The Long Term Investor

As usual.......the simple things are the key to investing success. The most simple and at the same time the most complex is.....emotion and the human brain.

The fear of loss can cost investors big-time. Here’s how

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/29/the-fear-of-loss-can-cost-investors-big-time-heres-how.html

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


"Key Points

• Humans evolved with a powerful bias against loss. That cognitive impulse helped humans survive, but impedes many investors from making sound decisions.
• “Loss aversion bias” causes people to invest too conservatively, sell stocks during downturns to avoid further losses and prevents some from starting to invest in the first place.

The fear of loss is a powerful emotion for investors — and, if left unchecked, can cost them big bucks in the long term due to years of forfeiture of investment gains.

That fear is a natural product of human evolution. Our brains are hardwired to detect risks — a useful cognitive tool that helped early humans and their forbears stay alive, if they had to evade predators or determine what foods were safe to eat, for example.

Fast-forward to the modern era, though, and that ancient threat-detection and loss-prevention mechanism can do us a disservice.

“We didn’t evolve to live in financial markets,” said Dan Egan, vice president of behavioral finance and investing at Betterment. “We evolved to deal with ‘natural threats.’”

For investors, that evolutionary impulse plays out as “loss aversion bias.”

The premise: The pain of an investment loss is twice as strong as the pleasure derived from an equivalent gain. Investors have a bias toward avoiding financial loss.

Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky demonstrated the bias using a coin-toss thought experiment:

“I’m going to toss a coin, and if it’s tails, you lose $10. How much would you have to gain on winning in order for this gamble to be acceptable to you? People want more than $20 before it is acceptable,” Kahneman said of that exercise.

Loss aversion can express itself in perhaps unexpected ways for society at large, too.

Take education, for example: In a 2011 experiment, one group of teachers in Chicago Heights, Illinois, was told they’d receive a year-end bonus linked to student achievement. A second group was given a lump-sum payment at the beginning of the school year and told part of it would be clawed back if students missed performance targets.

The latter “loss” group saw “large and statistically significant gains” in student test scores, while there wasn’t an impact noted in the “gain” group offered a bonus incentive.

Automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans, as well as an automatic increase in a worker’s 401(k) savings rates from year to year, helps combat bias, too. Automatic enrollment means a worker never experiences a decrease (or “loss”) in take-home pay once they start saving in a 401(k), since that savings is deducted from the beginning.

Nearly all investors have likely confronted fear this year.

The S&P 500 index, a barometer of U.S. stock performance, is down 17% this year. Meanwhile, U.S. bonds, as measured by the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate bond index, have lost 13% in 2022. If both finished 2022 in the red, it’d be the first time since 1969.

Loss-aversion bias can manipulate investors’ decision-making in many (often negative) ways.

For example, it might lead a long-term investor to be too conservative, for fear of losing money, Egan said. In this case, an investor with decades until retirement may be overweight bonds and cash relative to stocks, which are generally riskier and more volatile than the other “safer” asset classes but yield higher returns over long time periods. Even many retired seniors need some stock exposure to help beat inflation over a lengthy retirement.

Meanwhile, loss aversion can cause would-be neophyte investors to avoid investing in the first place. That risk is heightened in periods like 2022, when markets suffer big losses. That means fledgling investors are hesitant to put money into the market because they want to wait until it feels safe, Egan said.

However, the savvy move is the opposite: A run-up in stocks is the riskier time to invest, whereas a pullback means the pain may be in the rearview mirror, stocks are at a discount and there’s more upside to be had, Egan explained.

Human psychology can also push investors to sell during a downturn in stocks simply to avoid further losses, Omar Aguilar, CEO and chief investment officer of Schwab Asset Management, said. But that might mean they miss out on gains during a subsequent rally in the stocks they sold, Aguilar said.

He cites research demonstrating that in 2018, a year in which there were two big market corrections, the average investor lost twice as much as the S&P 500.

An investor who kept their initial $10,000 in U.S. stocks for 15 years would have earned $24,753 more than someone who missed the market’s 10 best days, according to a Putnam Investments analysis through 2021.

Prioritizing the avoidance of loss over earning a gain “is a major reason why so many investors underperform the market,” Aguilar said.

Data suggests some retirement savers sought out safe havens within their 401(k) plans during recent market turmoil.

For example, conservative investments such as stable value and money market funds captured 81% and 16%, respectively, of net 401(k) plan savings in October, according to Alight Solutions, which administers company 401(k) plans. Meanwhile, 401(k) investors pulled money out of stock mutual funds during the same time period.

Eighteen of 21 trading days in October favored the “fixed income” category relative to stock funds, according to Alight. Investors favored fixed income during 73% of total trading days in 2022.

Yet the best choice for investors — especially those with many years, or even decades, before they’ll tap their retirement savings — is probably to stay put, according to financial advisors.

Selling stocks out of fear is like making a bad driving decision, said Philip Chao, principal and chief investment officer at Experiential Wealth in Cabin John, Maryland.

“If you panic while driving, you’ll get in an accident,” Chao said.

“I think most investors are reactionary, instead of acting in a purposeful, well-intentioned way,” he added. “And because of that, they tend to be all over the place when markets fall.”

Selling out of stocks while there’s proverbial blood in the streets is akin to timing the market, Chao said. To come out ahead, investors need to time two things perfectly: when to sell out and when to buy back in.

And that’s nearly impossible to do, even for professional investors.

Making the wrong bet means you’ll likely buy when stocks are pricey and sell when they’re cheap. In other words, a knee-jerk reaction in protecting your money means you may, in many cases, actually do the opposite: sacrifice your future earnings and ultimately end up with a smaller nest egg."

MY COMMENT

It takes time and experience as an investor to learn to control your emotions and as a result your financial future.

One way to help guard against emotional investing is to have an investing plan and stick with it.

The more you read and research......the more you will see......that nearly ALL negative investing habits and strategies are the result of human emotion and behavior. Learn to control those items and you are well on your way to investing success,

So......as part of my emotion and human behavior control:

I continue to be fully invested for the long term as usual. All in for the long term. I just suck it up and take the hit in the bad years. it is a question of deferred gratification and deferred success. In other words......THE LONG GAME.

 

WELL....I have managed to waste time for the past hour and a half of the market day today. I have not looked at my account....no need....it is obvious what I would see if I looked. So.....why torture myself...over a single day in the markets that in a ten year chart of the SP500 will not even be visible in the line on the chart.

The short term seems so critical as it is happening. Of course.....over the long term it is all irrelevant.

We now have about 3.5 weeks to go in year 2022. We will just muddle through to the end of the year. It will be nice to move on to a new year. The LOSS for 2022 will simply be a statistic in the financial history books and we will all move on.

My take on this year......we have been caught in a self fulfilling prophesy, feedback loop, in the markets. We have never broken out of the negative loop which has dominated for the entire year....from day one.

This is the drip, drip, drip,......that you read about in articles about capitulation and bear markets.

 

This is an amazing semi-financial story......the Forrest Fenn treasure.

The Man Who Found Forrest Fenn’s Treasure
The decade-long hunt captured the world's attention, but when it finally ended in June, everyone still wanted to know: Who had solved the mystery? This week, as legal proceedings threaten his anonymity, a 32-year-old medical student is ready to go on the record.

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdo...on-survival/forrest-fenn-treasure-jack-stuef/

"It took two months of correspondence before the man who found Forrest Fenn’s treasure told me his name.

We’d been emailing since September, and I honestly didn’t expect to ever know who he really was. I was fine with that; as a fellow treasure hunter, I completely understood his desire for anonymity.

Since 2017, I had been pursuing Fenn’s treasure, too, becoming a kinda-sorta searcher in order to tell the story of Fenn’s hunt in my upcoming book Chasing the Thrill, to be published by Knopf in June. I’d been in the trenches, read Fenn’s clue-filled poem over and over, ended up in places I probably shouldn’t have been, and gone to places where other people died trying to find it.

A decade ago, Fenn hid his treasure chest, containing gold and other valuables estimated to be worth at least a million dollars, somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Not long after, he published a memoir called The Thrill of the Chase, which included a mysterious 24-line poem that, if solved, would lead searchers to the treasure. Fenn had suggested that the loot was secreted away at the place where he had envisioned lying down to die, back when he’d believed a 1988 cancer diagnosis was terminal. Since the hunt began in 2010, many thousands of searchers had gone out in pursuit—at least five of them losing their lives in the process—and the chase became an international story.

So many people had invested and sacrificed so much in pursuit of Fenn’s treasure that it was possible the finder would face threats, be they legal or physical, from people who resented them or wished them ill.

And that was exactly what was beginning to play out.

This past June, Fenn announced that the treasure had been found by a man from “back east” who wanted to remain anonymous—even, once we were in contact, to me. So despite exchanging dozens of emails with the finder, and discussing the details of the chest and what locating it meant to him, I never pressed him about who he was, and he never volunteered.

Last week, he told me the situation had changed. Fenn had been targeted by lawsuits both before and after the chest was found, by hunters claiming that the treasure was rightfully theirs. One of the lawsuits, filed immediately after Fenn announced the hunt was over, also targets the unknown finder as a defendant, claiming that he had stolen the plaintiff’s solve and used it to find the chest. That litigation had advanced to a procedural stage during which the finder expected his name would likely come out in court. So while he remained guarded about his solve and the location where he discovered the treasure, he now didn’t mind telling me who he really was.

And that’s when I learned that a 32-year-old Michigan native and medical student was the person who had finally solved Fenn’s poem. His name is Jack Stuef.

Stuef first heard about Fenn’s chase on Twitter in early 2018, and couldn’t believe it had escaped his notice for eight whole years. He was instantly hooked.

“I’ve probably thought about it for at least a couple hours a day, every day, since I learned about it,” Stuef says. “Every day.”

The treasure hunt immediately brought him back to his youth, when he was obsessed with a 2002 TV series called Push, Nevada, which allowed viewers to try and solve a real-life mystery that carried a million-dollar prize. Stuef also got caught up in a book by magician David Blaine, Mysterious Stranger, which combined autobiography with a treasure hunt and offered a $100,000 prize.

Over time, those teenage dreams of adventure receded, and Stuef went on to attend Georgetown University, where he served as editor in chief of the Georgetown Heckler, a campus humor magazine. He graduated in December 2009and began a career as a writer, both in humor—he worked for the Onion—and in more traditional media. He became embroiled in a few controversies early in his career, both at Wonkette, which he left after he made what Poynter describes as “a tasteless joke about one of Sarah Palin’s children having Down Syndrome,” and while freelancing for Buzzfeed, which had to apologize after an article Stuef wrote incorrectly painted a popular internet cartoonist as a hard-line Republican. He left the media business soon after.

“I don’t think those were giant incidents,” Stuef says. “I regret them, but I don’t think about them very often. It was a long time ago now.”

He soon entered a post baccalaureate program, and then enrolled in medical school. But he disliked most everything about medicine beyond treating patients, he says, and something else captured his attention: Fenn’s chase. He was soon reading the hunter blogs to learn the basics, and he bought Fenn’s memoir, The Thrill of the Chase, before diving into as much primary source material as he could find. His method was to devour every Fenn interview, doing anything he could to hear and absorb his words directly, in an effort to better understand the man’s personality and motivations.

As the hunt took up more and more of his time, Stuef mostly kept the extent of his pursuit hidden from friends and family. He didn’t think they would understand.

“I think I got a little embarrassed by how obsessed I was with it,” Stuef says. “If I didn’t find it, I would look kind of like an idiot. And maybe I didn’t want to admit to myself what a hold it had on me.”

Two years later, he had achieved what so many other searchers could not, finding and claiming Fenn’s treasure. (Stuef’s status as the finder was independently verified with the Fenn family.)He retrieved the chest on Saturday, June 6, 2020, in Wyoming, and began the long drive down to Santa Fe to deliver it to Fenn that same day. That evening, news of the find was already beginning to come out, as Fenn believed it must. “‘We should let [searchers] know as soon as you have it,’” Stuef says Fenn told him.

“His thought was that, as soon as it’s out of place, we need to let people know,” Stuef says. “People have died. There could be issues.”

Stuef asked Fenn, though, that he be allowed to remain anonymous, and they both seemed to agree that the location of the find should be kept secret.

But controversy quickly swirled, as many hunters, unsatisfied with the lack of disclosure, decided this meant that something nefarious was afoot—that Fenn had never really hidden the treasure, or that he had unilaterally ended the hunt without a real finder. The backlash took Fenn by surprise, according to those around him. To address it, several weeks after the find, he released photos of the chest and of himself going through it after Stuef delivered it to Santa Fe, which provided enough confirmation for some. In July, Fenn suggested to Stuef that they also reveal the state where the treasure was found, in order to give further closure to some hunters. Stuef agreed.

Beyond that, though, he remained silent, and might have stayed that way for some time.

And then Forrest Fenn died.

On September 23, two weeks after Fenn passed away in his home at age 90, a post surfaced on Medium, a platform that allows users to self-publish essays and other writing, anonymously if they choose. Called “A Remembrance of Forrest Fenn,” it carried the byline “The Finder,” along with a bio that declared: “The author is the finder and owner of the Forrest Fenn Treasure.”

In 3,000 well-crafted words, the finder penned an ode to Fenn, who he described as his friend, even though he’d only known him briefly.

“I am the person who found Forrest’s famed treasure,” he wrote. “The moment it happened was not the triumphant Hollywood ending some surely envisioned; it just felt like I had just survived something and was fortunate to come out the other end.”

In his essay, the finder revealed a great deal about the circumstances under which he had discovered the treasure—but, crucially, he would not divulge exactly where he had located it, and said he didn’t plan to. He was also careful not to let any details about his own identity slip, indicating only that he was a millennial and had student loans to pay off. Beyond that, he was an enigma.

He explained that in 2018 he had figured out the location where the longtime Santa Fe art dealer and former fighter pilot wished to die, and then spent a combined 25 days over the next two years searching the general area until he finally located the treasure. He said that, to find the solution, he’d carefully listened to things Fenn had said in interviews, finding a few crucial crumbs.

“[Fenn] never made more than a couple of subtle slip-ups in front of all the dogged reporters who came to his house, and even those apparently haven’t been caught by anyone besides me,” the finder wrote.

He included pictures of the chest, some of them taken in the wilderness shortly after the treasure was found, others taken at what was assumed to be a lawyer’s office, showing Fenn examining the chest.

Still, there were doubters. Many searchers refused to believe that the Medium post was written by the true finder, and suggested it was fraudulent—perhaps written by Fenn’s grandson, Shiloh Old, or by his professional writer pal, Douglas Preston, or even by Fenn himself before his death, intended to be released posthumously.

But I didn’t think any of that. In fact, after finishing the essay, I was pretty certain it was all real. And although the finder wrote that he would eventually answer more questions, the journalist in me didn’t particularly want to wait, or to leave what he answered up to him alone.

So I reached out.

Medium doesn’t generally allow readers to directly contact the author of a piece, which is one reason it’s good for anonymous posting. It does allow users to post public comments, and more than 100 people quickly did that, most of them supportive, some skeptical, a few angry and aggressive. But I wasn’t going to just post my email address in the comments, where anyone could read it. Doing that left me no guarantee that the person I might end up in contact with would be the finder.

I had one trick up my sleeve, though. There’s a little-known way to send a direct message to the author of a Medium story: you flag a section of text, indicating that it contains an error or typo. This notifies the author that something needs to be corrected. The system doesn’t give you a lot of space, just enough to describe the problem. So I flagged a section, barely squeezed in who I was and my email address, and hoped for the best. I had no assurances that the finder would look at the message, or that he would understand exactly why he should get in touch. But it was worth a shot.

Less than a day later, an email popped into my in-box. The finder had replied. He’d heard of my book project, he said, and he might be willing to talk to me.

And so began months of back-and-forth, sometimes involving several emails a day. It didn’t really matter that I didn’t know who the finder was for most of that time. I hung on every detail, every minor revelation he offered up about the treasure that had occupied me for so long.

Last week, after a lull in our ongoing conversation, the finder emailed again, explaining that one of the court cases surrounding the find had taken an unexpected turn, and his name was likely to come out as part of the process. So he told me who he was, and gave me permission to tell the world.

The case that prompted him to step from behind the curtain was brought by a Chicago real estate attorney named Barbara Andersen, who alleges that the unknown finder of the treasure had located it by hacking her texts and emails and stealing her solve. She believed the treasure was in New Mexico.

Stuef says he never met nor heard of Andersen before the suit; he denies her charges and says the treasure was nowhere near New Mexico. That has not stopped a New Mexico federal court judge from allowing the suit to proceed. Last week, Stuef learned that, as a result of Fenn’s death, the subpoena against Fenn would be transferred to his heirs and estate, which is in possession of Stuef’s information. This should allow Andersen to refile her suit, naming Stuef as a defendant.

Stuef had expected that finding the chest would bring some level of blowback, that his possession of an item desired by so many makes him a target.

“I thought that whoever found the chest would be absolutely hated, because it ends everyone’s dream,” he says. “That’s something of a burden. I realize I put an end to something that meant so much to so many people.”

But even if he anticipated challenges to his find, being a subject of a lawsuit has been an unsettling experience.

“I always thought that, based on people suing Forrest in the past, it was something that could happen,” Stuef says.

This treasure hunt has never been easy on its participants; Fenn and his family experienced a great deal of harassment from searchers who went too far during the years the hunt was active—everything from stalking to threats to a break-in at Fenn’s home in Santa Fe. This is why Stuef hoped to remain anonymous, and why, even now, with his name known, he won’t disclose where he’s living.

Many searchers I’ve talked to appreciate his desire for anonymity, and I understand it as well. But one thing many searchers have a harder time grasping is Stuef’s decision to withhold where he found the treasure, even though the chest has since been removed.

People have died looking for the chest. Others have gone bankrupt. Many more have spent countless hours in search of it, and they want some degree of resolution. On our various excursions out West, my search partner and I both found ourselves a little too obsessed at points, and it took its toll. There are real human costs to this search, and knowing the final location could offer the desired sense of closure so many are now seeking.

Stuef says he’s sympathetic to those feelings.

“This is the most difficult question to answer, because I know there’s so many people who just want to know. They worked on this for a long time. And they just want to be handed the answer. I totally understand that. But doing that, I think, is a death sentence to this special place.”

Stuef fears that Fenn’s spot, if revealed, will become a pilgrimage site for Fenn devotees.

“It’s not an appropriate place to become a tourist destination. It has huge meaning to Forrest, and I don’t want to see it destroyed,” Stuef says. “And as much as I tried not to develop an attachment to the place, eventually I did, as well. I had whole days out there looking, and I would take a nap in the afternoon every day, as I said on Medium, under the pine trees. It was very peaceful for me.”

Stuef is trying to find a balance between the various entities, because he feels responsible to all of them. To the search community and its desire to know the whole truth; to himself and his sense of what is right; to nature and this peaceful spot, which he does not want to see ruined; and to Fenn. Ultimately, Stuef believes he’s being consistent with what Fenn wanted when he was alive, and honoring his legacy.

“He didn’t want to see it turned into a tourist attraction,” Stuef says of the treasure site. “We thought it was not appropriate for that to happen. He was willing to go to great lengths, very great lengths, to avoid ever having to tell the location.”

Because of his stand, talking to Stuef can be maddening at times. For my book, I’ve interviewed him about his solve, discussed the process he used to come up with it, and chronicled the various searches he went on as he sought the exact spot, learning fascinating tidbits in the process. For example, he’s told me that one reason it took him two years to retrieve the treasure, even after figuring out the general area in 2018, was that the “blaze”—Fenn’s all-important final clue, found out in the wilderness, intended to let a searcher know they’re in the exact right spot—had been damaged. He doesn’t mind being open with all of that. And yet there are still things he holds back or talks around, in order to make sure, even now, that no one can figure out the precise location.

Still, listening to Stuef talk about it, he makes it seem so attainable, so simple: that the key was really just understanding Forrest Fenn. Stuef hunted solo, never discussed his search with others, stayed away from the blogs after his initial looks at them, and tried hard not to get caught up in any groupthink. He did his utmost just to focus on Fenn’s words and primary sources, and understand those as best he could.

“I don’t want to ruin this treasure hunt by saying it was made for an English major, but it’s based on a close read of a text,” Stuef says. “I mean, that’s what it is. It’s having the correct interpretation of a poem. I understood him by reading his words, and listening to him talk over and over and over and over again. And seeking out anything I could get my hands on that told me who he was.”

When asked if figuring out the puzzles required the use of anagrams, or GPS coordinates, or sophisticated codes of any sort, Stuef was clear in his response.

“No,” he says. “But I don’t want to say that people are stupid for thinking those things were valid, or that they were being irrational. I think Forrest designed this to be fun, and whatever people got out of it, that gave them fun, I think, to me, is rational. And they were doing it right, in that way.”

The solution, Stuef says, is tied far more to understanding Fenn’s emotions, and to a close examination of the poem itself, than to puzzle-solving skills. Fenn simply didn’t care about those kinds of things. He was more interested in adventure, legacy, history, narrative.

“There was no reason to think that those things would be something he was interested in, or had any experience in,” Stuef says. “I mean, he was coming to this not from the perspective of being a huge fan of puzzles or a puzzle master. He was not a fan of armchair treasure hunts. His point of reference was pirates! His purpose was not to create a great puzzle and show everyone how smart and slick he was. His purpose was this weird idea to entomb himself. And to create a historic legend. None of that supports armchair solutions. And he was open about that.”

So far, ownership of the chest has not made Stuef a rich man. He has not sold it yet, has not even had it appraised, but the expected windfall has allowed him to quit worrying about repaying his student loans for medical school. With that in mind, he has decided to leave the profession before becoming a practicing doctor, and may move into equities investing next.

“I was kind of in this sunk-cost-fallacy dead end with that, where I didn’t want to quit, because I didn’t know what else to do,” he says. “I didn’t know how to pay off my loans if I didn’t become a doctor. [The chest] was kind of my lifeline.”

Once the time is right, he still plans to sell the chest. When he does, he will try to honor a “final wish” of Fenn’s: to have the chest end up in a specific place where searchers can view it, though he declined to say exactly where.

“Before he died, he was going to try to help me with getting a certain party to buy it,” Stuef says. “And I think his hope was that it would be able to be displayed. … And so that’s my first step. After that, I think I would probably try and sell to the public.”

If it gets that far, he’s unsure whether it would be best to sell it as a complete package, or to break it up, allowing individual searchers to own a piece of Fenn’s treasure.

“I’d guess we kind of try and test the market in some way to see what it would sell for all together, because there’s a good chance it’s worth more all together, as the Fenn treasure,” Stuef says. “But, you know, it’s possible. There are a lot of searchers out there who would want maybe one item in there, they couldn’t afford the whole thing, but it would mean a lot to them to have one item. So it is still possible to break out.”

With the chest located, one part of the treasure hunt is finished now—the chase, the part that obsessed all of us and pushed us to places we maybe shouldn’t have been. But the story has not ended. So many people have a stake in this hunt, it means so much to so many, that the tale didn’t, and doesn’t, end with a man finding a treasure chest.

That, in so many ways, is just opening up the box."

MY COMMENT

See post below for the treasure. I have read about this treasure hunt for years. Amazing that it was finally recovered.

It was found in 2020. Here is another story.

A 10-year hunt ends after someone actually found the treasure estimated to be worth between $1 and $5 million

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/treasure-buried-by-forrest-fenn-finally-found-after-10-years.html

 

Continued......the Fenn treasure.

Heritage Auctions Opens Forrest Fenn’s Treasure Chest

https://intelligentcollector.com/he...95345&type=article8-1-www-icmag-dec-tem120622

"DECEMBER 12 EVENT FEATURES ALMOST 500 GOLD PIECES, COINS AND JEWELRY FROM THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS HIDDEN TREASURE



A 549-gram gold nugget from Forrest Fenn’s treasure chest

This time, at least, the hunt for Forrest Fenn’s treasure won’t be so challenging. What remains from that famed chest hidden in the Rocky Mountains – for a decade, the stuff of dreams and countless news stories – is now available with the simple click of a button.

On December 12, during Heritage Auctions’ Forrest Fenn’s Treasure, collectors can vie for 476 gold pieces, coins, jewelry and other items found in the chest that was planted in 2010 by the author, decorated fighter pilot and art dealer. Fenn, a native of Temple, Texas, saw the treasure hunt as a fitting farewell to a life well lived – and, he said, as a way to encourage people “to get off their couches.”

Before and even after the chest’s discovery in 2020 by Jack Stuef, Fenn’s story became a nearly mythic tale that began with a simple poem in his memoir The Thrill of the Chase, which contained nine clues to the chest’s whereabouts. It began: “As I have gone alone in there/And with my treasures bold/I can keep my secret where/And hint of riches new and old.” Fenn believed that after he hid the treasure in the mountains, more than 300,000 people searched for what he called his “title to the gold.”

That title was officially transferred to Stuef on June 11, 2020, when the 32-year-old Michigan native and medical student met Fenn in Santa Fe, New Mexico. According to an affidavit signed by Karl Sommer, Fenn’s attorney, “Forrest reviewed all of the contents of the Treasure Chest, confirmed it was the same chest and contents he hid in 2010, and accepted the Treasure Chest” from Stuef. At that same meeting, Sommer wrote, “Forrest gifted the Treasure Chest and its contents” to the man who found it.

In his affidavit, Stuef confirms that on September 19, 2022, he sold the chest and contents to Tesouro Sagrado Holdings, LLC, which now brings the majority of Fenn’s treasure to auction. The consignor has kept the chest, the dragon bracelet and a handful of other items. The remainder of the chest’s contents is available in this auction.



The glass jar purportedly containing a 20,000-word autobiography of Forrest Fenn


Every piece here – from a Liberty Half Eagle to a centuries-old Colombian gold ornament to even a gold flake or a pair of scissors – will demand the attention of those who heard tell of the hunt for this fabled chest. But this auction contains its share of sizable, significant finds, too – among them a 549-gram Alaskan gold placer roughly the size of a hen’s egg.

The auction contains hundreds of coins, among them a 1928 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle, Liberty Double Eagles, Liberty Half Eagles, Indian Eagles and more. Each coin in this event is graded and resides in an NGC holder noting its place in history as a selection from “Fenn’s Treasure Chest.”

Fenn also stashed centuries-old gold jewelry in the chest, including a Diquis/Greater Chiriqui Frog Pendant from Costa Rica or Panama, circa 700-1000 AD, and a gold pectoral meant to represent the sun, which comes from Colombia circa 200-600 AD. But not all that glitters is gold in this event: One collector will walk away with the completely intact, wax-sealed small glass jar purportedly containing at least Fenn’s autobiography.

Wrote Fenn, “I also wanted to include something personal with the treasure because maybe the lucky finder would want to know a little about the foolish person who abandoned such an opulent cache. So I placed a 20,000-word autobiography in the chest. It’s in a small glass jar and the lid is covered with wax to protect the contents from moisture. The printed text is so small that a magnifying glass is needed to read the words. I tried to think of everything.”



A Tairona necklace from Colombia, circa 500-1000 AD, from Forrest Fenn’s treasure chest


Discord has arisen among seekers of the jar over the ultimate question: Should its seal be broken? Whatever the answer, its contents will be known only to the collector who decides finally to break the wax seal and open the jar.

And what he didn’t think of was captured in Daniel Barbarisi’s extraordinary book Chasing the Thrill: Obsession, Death, and Glory in America’s Most Extraordinary Treasure Hunt, released in paperback earlier this year. Barbarisi tells how a “curiosity” became “a full-blown craze” thanks to the Today show in 2013; how blogs led to national news stories led to documentary films led to more memoirs and a frenzy that didn’t die down even after the chest was discovered in 2020. Indeed, if anything, there remains a Forrest Fenn fever unbroken by the chest’s discovery in June 2020 or Fenn’s death three months later at the age of 90.

The chest, he wrote on his website, “was under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago.” The chase might have ended. But the thrill most certainly has not."

MY COMMENT

This is one way to get rich......it is easier to simply invest over the long term in stocks and funds. BUT....it is an amazing story of a modern treasure hunt.

For those that want to own a piece of the treasure the auction is happening in about a week. I dont recommend it.......as an investment.

 

Another PERFECT day for me.....every stock down. That means that I was in the RED and I got beat by the SP500 by 0.63% today.

A totally wasted day today in the market neighborhood......for no particular reason. WHATEVER.

 

Here is the markets today.

Stocks fall, adding to early-week market rout

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stoc...fall-after-mondays-market-rout-143438031.html

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

"U.S. stocks fell Tuesday, adding to an early-week rout as investors digested economic warnings from bank heavyweights and mulled the impact of upcoming Federal Reserve policy.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) sank 1.4%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) was down 1%, or more than 350 points. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell 2%.

Wall Street failed to recover from a rout in Monday's session, when stocks sunk while investors pored over the first releases in a week full of economic data. Overall, the S&P 500 had its sixth down day in the last seven trading sessions, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

On Tuesday, the biggest Wall Street bank executives struck a downbeat tone for next year as inflation hits consumer demand. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told investors at a Goldman Sachs financial conference that Bank of America's research shows "negative growth" in the first part of 2023, but he added that the contraction will be "mild."

Separately, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon told Bloomberg that he sees economic growth slowing and smaller bonuses and even possible job cuts on the horizon.

Economic data readings have pointed to continued resilience in different pockets of the economy, however, prompting intense market fixation around the risk that the Federal Reserve will continue to raise interest rates throughout the next year.

Fed officials, including Chair Jerome Powell, have largely suggested the central bank will downshift to a half-point move at their meeting next week after four consecutive 75-basis-point increases. But last week's employment report showed strong job gains and robust wage growth, the opposite of what the Fed would like to see in its battle against inflation.

A smaller increase would indicate a new phase for the central bank’s tightening campaign, but elevated wage pressures could lead to more officials raising their benchmark federal funds above 5% next year, which is currently anticipated by Wall Street.

“In light of the various releases, expectations of the Fed terminal rate priced for May 2023 moved up by 9.5 basis points on the day to 5.01%, crossing the 5% threshold again,” Jim Reid and colleagues at Deutsche Bank wrote in an early morning note Tuesday.

“That’s a noticeable shift from where it was just before Friday’s jobs report, when it hit a low of 4.83%, and means that most of the moves lower after Chair Powell’s Wednesday speech have now reversed,” he added.

Officials will get another read on inflation on December 13, the first day of the Fed's two-day policy meeting, when the Labor Department releases the Consumer Price Index for November.

December has gotten off to a rockier start in the markets as investors “unwind of consensus macro positions this year, which has ensued since the cool CPI print mid-November,” according to Mike Gormley, Equity Institutional Sales at JPMorgan.

In commodity markets, oil prices continued to trade lower Tuesday, with WTI crude at $74.43 per barrel. Oil's recent tumble has come even amid recent moves by OPEC and its Russian-led allies to stay the course on production cuts and as China officials have tentatively eased COVID restrictions that have eroded consumption from the world’s largest importer.

In bond markets, the yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury note was back down at 3.52% on Tuesday. The dollar ticked up.

In corporate news, PepsiCo (PEP) plans to eliminate hundreds of jobs at the headquarters of its North American snacks and beverages divisions, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move follows other companies, including Walmart (WMT) and Ford (F), that have trimmed jobs of white-collar workers amid economic uncertainty."

MY COMMENT

YEP....nothing new.....same old drama over nothing new and same old fear mongering over nothing new. Simply a wasted day in the markets

 

We continue to be stuck in a RODNEY DANGERFIELD market. Nothing gets any respect.....regardless of earnings or anything else. Every stock is subject to the generalized whims of the negative market sentiment.

At least it is also a MISERY LOVES COMPANY market. None of us is alone. We are all part of the HUGE numbers of investors that are sitting and waiting for something to kick off the next leg of the PERPETUAL BULL MARKET.

We might have a long wait......1-2 years. BUT.....it will happen....it always does.

 

I have been trying to adjust the color on my TV. The market averages are showing in GREEN.

Even if it does not last at least it is a nice change for a while.

I see that the Ten Year Treasury rate is down today. I suspect that is the primary reason for the......green on the screen.

 

WELL.......we are down to ONLY 42 houses for sale in our little area of 4200 homes. The highest is $8MILLION. The lowest is $500,000. We are now starting to see a bit more homes going pending.

Prices do not seem to be dropping much, especially in the higher end of the market. We are obviously continuing with an EXTREMELY low amount of inventory. I know that statistically.....prices are still rising year over year in my area.

 

Here is the markets today.

Stocks look to rebound after two days of selling pressure

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-updates-december-7-2022-125258702.html

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

"U.S. stocks clawed higher Wednesday morning following a downtrend that started the week as investors weigh higher interest rates and the prospect of an economic downturn against optimism around easing COVID protocols in China.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) edged up 0.2% at the open, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose a modest 0.1%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) advanced by roughly the same margin.
In commodities markets, oil traded near $74 per barrel after declining roughly 10% this week to the lowest level since January.

“Fears are growing that economies are in for a rough time ahead as feverish inflation and the bitter interest rate medicine being used to bring it down take effect,” Hargreaves Lansdown senior investment and markets analyst Susannah Streeter said in a morning note, pointing also to recession warnings from U.S. bank bosses and gloomy trade data in China. “Despite today’s easing of restrictions, it’s clear China’s Covid nightmare is not at an end.”

A chorus of downbeat remarks from Wall Street leaders on Tuesday further weighed on already slumping sentiment this week as many expressed concerns over the toll of inflation and elevated interest rates on U.S. consumers.

JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said the $1.5 trillion in excess savings across Americans’ bank accounts were being eroded by rising prices, while warning the winddown of disposable cash may “derail the economy and cause this mild or hard recession that people are worried about." Bank of America chief Brian Moynihan echoed a similar message, indicating that while consumers are still spending money, the pace is beginning to slow.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO David Solomon projected stocks will barrel lower in 2023 and placed the probability of a soft landing at a mere 35% – a view at odds with in-house economists at his investment bank, who anticipate in their baseline forecast that the U.S. will narrowly avoid a recession next year.

"There's a very reasonable possibility that we could have a recession of some kind," Solomon said in an interview at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit Wednesday afternoon.

Reports that China’s government will scale back some zero-COVID rules appeared to underwhelm investors weighing easing restrictions against economic data out of the nation that showed falling imports and exports in November.

Back in the U.S., shares of Campbell Soup (CPB) rose nearly 5% after the canned good producer reported earnings that beat Wall Street estimate and raised its full-year forecast. The company said sales of soup in the U.S. jumped 11% due to increases in demand for ready-to-serve soups, condensed soups and broth, reflecting a recent shift among consumers to value food purchases as inflation continues to weigh on households.

Shares of Apple (AAPL) opened little changed, paring pre-market losses, one day after Bloomberg News reported the iPhone-maker scaled back ambitious self-driving plans for its future electric vehicle and postponed the car's release data to 2026. Bloomberg also reported Wednesday morning that mobile industry bellwether Murata Manufacturing expects Apple will further reduce production plans for its iPhone 14 due to weakening demand.

Investors await another round of economic data as the Federal Reserve’s final rate-setting meeting this year approaches. Readings on weekly jobless claims, producer price inflation, and consumer sentiment are due out later this week, but the most important data point for clues on the Fed's direction for interest rates is the Consumer Price Index (CPI) out Tuesday, the same day U.S. central bank officials kick-off their last two-day rate-setting meeting of 2022."

MY COMMENT

I have noticed over the past couple of days the constant and uniform chorus f voices on Wall Street pushing a very negative message. fortunately these people are NOT any better at predictions than anyone else. Although with their media power they can and do drive short term markets.

The last of the earnings continue to come in nicely. My COSTCO reports tomorrow.

It is no surprise that the WALL STREET GIANTS are out in force with their comments......they make huge profits from short term trading.......and......legally manipulating the markets is the name of the game for the big traders.

 

This is the big reason that the FED is likely to NOT have much impact on inflation any time soon.

Consumers remain the Fed's biggest problem: Morning Brief

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cons...-biggest-problem-morning-brief-103034998.html

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

"Another month, another strong jobs report.

News last Friday that some 263,000 jobs were created in November showed the Federal Reserve's efforts to slow the economy and bring down inflation remain a work in progress.

Next week, the Federal Reserve will meet and likely vote to raise interest rates another 0.50%.

The central bank's goal in raising interest rates this year has been clear: Bring down inflation. Specifically, by slowing the pace of spending from businesses and consumers.

As the Financial Times reported Tuesday, on the business and investor front, big bank CEOs are certainly hearing more caution from clients as we head into 2023.

But on the consumer side, the situation for the Fed is more challenging.

And the consumer, as ever, is the bulk of the story for the U.S. economy. Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of GDP. Shelter, food, clothes, and vacation all fit under this umbrella.

We've written in this space before that as goes the housing market, so goes the economy. But this idea is just a way of saying housing is the largest expense for most consumers.

Consumers — you, me, our friends and family — are the biggest engine of economic growth. And currently Fed Chair Powell's biggest economic problem.

In an email last week ahead of this jobs data, Neil Dutta, head of economics at Renaissance Macro, highlighted card transaction data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which showed consumer spending running roughly 11% above pre-pandemic levels in the first two weeks of November.

As the following chart from Dutta shows, on a week-to-week basis, spending against 2019 has been volatile, suggesting a series of apparent head fakes on the health of U.S. consumers.

But when smoothed to reflect the four-week average change against the last year before the pandemic, we see steadier growth in spending nearing 10%.


Consumer spending has remained steady in recent months, a sign to some economists efforts from the Fed to slow the economy are yet to bear much fruit. (Source: Renaissance Macro)
"There is room for consumers' spending to remain solid," Dutta wrote. "If you look at the latest data, consumers are simultaneously seeing an increase in their real incomes as gasoline prices drop and drawing down their excess saving."

Not all retailers, of course, are quite as optimistic in their assessment of the current environment.

Speaking with Yahoo Finance this week, Costco (COST) CEO Craig Jelinek said there are some signs of consumers behaving more cautiously. High-end jewelry and high-end televisions were specifically flagged by Jelinek as areas where consumers are slowing purchases.

Last month, Walmart (WMT) flagged an increase in consumers trading down as inflation continued to weigh on shoppers.

A change in some consumer habits or preferences after a frenetic year of consumption in 2021 no doubt presents operational challenges for retailers. And what Costco and Walmart tell us about the U.S. consumer is not to be dismissed.

But altered trajectories for margins or comp sales growth — two all-important metrics for retail executives and investors — don't necessarily reflect the broadest slice of consumer behaviors.

"For me the main issue is straightforward," Dutta wrote. "For all the talk about long and uncertain lags, the Fed has increased the federal funds rate by 400 basis points over the last year and during this time, nominal consumption [has been] stable."

And as consumption stays firm, the Fed will remain resolute in keeping interest rates high, which means Powell's biggest problem is really the market's biggest problem — the U.S. consumer just won't quit."

MY COMMENT

NO DUH........consumers are on fire and will continue to be so. We have basically seen the low end jobs move to a basic wage of about $20 per hour. this is probably at least an increase of about 50% compared to pre-pandemic.

In addition people are still FLUSH with money. Student loan payments are still in moratorium. Free money and extra money is still sloshing around through the economy.....etc, etc, etc.

The FED has little hope of being successful without the consumer showing slowing in spending. And....as usual.....government on all levels is totally working to undermine the FED with massive spending and programs to encourage spending.

 

Speaking of Costco.

Costco CEO weighs in on the great recession debate

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/costco-ceo-weighs-in-on-the-great-recession-debate-155934993.html

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

"Costco (COST) has had an awesome year in a challenging economic climate. But even the CEO of Yahoo Finance's Company of the Year is seeing a few storm clouds taking shape going into 2023.

"You know, a little bit," longtime Costco CEO Craig Jelinek told Yahoo Finance (video above) when asked if he sees signs of a recession forming in the U.S. "Our jewelry business has slowed down. If you look at the really high-end television sets, they've slowed down. I think right now people are very, very value-conscious. They're always value-conscious, but I think more so now than ever."

Costco didn't have a perfect sales record in November (though sales were still relatively impressive) as shoppers spent more cautiously amid news of increasing layoffs and stubbornly high inflation.

The retail giant's same-store sales growth cooled versus October, the company reported on Nov. 30.

"Look, over the last six or eight months as there's been inflation and concerns of recession, my answer is: It rains on everyone, maybe it drizzles on us, not hard rain," Costco CFO Richard Galanti told Yahoo Finance. "And so we've done a little better than our peers. This [month] was a slight downtick in those numbers. I've been through this rodeo many times over 38 years. We are just going to keep working to drive sales and drive value."

Investors still punished the often-Teflon stock on the view 2023 would bring further sales slowdowns.

"Like others in retail, Costco is experiencing a macro-driven dichotomy between consumables and discretionary comps, with the former 'squeezing out' the latter," Guggenheim analyst John Heinbockel explained in a note to clients. "More so than some, last year’s supply chain-inspired demand pullforward may have been a greater weight on the larger-ticket discretionary categories."

Heinbockel said he sees better same-store sales for Costco in 2023 as the retailer continues to seize market share from traditional grocery stores.

To be sure, 2023 is shaping up as an economic wildcard for companies to navigate. There are investment banks such as Goldman Sachs that see a 35% chance of a U.S. recession in 2023, although others are far more pessimistic.

"As we survey the prospects for the global economy, we see many reasons for concern, including continued challenges from the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, high inflation, and headwinds from central bank rate hikes," Citi Chief Economist Nathan Sheets wrote in a recent note. "Reflecting these factors, the global economy is likely to endure 'rolling' country-level recessions during the coming year."

Citi expects the eurozone and U.K. to enter a recession by the end of this year. The U.S. stands to enter a recession by mid-2023, Sheets believes, as the full impact of higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve is felt by consumers and businesses.

Meanwhile, BNP Paribas has also outlined a tough road ahead for the global economy.

"We expect a downturn in global GDP growth in 2023, led by recessions in both the U.S. and the eurozone, with below-trend growth in China and many emerging markets," the BNP strategy team said in a note of its own this month."

MY COMMENT

The one company that WILL do better in the consumer space than the others is......COSTCO. Amazing management, amazing employees and extremely loyal customers. Their business model is perfection for the current economy.

The above is VERY mild comments from the CEO.......mostly CYA.

Looking forward to their earnings tomorrow.....although they will probably end up being punished.....just because.

 

This is DEFINITELY good news for the general economy, specific businesses and inflation. We will obviously see more and more year over year data like this as we move further from the impact of the covid lock-downs.

Freight rates from China to West Coast down 90% as global trade falls off fast

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/07/fre...st-down-90percent-as-trade-falls-rapidly.html

The excesses of the past couple of years are now smoothing out. This is how the economy works.....if you can keep government out of the picture and allow the free markets to do their work......it is all about supply and demand.

 

One other little snippet for Apple shareholders like myself. this is what happens when you tie your company to the worlds most brutal communist dictatorship.

Morgan Stanley cuts iPhone shipment estimate by another 3 million units

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/07/iph...y-another-3-million-units-morgan-stanley.html

 

Speaking about the housing market here in my area earlier.....here is some relevant information.

Mortgage demand falls again even as rates sink further

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/07/mortgage-demand-falls-again-interest-rates-decline.html

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

"Key Points

• Mortgage application volume fell 1.9% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index.
• Applications to refinance a home loan rose 5% for the week but were still 86% lower than the same week one year ago.
• Mortgage applications to purchase a home fell 3% for the week and were 40% lower than the same week one year ago.

Lower mortgage rates are pulling some current homeowners back to the refinance market, but not enough to offset the drop in demand from homebuyers.

Mortgage application volume fell 1.9% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) decreased to 6.41% from 6.49%, with points decreasing to 0.63 from 0.68 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment. That is 73 basis points lower than it was a month ago but still more than three full percentage points higher than it was a year ago.

Applications to refinance a home loan rose 5% for the week but were still 86% lower than the same week one year ago. There are still precious few current borrowers who can benefit from a refinance at today’s higher interest rates. The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 28.7% of total applications from 26.1% the previous week.

Mortgage applications to purchase a home fell 3% for the week and were 40% lower than the same week one year ago.

“Purchase activity slowed last week, with a drop in conventional purchase applications partially offset by an increase in FHA and USDA loan applications,” noted Joel Kan, an MBA economist in a release.

The average loan size for homebuyer applications decreased to $387,300 — its lowest level since January 2021, which is consistent with slightly stronger government applications and a rapidly cooling home-price environment, according to Kan.

Mortgage rates haven’t moved much this week, with no significant economic news making headlines. The next big shift will likely come next week, with the much-anticipated monthly read on inflation."

MY COMMENT

Much of the above is simply statistical and not really indicative of much to the average buyer or seller. I note that the mortgage rate of 6.41% above is with.......0.63 points ....so the rates are really higher. In my area it looks like the average 30 year rate is still about 7% with zero points.

 

OK......we currently have a nicely in the green DOW.......and......GASP.......the SP500 and NASDAQ are also in the green.

I think I will sign off while the markets are still ahead.

 

Pearl Harbor Day today.

This day used to be......back in the old days.....nearly a national holiday. It was strongly recognized every year. This was especially true for myself and my family since we lived on Army bases throughout my childhood, teen years, and college years. Every person I knew through high school......had parents that were WWII veterans. There would always be big celebrations and events in remembrance of Pearl Harbor when I was growing up.

One of my High School teachers was a military nurse at Pearl Harbor during the attack. She would take three days of class every year to tell her class about the events of the attack and her experiences as a nurse during the attack. I still have many memories of her story on that day.

Now.......there is barley any mention of it.......and no celebrations much at all. I doubt most people under about age 50 even know much about it. It has been replaced by 9-11. It is now just a long ago historical event.......with little to no real memory.......since most of those that lived the event are now dead. For the parents of the baby boom generation this was a LIFE DEFINING EVENT in their lives.