the AMERICAN people will continue to REVOLT against this IDIOCY through LEGAL civil disobedience and LEGAL demonstrations in order to save the economy.

You cant expect some sort of MAGIC economic recovery. There has NEVER been this sort of closing down of the entire economy in the entire history of the United States. This is ALL one big UNPRECEDENTED experiment being run by politicians and bureaucrats that have NO CLUE what they are doing.

I continue to be FULLY INVESTED for the long term as usual.

 

HERE is what I am talking about above.........WARNING, some will take this as political comment..........it is NOT. It is simply a little trip back in the old time machine a few months to show that the SO CALLED EXPERTS that the country is BREATHLESSLY listening to are simply IDIOTS. YES....you know who I am talking about...Good old Dr F. The guy whose JOB it is to anticipate and deal with this sort of issue. He TOTALLY missed the boat. Anyone with high school level science knew that what he was saying for months was DELUSIONAL....."dont wear masks"....."there is no risk"......etc, etc, etc. There are the VERY PEOPLE that are trying to control the economy NOW.

(BOLD is NOT JUST my opinion.....BUT....is FACT)

Coronavirus timeline shows politicians', media's changing rhetoric on risk of pandemic

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fr...nitial-coronavirus-responses-havent-aged-well

"As reporters looked on during a contentious White House briefing this week, President Trump stepped aside and played a brief video showing several media figures downplaying the coronavirus in January and February, including some personalities who now argue the president didn't act quickly enough.

Looking back, members of both parties have mud on their face for past predictions and assessments.

A timeline compiled by Fox News of coronavirus statements from journalists, world bodies, politicians and their senior pandemic advisers from January to March offers insights into how fluid and unclear the situation was. For example, Biden's top coronavirus adviser, Ron Klain, has variously praised and criticized China, and even encouraged travel to the country amid the outbreak.

The timeline also underscores the extent to which President Trump's rhetoric has changed, as he juggled a new trade deal with China and sought to project confidence even as the virus spread.

Soon after the coronavirus infected its first human in late 2019, China's government systematically hid key facts about the contagion and detained a doctor who tried to warn the public. The chronology begins here.

January
Jan. 4: The head of the University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Infection warns that “the city should implement the strictest possible monitoring system for a mystery new viral pneumonia that has infected dozens of people on the mainland, as it is highly possible that the illness is spreading from human to human."

Jan. 6: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issues a "level 1 travel watch — the lowest of its three levels — for China’s outbreak," according to the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. The CDC said the "cause and the transmission mode aren't yet known, and it advised travelers to Wuhan to avoid living or dead animals, animal markets, and contact with sick people." The CDC also offered to send a team to China, but China declined.

Jan. 8: The World Health Organization (WHO) declares, “Preliminary identification of a novel virus in a short period of time is a notable achievement and demonstrates China’s increased capacity to manage new outbreaks."

Jan. 11: China reports its first coronavirus death.

Jan. 14: The WHO announces, “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in Wuhan, China.” Meanwhile, according to The Associated Press, internal Chinese documents show that government officials acknowledged likely human-to-human transmission of coronavirus, and said they were following orders from the president of China to keep it under wraps.

Jan. 15: Trump and China sign "phase one" of a trade deal to rein in a historic and damaging trade war.

Jan. 17: The CDC and the Department of Homeland Security announce that travelers into the U.S. from Wuhan will undergo new screening at several major airports.

Jan. 19: The WHO hedges somewhat: “Not enough is known to draw definitive conclusions about how it is transmitted, the clinical features of the disease, the extent to which it has spread, or its source, which remains unknown."

Jan. 22: Trump responds to whether he's concerned about a possible pandemic, “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine." Trump was referring to a resident from Snohomish County, Wash., who came back from China on Jan. 15 and was diagnosed with the coronavirus.

Jan. 23: Vox publishes an article stating that travel bans to fight viruses "don't work." The article initially referred to the "Wuhan coronavirus," before being edited weeks later. The article's URL remains unchanged.

China seals off Wuhan, canceling plane, train and bus travel.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says in a Journal of the American Medical Association podcast that the U.S. wouldn't implement draconian shutdowns of cities like what was occurring in China: “There's no chance in the world that we could do that to Chicago or to New York or to San Francisco, but they're doing it. So, let's see what happens.”

Jan. 24: Trump tweets in praise of China’s “transparency." (On April 1, the Biden campaign mocked the president for the tweet, and claimed Biden "publicly" warned Trump not to trust China.)

Politico reports that the Trump administration held a briefing on the coronavirus for senators, but it was "sparsely attended" in part because it "was held on the same day as a deadline for senators to submit their impeachment questions."

“The initial thought from the Dems, I think, is that we were trying to distract from impeachment,” a GOP Senate aide told Politico. The outlet added that a White House official "recalled feeling surprised at the 'incredibly' poor attendance, noting that it came 'even though the amount of concern expressed then was rather intense.'"

Jan. 26: "The American people should not be worried or frightened by this. It's a very, very low risk to the United States," Fauci says on The CATS Roundtable. "It isn't something that the American public needs to worry about or be frightened about."

Jan. 27: The Biden campaign, including its top coronavirus adviser Ron Klain, praise China for being “transparent” and “candid." Speaking to Axios, Klain asserts: "I think what you'd have to say about China is, it's been more transparent and more candid than it has been during past outbreaks, though still there's problems with transparency and candor." Even as he says there were "many" areas in which China hasn't been transparent, Klain asserts that China had helpfully released a "sequence of the virus." Klain goes on to say there isn't "any reason" for anyone to postpone essential travel to anywhere except the Wuhan area. In fact, China reportedly destroyed virus samples rather than release them.

Jan. 28: Three days before Trump closes off most travel from China, Klain says he opposes that measure.

Jan. 30: CNN publishes a piece by Brandon Tensley entitled, "Coronavirus task force another example of Trump administration's lack of diversity." Tensley, who claims to cover the "intersection of culture and politics," was unable to offer medical analysis in the article.

The WHO declares a global health emergency, and the State Department issues advisories against traveling to China.

Jan. 31: Trump issues the "Proclamation on Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Nonimmigrants of Persons who Pose a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus." Later in the day, Biden campaigns in Iowa and tells the crowd that Americans “need to have a president who they can trust what he says about it, that he is going to act rationally about it. ... This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia – hysterical xenophobia – and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science.”

Also in the wake of the ban on Jan. 31:

• An article in The New York Times quotes epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm as saying that Trump's decision to restrict travel from China was "more of an emotional or political reaction."
• The Washington Post runs a story quoting a Chinese official asking for "empathy" and slamming the White House for acting "in disregard of WHO recommendation against travel restrictions."
• Vox tweets: "Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No." The tweet was deleted weeks later.
• Canada's health minister Patty Hajdu, who would later say there was no reason to doubt Chinese coronavirus data, says the risk of the virus is "low" and that early-warning systems are working "exactly as they should." The "spread of the disease is contained," Hajdu claimed.
• Death counts indicated that 213 people had died and nearly 10,000 had been infected.

February
Feb. 2: "There's a virus that has infected 15 million Americans across the country and killed more than 8,200 people this season alone," CNN tweets. "It's not a new pandemic — it's influenza."

Meanwhile, New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot tweets: “As we gear up to celebrate the #LunarNewYear in NYC, I want to assure New Yorkers that there is no reason for anyone to change their holiday plans, avoid the subway, or certain parts of the city because of #coronavirus."

Feb. 4: In his State of the Union address, Trump remarks: "We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak in China. My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., rips up the speech as soon as it ends.

Feb. 5: Over 5,000 passengers on two cruise ships in Asia are ordered into quarantine as the worldwide death toll from the coronavirus reaches 490.

The Senate acquits Trump on two counts of impeachment, in a widely expected result that dominated journalists' and politicians' attention for months.

Feb. 7: Barbot strikes again, assuring residents, "We’re telling New Yorkers, go about your lives, take the subway, go out, enjoy life." City lawmakers have called for Barbot to be fired because of the comments.

Feb. 9: Mark Levine, the chair of New York City Council health committee and a Democrat, tweets: "In powerful show of defiance of #coronavirus scare, huge crowds gathering in NYC's Chinatown for ceremony ahead of annual #LunarNewYear parade. Chants of 'be strong Wuhan!' If you are staying away, you are missing out!"

Feb. 11: Klain, the Biden adviser, remarks that the evidence "suggests" the coronavirus won't be a "serious pandemic."

Feb. 13: "There are ZERO confirmed cases of coronavirus in New York City, and hundreds of Chinese restaurants that need your business!" the New York City mayor's office tweets. "There is nothing to fear. Stop by any Chinatown for lunch or dinner!"

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio adds: "It was my honor to spend time with our Asian-American owned small businesses in Flushing today. This vibrant community is standing strong but they need YOUR support. Our Chinatowns are open for business — make some dinner plans, do some shopping and stand with our neighbors!"

Klain then praises de Blasio: "We don’t have a #COVIDー19 epidemic in the US but we are starting to see a fear epidemic. Kudos to @NYCMayor (and others) for standing against that."

Feb 14: France announces Europe's first coronavirus death.

Feb. 17: Fauci announces that the risk of coronavirus infection in the U.S. is "miniscule," according to USA Today. Fauci, one of the top experts in the field and a senior White House coronavirus adviser, also told the paper that people shouldn't wear masks unless they are contagious. (By April 3, Fauci appeared to endorse national stay-at-home orders.)

Feb. 18: In remarks at Joint Base Andrews, Trump states: "I think President Xi is working very hard. As you know, I spoke with him recently. He’s working really hard. It’s a tough problem. I think he’s going to do — look, I’ve seen them build hospitals in a short period of time. I really believe he wants to get that done, and he wants to get it done fast. Yes, I think he’s doing it very professionally. We’re also working with him and helping him, as of the last few days, as you know." Pressed on whether he trusted China's coronavirus data, Trump responds, "Look, I know this: President Xi loves the people of China, he loves his country, and he’s doing a very good job with a very, very tough situation."

Feb. 19: Iran reports two coronavirus cases — the country's first. Hundreds of passengers leave the Diamond Princess for the first time since the quarantine.

Feb. 23: Coronavirus infections surge in Italy and South Korea; authorities in Italy begin locking down towns.

Feb. 24: “It’s exciting to be here, especially at this time, to be able to be unified with our community,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tells reporters as she visits San Francisco's Chinatown. “We want to be vigilant about what is out there in other places. We want to be careful about how we deal with it, but we do want to say to people ‘Come to Chinatown, here we are — we're, again, careful, safe — and come join us.'”

Also on Feb. 24, the White House submits a request to Congress for $2.5 billion in supplemental spending to help combat the coronavirus outbreak. The request includes $1.25 billion in new money, with the rest coming from unspent funds. The budget request languishes in Congress, and the House of Representatives takes no action to bring it up for a vote.

Feb. 28: At a campaign rally, Trump calls Democrats' criticisms of his coronavirus response "their new hoax." Biden and other Democrats then falsely accused Trump of calling the virus itself a hoax. Several fact-checkers, including The Washington Post, make clear that Trump was referring to the Democrats' response to the virus.

Feb. 29: The first coronavirus death in the U.S. is confirmed in Washington state.

March
Mar. 2: "Since I’m encouraging New Yorkers to go on with your lives + get out on the town despite Coronavirus, I thought I would offer some suggestions," de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, tweets. "Here’s the first: thru Thurs 3/5 go see 'The Traitor' @FilmLinc. If 'The Wire' was a true story + set in Italy, it would be this film."

Mar. 4: Barbot, the top New York City health official, declares, “There’s no indication that being in a car, being in the subways with someone who’s potentially sick is a risk factor."

On CNN, Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta downplay the virus.

“The flu right now is far deadlier," Cooper says. "So if you’re freaked out at all about the coronavirus you should be more concerned about the flu, and you can actually do something about it, and get a flu shot."

"15,000 people roughly have already died of the flu this season," Gupta responded. "Couple years ago, 60,000 people died of the flu."

Mar. 9: At a Fox News town hall, Bernie Sanders says he would not close the border, even if it were necessary to halt the spread of coronavirus. He then attacked Trump's "xenophobia."

Also on this day, Fauci remarks that going to campaign rallies may not be a bad idea: "You know, I can’t comment on campaign rallies. It really depends. We are having as we all said — this is something in motion. This is an evolving thing. So I’m not sure what we’re going to be able to say at the time we’re going to have a campaign rally. If you’re talking about a campaign rally tomorrow, in a place where there is no community spread, I think the judgment to have it might be a good judgment. [But] if you want to talk about large gatherings in a place you have community spread, I think that’s a judgment call, and if someone decides they want to cancel it, I wouldn’t publicly criticize them."

Mar. 11: Trump blocks most travel from continental Europe.

Meanwhile, Trump declares a national emergency, authorizing $50 billion in federal funds to go to the states.

Mar. 17: France imposes a nationwide lockdown. European Union leaders agree to mostly seal off the bloc for 30 days.

Mar. 23: Britain imposes a nationwide lockdown.

Mar. 24: India imposes a nationwide lockdown.

Mar. 27: A senior WHO official cuts off an interview after a reporter implies Taiwan, which is not a WHO member state, is independent of China. The official, Canadian doctor Bruce Aylward, initially pretended not to hear the question before terminating the Skype call with the reporter.

Trump signs a $2 trillion stimulus bill into law.

Mar. 30: Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. issue stay-at-home orders, joining other states. In all, approximately 265 million Americans are now under indefinite lockdown.

MY COMMENT

NO COMMENT.....

 

CERTAINLY a very relevant topic right now. Retirement and drawing down assets. For EVERYONE that is a baby boomer and NOT a government worker a very BIG topic.

Does the 4% Withdrawal Rule Still Apply to Today's Retirees?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/does-4-withdrawal-rule-still-181509579.html

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


"But are there problems with that rule, which was developed in the 1990s. Does it still hold true, even in today's market, which has undergone several steep downturns in the past 26 years? Does it account for various investing styles or just a "buy and hold" approach?

An Outdated Approach

"We have never felt that the standard 4% withdrawal rule was particularly relevant," says Jill Fopiano, president and CEO at O'Brien Wealth Partners in Boston.

"Each person's situation is unique in terms of their assets, income and expenses, never mind their life expectancy and goals," she says. "Layer different market environments on top of this, and it's overly simplistic to calculate one percentage that applies to everyone. You're far better off having a cash flow plan that factors in your own specific information."

Retirees Living Longer

Many Americans go into retirement without any sense of how long their money will last and how much they can safely spend. In theory, a financial plan spells out a withdrawal strategy that will make the money last as long as possible. The 4% rule doesn't necessarily apply in every situation.

"The idea behind the 4% rule does still make sense, although that rate is likely a little lower now," says Brandon Renfro, a financial planner and assistant professor of finance at East Texas Baptist University.

"We are in a worst-case scenario now with a poor market and historically low interest rates," Renfro says. "However, the depth and duration of those conditions are unknown. If we have a strong market rebound over the next few years, it could more than make up for the loss now. If the market is in a slump for several years then it will drag withdrawal rates down with it."

Renfro recommends opting for a lower withdrawal rate, perhaps starting with 3%, and remaining flexible if you recently retired or plan to soon.

"Although the original 4% rule was only adjusted for inflation, more recent research has shown that a variable withdrawal rate can dramatically improve retirement outcomes. Reevaluate your withdrawal each year and adjust if you need to," he says.

Not only does the current market downturn cause problems for those with meager savings, but job losses and pay cuts exacerbate the situation.

The uncertainty puts retirement in more peril than ever for many workers," says Robert Johnson, professor of finance at Creighton University's Heider College of Business in Omaha, Nebraska.

"Not only have preretirees seen a significant hit to retirement plan balances, but some have lost their jobs and, for many, their jobs are in peril," Johnson says.

Portfolio Impact: Dividend Cuts

Johnson says another problem for retirees is dividend cuts. "In the low interest rate environment we have been in, many retirees have been moving from bonds to dividend-paying stocks to hit their yield target," he says.

Where does that leave people who hope to retire soon or those who recently retired?

"Working longer is the best way to get a retirement plan back on track. It allows for more savings, more years of investment growth, a shorter subsequent retirement to fund and a larger Social Security benefit," says Wade Pfau, co-director of the New York Life Center for Retirement Income at The American College of Financial Services, headquartered in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.

"That being said, this can be insensitive advice for many people experiencing an involuntary job loss who may be forced into early retirement," Pfau says.

Historically Low Interest Rates

Pfau believes the traditional 4% withdrawal rate is under more strain than ever, and historically low interest rates are a contributing factor.

Pfau says investors hoping to shore up their retirement might consider an annuity, which provides a guaranteed income stream.

"Annuities pool longevity risk and can also pool market risk. This can allow for a higher spending rate than investments can provide for those who are worried about the possibility of outliving their assets in retirement," he says. "Annuities can support retirement spending goals with less assets than investments, which can help to keep a retirement on track."

Fopiano says investors need to understand exactly what they are buying if they opt for an annuity. She says the current low interest rate environment should be factored into any decision.

"While the guaranteed income of an annuity can seem tempting at times like these, it is important to understand that they are often complex investment vehicles with high fees and lock-up periods," she says. "The environment for fixed annuities, which tend to be the most straightforward, is not attractive right now due to extremely low interest rates. With any type of variable annuity, it's critical to read the fine print and understand all of the terms, riders and costs."

Whether it's purchasing an annuity or pursuing some other strategy, the downturn is causing many investors to change course. That can be either a good or bad idea, depending on how an investor approaches the situation.

Pfau, who writes extensively about retirement strategies for various publications, received a comment from a reader who claimed to be a "buy and hold" investor.

"Then in the next breath, they said that they had moved entirely to cash," he says. "This person is still far from their anticipated retirement date. But I found that to be an interesting juxtaposition. It is hard to stay the course.""

MY COMMENT

In other words........WTF.....who knows. This is all one great big social experiment. We are the first time, in the modern era, that self funding is the norm for retirement. As to the 4% rule. I dont believe it has been used enough to have any idea if it works or not. I IMAGINE that most people will have a very difficult time being able to follow some sort of strategy for any length of time. The strategy in the end will probably just end up being...........spend and budget according to what your situation looks like year to year. In other words......SEAT OF THE PANTS.......if you dont have it you cant spend it. Live within your means.

 

Nice day today. LOST out to the SP500......my account +1.10% versus the SP500 at +1.15%. BUT.....always a good day when you make +1.1% regardless of the index.

We need to CLOSE out the week tomorrow with a nice gain and push our way back to close to EVEN for the week. STILL the past few weeks have been a WELCOME change from the.......roller coaster ride.....we were on for a while there.

 

HERE is a simple yet CRITICAL........investing lesson.....wrapped up in a nice little sports story. What I really like in this article besides the general message for LONG TERM INVESTORS is the SP500 chart:

Never Destination

https://www.servowealth.com/blog/never-destination

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

"Surprisingly, one of the most outstanding sports leaders of all time grew up with social anxiety.* In second grade, Steve Young refused to go to school. Steve’s mom Sherry spent two months in his classroom until he felt comfortable going by himself. When he was twelve, Steve wouldn’t go to Boy Scout camp. Petrified to be away from home, he cried at the thought of spending the day with relatives at their house. Steve never did sleepovers like a typical kid. “He just wouldn’t do it,” his dad said.

Even sports were a challenge for Steve. In high school, he had a lackluster junior season before turning it around as a senior and being recruited by BYU. But when he got to college, he was the eighth-string quarterback on the team as a freshman, relegated to the “hamburger squad.” His memory of this? “Man, I wanted to go home,” Steve says. Even as a sophomore, he was the backup quarterback. Steve didn’t start until his junior year, and only his senior year could be called a success. In the NFL, he followed a forgettable stint in the now-defunct USFL with a few years playing for the historically bad Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After being traded to the San Francisco 49ers in the late 1980s, he was the back up to Joe Montana for four years, rarely seeing the playing field despite being in the prime of his career.

To look back on Steve’s life and professional career, we only see success. Steve Young was one of the best quarterbacks in the history of football. He won the Davey O’Brien award for most outstanding quarterback as a college senior. He was twice named NFL Most Valuable Player, Steve also won MVP of Super Bowl XXIX, throwing for a record six touchdowns. At retirement, he was the highest-rated quarterback in NFL history, surpassing his predecessor Joe Montana. It’s remarkable that such a noteworthy professional career was punctuated by so much hardship. It reminds me that the journey doesn’t always look like the destination. In sports, in life, and in investing.

Stocks average about 10% a year over time. That’s what we hear, and that’s what the Growth of $1 charts since 1926 shows us. But that’s rarely what we get. The chart below looks at the annual returns for the S&P 500 as far back as we have data. How many individual years did stocks come within 2% of the 10% long-term average? Just six times in 94 years! Gains were as high as +54% and as low as -43%. 25 out of 94 years were negative. You spend a fair amount of time as an investor feeling like the eighth-string quarterback on a football team. But that’s part of the journey. The destination isn’t possible without hardship.



There are times when you’re investing that you want to give up. Looking at your brokerage statements at the bottom of a bear market is like getting the wind knocked out of you. Your natural response is to want to sell out of stocks and make the losses stop. There were times in Steve Young’s Hall of Fame career that he wanted to give up. “I went to school my whole first semester (in college) with my bags packed…I remember calling (my dad) and just saying, ‘Coaches don’t know my name. I’m just a big tackling dummy for the defense. Dad, it’s horrible. And this is just not what I expected…and I think I’d like to come home.’” Like all of us, Steve probably would have quit if he didn’t have someone in his life to keep him on track. The response from Steve’s dad, “Grit” Young? “You can quit…But you can’t come back home because I’m not going to live with a quitter. You’ve known that since you were a kid. You’re not coming back here.” Grit was tough but honest. Steve persevered.

As a San Francisco 49er, watching the “Team of the 80s” rack up Super Bowls from the sidelines, Steve still thought about throwing in the towel. “If I was ever going to find out just how good I could get, I needed to stay in San Francisco and learn, even if it was brutally hard to do…I many times thought about quitting…I heard boos during my sleepless nights, but I feared calling my dad. I knew what he’d say: ‘Endure to the end, Steve.’”

When asked about his dad and the suggestion that he was overly strict and controlling, Steve had another explanation. “The context was that my dad knew me. He knew all I wanted to do was sprint home, and he knew that if he let me do that, it would be letting me give in to my fears. It was a loving act,” Steve concluded. “It was tough, but it was loving.” Grit knew what Steve wanted, and he knew what he was capable of—a former BYU quarterback himself. “My goal was to teach them (Steve and his siblings) discipline,” he said, “and to go at things hard like I learned to do. You have to learn those things. They don’t just happen. It was important to me to teach the kids to finish what you begin.”

Investing success doesn’t just happen, either. You have to know how to invest. But more than that, you have to have the discipline and ability to ride out the rough times. Is anyone truly capable of doing this alone? Could Steve Young have become one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time by himself? Despite all of his natural skill and hard work, Steve would admit that he could not. He required grit. But he also needed “Grit.” I believe the same thing is true of investors. I’ve worked with many smart and experienced people in the last two decades. They understand the science behind investing; their problem is between their ears. For them, having a professional advisor and a mentor who keeps them from giving in to their fears, and doing the worst things at the worst possible times, is invaluable.

When you invest, you create a plan informed by long-term historical returns. But your experience at any point in time rarely matches expectations. Sometimes you’re way ahead, other times, like now, you might be behind. But the longer you stick around, the more likely your reality conforms to history. Without a coach, who knows you personally, what you want and need, and what’s best for you, it is far less likely you’ll have the grit required to ride out the tough times. The odds are you won't finish what you began, and you'll never reach your destination."

MY COMMENT

That is a really nice.......and TELLING.....chart of the SP500 returns from 1926 to 2019. What I find AMAZING is that over that long span of years there are ONLY 24 DOWN years. EVERY other year is positive. BUT, to get those returns you have to get through the BUMPS and BRUISES of the down years and the nasty events.

Twenty four years down and SEVENTY years positive. So, 74% of the years the SP500 gave a POSITIVE return. I will take those odds......ALL DAY LONG. RECENTLY.....over the past 25 years.......POSITIVE for 20 of those 25 years. ANY way you look at it.......the historical ODDS are great.

This is why I use the SP500 as a benchmark for my portfolio. This is why I am a long term investor. This is why I do NOT do market timing or trading. This is why I TRY to keep my investing VERY simple. This is why I.....usually.....go all in all at once when I have new money to invest. AND......this is why I......TRY.....to be fully invested ALL the time for the long term.

LONG TERM is the GOLDEN time for investors. That long term return of 10-11% DOUBLES your money every 6-7 years. As HUMANS we get SUCKED IN by the stories of hitting a big jackpot, or the BIG investing score. Those are RARE events. That is why they are news stories. The REAL KEY to wealth and the power of investing is COMPOUNDING.

 

NICE to see the averages fight their way back this week. It could have very easily been one of those weeks where every day was down. As I often say......this week showed the REFUSAL of the markets to give in. Made some nice money today, actually better than yesterday. AND......as an added BONUS........beat the SP500 by .38%.

Went out to eat again today.......actually, we eat out every day, or at least we did before this virus "stuff". All our places are opening back up. TODAY we went to the first place that we went to in the reopening. MUCH busier, we had to wait about 15 minutes for a table in the middle of the afternoon. they stayed full the whole time we were there. So over a span of about 2 weeks they have gradually gone to being busy, with all 25% of tables full. The GRADUAL reopening with REASON and LOGIC on the part of people is going VERY WELL here.

So.....at this moment in time:

DOW year to date (-17.01%)
SP500 year to date (-11,36%)

 

I post this article as a TRIBUTE to one of the ICONC investors of the modern generation. I ALSO post it as a reminder that WE ALL will reach a time when we are no longer able to handle our finances and investments:

Opinion: Dud stock picks, bad industry bets, vast underperformance — it’s the end of the Warren Buffett era

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/d...e-warren-buffett-era-2020-05-14?mod=home-page

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

"Who is the Greatest of All Time? Michael or LeBron? Willie or the Babe? Aretha or Ol’ Blue Eyes?

When it comes to investing, Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B, +2.04%, is unquestionably the greatest who ever lived, posting an extraordinary record over more than five decades. From 1965 through 2018, Berkshire racked up a 20.5% compound annual return, more than double that of the S&P 500 SPX, 2.51%, including dividends.

Buffett also is a beloved multibillionaire in an age when the superrich are vilified. His homespun wisdom and Midwestern humility have made him the most sacred of all cows to a business media hungry for wit and personality. His paeans to free-market capitalism, along with his Democratic politics, haven’t hurt him with that group, either.

But now, after profoundly underperforming the S&P 500 throughout the entire 11-year bull market, it’s fair to ask whether Buffett is still, well, Buffett. Even at the company’s virtual annual meeting, held in Omaha on May 2, some questions by shareholders, curated by CNBC’s Becky Quick, struck this listener as unusually sharp.

At times, Buffett seemed uncomfortable amid PowerPoint slides and the absence of his longtime friend and business partner, Charlie Munger, who didn’t make the trip. His bullish comments about America seemed oddly discordant while a pandemic ravages our economy.

Meanwhile, intimations of mortality hung over the proceedings. Munger is 96 and Buffett turns 90 in August. The two, Buffett said, “are not going any place voluntarily, but we probably will go someplace involuntarily before that long.” Then he quickly added, “Charlie’s in good health, incidentally. I’m in good health.”

Questions put to Buffett
No wonder shareholders asked about how Berkshire will fare without Buffett and Munger at the helm.

The right question, however, is how Berkshire is doing with them. Consider:

• From March 9, 2009, the last bear market low, through Feb. 19, 2020, the recent bull market peak, Berkshire‘s Class B shares surged 396%. Sounds impressive, but Berkshire trailed the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, +2.48% and Vanguard Total Stock Market Index ETF VTI, +2.79% by more than 100 percentage points, after dividends were reinvested. (So far in 2020, Berkshire stock has lost nearly 25%, lagging those index ETFs by more than 10 percentage points.)

• As of March 31, Berkshire had more than $130 billion in cash, earning almost nothing. Yet even amid the coronavirus crash, Buffett and Munger haven’t spent any of it on the big deals that made them famous. Buffett attributed that to the Federal Reserve’s multitrillion-dollar intervention, which dwarfed whatever Berkshire could do.

• Berkshire won’t spend any cash to pay a dividend, while it’s happy to collect dividends from the companies it owns. Even a modest dividend yield would have helped Berkshire shareholders narrow the gap with the S&P 500 over the past 11 years.

• Berkshire’s operating businesses are doing well and throw off tons of cash. But this mishmash of insurance, consumer products, energy, utilities and railroads just doesn’t have the growth that forward-looking investors now demand. As oil prices are likely to stay depressed for some time, the energy business’ prospects are particularly grim.

• Several recent investments, like Kraft Heinz KHC, +5.12%, Occidental Petroleum OXY, +8.03% and airline stocks (which Berkshire sold in April) have been duds, and it’s hard to imagine what would propel those stocks higher. Apple AAPL, +1.43%, the largest of Berkshire’s equity investments, is among the few technology stocks in an investment portfolio so full of blue-chip banking names it could almost be a financial sector ETF.

I emailed those questions to Berkshire but got no response by deadline.

Index fund versus Berkshire stock
Buffett himself acknowledged how tough it will be for Berkshire to beat the S&P 500 from here on. “Berkshire is about as sound as any single investment can be,” he told the annual meeting, “but I would not want to bet my life on whether we beat the S&P 500 over the next 10 years.”

“In my view, for most people, the best thing to do is to own the S&P 500 index fund,” he said, echoing past statements.

“I would make no promise to anybody that we will do better than the S&P 500. But what I will promise them is that I’ve got 99% of my money in Berkshire.”

But not apparently his heirs’ money. “I haven’t changed my will and it directs that my widow would have 90% of the funds in index funds,” he said.

Follow the money — the future money. Warren Buffett is saying, almost in so many words, that an S&P 500 index fund is a better investment now than Berkshire Hathaway’s stock. There simply aren’t many new tricks this 90-year-old can learn, especially when growth investing, indexing and trillions of dollars of Fed buying power have stolen much of Berkshire’s thunder.

More than anyone else, he must know he’s had a marvelous run but that the curtain is coming down on the Buffett era. These days, even on Broadway, the show won’t go on.

MY COMMENT:

The END of an ERA. He WILL go down as one of the greatest AMERICAN investors and businessmen. THIS article applies to us ALL. Everyone will reach the point in their life where they can no longer reasonably and safely manage their investments. I AGREE TOTALLY with the concept that very few........if any......people will be able to BEAT the SP500 short or long term. When I get to the point that my portfolio is NOT beating, or keeping up with the SP500, or at least staying close,......I will simply put everything in the SP500 Index. It is not a matter of PRIDE or EGO......the point is to make the MAXIMUM return on money. I dont care how or in what investment.......I ONLY care about the bottom line result. I have drilled it into my family members that I manage money for.......when I am gone or no longer able to do their money management.......that they should simply hold everything in the SP500 for the LONG TERM. In FACT in my opinion.......anyone with a professional money manager......especially after fees......would likely get a BETTER result by using a simple SP500 INDEX fund instead.

 

AS to today.......very nice open. TODAY is the perfect example why I try to stay fully invested ALL the time. You NEVER KNOW when the explosive days, weeks, or months, will happen. NOW......there is no guarantee that this open will hold till the close. I suspect that the BIG factor where we end up at the close today will the the AI and computer trading systems.

The country is re-opening, vaccines are coming in the near term (6-9) months. We are also likely to achieve world wide HERD IMMUNITY before than. The REVOLT (non violent) against mindless, bureaucratic, political, oppression continues to pick up steam. The POWER and VIBRANCY of the AMERICAN economy and capitalism is being UNLEASHED and the recovery will be MUCH FASTER and much EASIER than the MEDIA and others are pushing.

HOWEVER.......based on watching past financial crisis situations......MANY, MANY people that bailed on stocks and funds, will take years to get back into the markets. The end result will be SEVERELY reduced returns compared to the simple market averages.