The Long Term Investor

To continue the above theme.

Mind the anecdata

https://www.tker.co/p/weekly-macro-signals-from-anecdata

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

"The New York Giants appear to have a supply chain problem.

In a research note to clients Friday, Wells Fargo’s Christopher Harvey flagged a locker-room interview with Giants wide receiver Kenny Golladay from earlier in the week. Behind him was a printout notifying players “DO NOT GIVE YOUR GAME JERSEY AWAY OR SWAP IT… THE UNIFORM COMPANY WHO MAKES OUR JERSEYS CAN NOT MAKE ANYMORE FOR US THIS YEAR.”

It’s a funny anecdote.

It’s also the kind of anecdote that a market prognosticator might reference to support her priors that we are still in the throes of a global supply chain crisis.

However, this is what statisticians might characterize as a type I error, or a false positive.

In reality, most broad supply chain-related metrics (e.g., delivery times, inventories, freight costs, shipping capacity, inflation) suggest this crisis we were facing a year ago has subsided.

[For more on this, read: “A bunch of charts showing how supply chains have improved⛓“ and “9 reasons to be optimistic about the economy .]

Yes, there will be plenty of anecdotes suggesting otherwise. But this will always be the case for everything.

We can say the same thing about the high-profile, large-scale layoffs announced at big tech companies over the past year. Last week, Microsoft announced it would cut 10,000 jobs and Google-parent Alphabet announced it would cut 12,000 jobs.

There’s no question these are large numbers, and it’s a very difficult situation for those affected.

But according to Goldman Sachs research, there have been numerous instances when a spike in layoffs in the the tech industry — which represents less than 3% of total employment — did not portend widespread job cuts across the economy.

[For more on this, read: “Don't be misled by no-context reports of big tech layoffs .“]

Unfortunately, it’s the case that many companies conduct many layoffs even during periods of economic growth. For almost two years, U.S. employers have laid off between 1.2 million and 1.5 million employees a month. Again, these are large numbers. However, these figures amount to just 0.8% to 1.0% of total employment, which is low by historical standards. Prior to the pandemic, this layoff rate never fell below 1.1%.

[For more on this, read: “9 reasons to be optimistic about the economy and markets .”]


The layoff rate stood at 0.9% in November. (Source: BLS via FRED)
These trends are confirmed by weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance, which are near the lowest levels of the current economic cycle.


There were just 190,000 initial claims during the week ending January 14. (Source: DoL via FRED)
The fact that unemployment remains low and job openings have been ticking lower from very high levels suggest many people being laid off are quickly finding work elsewhere.

Vox’s Emily Stewart said it well in an article published Thursday: “If a whisper of a layoff is the thing that goes bump in the night, tons of news stories about thousands of people at Big Important Companies being out of a job feels like the giant monster standing in your door ready to eat you. But all is not as it seems.“

The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson had an article on the topic Friday, noting that among other things tech was in a bubble in recent years. On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal highlighted that from 2019 to 2022, “the employee count at Amazon doubled, Microsoft’s rose 53%, Google parent Alphabet Inc.’s increased 57% and Facebook owner Meta’s ballooned 94%.“

[For more on this, read: “Beware alarming business stories that get a lot of news coverage ️.“]

We certainly can’t rule out the possibility that significant layoffs could come to larger parts of the economy. However, the data suggest the pain is relatively isolated.

Anecdata isn’t totally worthless

Every couple of weeks, the Federal Reserve publishes its “Beige Book” of economic anecdotes. And it’ll include stuff like:

• "A low-cost retailer reported that falling gas prices had driven stronger sales in December, but a high-end retailer exclaimed that 'December is not happening!'"
  
  
• “Moreover, visits to major tourist attractions, such as the Statue of Liberty, have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. While attendance at Broadway shows has been mixed, high-profile musicals targeted towards visitors have reportedly fared quite well.“
  

Anecdotes can be valuable in that they often put a face on the stats we read about every day. Sometimes, they will indeed confirm changes in the economic tides.

However, I’d approach anecdotes with caution. If they’re not confirmed by broader measures or if they conflict with the confluence of available data, then you risk making type I and type II (i.e., a false negative) errors.

So don’t dismiss the anecdata. Just be mindful."

MY COMMENT

This little article hits on the primary indicator that the economy ad the markets will be good this year. The......SUPPLY CHAIN......is the key. We are NOW seeing the begining of the final stages of the distortion of the economy by the pandemic shut-down. As things continue to quickly normalize business will thrive.

Supply chain issues.....were a primary cause of the inflation, were a primary cause of the employment distortions.....were a primary cause of just about ALL the distortions in our economy for the past couple of years.

 

And to continue the above......I am NOT a fan of China.....but the continued recovery in the Chinese economy and also their reaction to Covid as a country is going to also be a big driver of our economy this year. NO.....I still would NEVER buy a Chinese company stock. BUT.....I will take the big boost they are going to give to AMERICAN COMPANIES over the next year or so.

The China Tailwind in 2023

https://www.fisherinvestments.com/en-us/insights/market-commentary/the-china-tailwind-in-2023

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

"With sentiment stubbornly low, positive surprise should be easy to achieve.

China announced Q4 and full-year 2022 GDP today, and in a telling sign of sentiment, it was basically an afterthought. Sure, Q4’s 2.9% y/y growth made headlines, as did the 3.0% full-year growth and its big miss of the 5.5% official target. But most of the China discussion centered on two more forward-looking factors: news that the population declined in 2022, allegedly signaling that the One-Child Rule’s chickens are about to come home to roost in the economy, and outgoing Vice Premier Liu He’s big ode to markets, money and the private sector at Davos today. The general reaction? Soliciting private capital—and promising that the government isn’t interested in central planning—risks being cheap talk and too little, too late to overcome declining productivity and demographic challenges. We can’t think of a better sentiment backdrop for stocks.

Even if you don’t invest in Emerging Markets, China matters. It is the world’s second-largest economy and therefore a key contributor to global GDP.[ii] It is also a key link in the global supply chain, making its Zero-COVID policy a pretty big global headwind until officials lifted it late last year. Intermittent factory and port closures bore much of the responsibility for global shortages and disruptions in freight traffic, both of which contributed to inflation (and stocks’ inflation freakout) in the developed world. Because of its importance, sentiment toward China’s economy—and how reality eventually squares with that—affects developed-world markets.

These days, the gap between sentiment and reality looks quite wide. Zero-COVID may be over, but with the virus’s winter wave still barreling through major cities, few expect an economic recovery before spring at the earliest. Even then, very few see a fast snap-back. Not with demographic challenges now seemingly setting in. As for Liu’s overture to the World Economic Forum, attendees and analysts largely wrote it off as lip service. Some speculated that it couldn’t carry much weight since Liu is retiring in March and his replacement is likely to be one of President Xi Jinping’s loyalists—someone who doesn’t hail from the Chinese Communist Party’s more market-oriented Youth League faction. Others noted that for all the nice-sounding nostrums, Liu also stuck to buzzwords like “common prosperity,” which has come to mean more redistribution and central planning and has long been associated with the regulatory crackdown on China’s Tech and Tech-like companies.

Yet he also seemingly tried to redefine the term, saying: “Common prosperity is by no means a synonym of egalitarianism or welfarism. As China grows, all Chinese people will be better off, but that doesn’t mean their incomes and level of prosperity have to be the same. (That is to say, there will be equal opportunities, but no guarantee of equal outcomes.) Entrepreneurship is a key factor for wealth creation of a society. Therefore, entrepreneurs, both Chinese and foreign, will play an important role as the engine driving China’s historical pursuit of common prosperity. If wealth doesn’t grow, common prosperity will become a river without source or a tree without roots.”[iii] Given how coordinated China’s policy announcements have been lately—and how much Xi has consolidated power—it seems highly unlikely Liu was speaking out of turn.

Still, we agree some skepticism is logical. Watch what they do, not what they say is always a good approach in any country. Yes, official mutterings about easing COVID restrictions translated to actual action, as did veiled pledges to support the economy and property developers. The smorgasbord of policies announced on those fronts the past several weeks are concrete and should bear fruit. At the same time, while the central government has tried to signal that the regulatory crackdown is over, it is also taking official stakes in the affected Chinese companies—stakes that come with special voting rights giving the government a heavier say over business decisions. So we agree, a speech from one outgoing official isn’t an all-clear sign that intervention is out and markets are in. However, it does mesh with more efforts to support businesses and private financing, which the People’s Bank of China has also stressed recently. The consistency is encouraging.

As for demographic concerns, those aren’t new. Investors have seen them coming for decades—demographic changes are generally too well-known and slow-moving to have much market effect. There are also some mitigating factors that get much less attention. Like: China still has nearly half a billion people living in the countryside, which is a vast untapped well of human capital. Continued urbanization over time could offset the real impact of the decline in the working-age population. So could technology, automation, an increased shift from manufacturing to services and even good old-fashioned higher birthrates, which are possible now that the One-Child Rule is no more. Mostly, with everyone saying the economic challenges are now manifesting, we think it just lowers the sentiment bar that much further.

Besides, markets don’t look far to the future. They look 3 – 30 months out. So what matters is what people expect and whether reality is likely to beat that. We see a high likelihood it will. With the Davos audience calling Liu’s speech “too good to be true,” it probably won’t take a full-throated embrace of capitalism to surprise positively. A return to the pre-COVID way of doing business in the country—or something close to it—would likely more than suffice. As for the pure economic data, we are already seeing reality beat. Look at December retail sales, which fell just -1.8% y/y, smashing expectations for an -8.5% drop.[iv] Total trade in goods managed to grow 7.7% last year—even with lockdowns and supply chain kinks—fruit of businesses’ creativity and perseverance in the face of big challenges.[v] High-tech manufacturing remained heavy industry’s growth engine, a sign of continued advancement that counters all today’s claims about China’s development stalling. While services were weaker overall, high tech-related services grew nicely. In other words, the areas one would rightly see as China’s future are doing quite well indeed. Those that are more tied to China’s past are the laggards. That is what we would expect for a country following the tried-and-true economic development path.

GDP growth probably won’t return to the fast rates of old, but it doesn’t need to. Just modestly better than expected is good enough for China’s contribution to global GDP to surprise global observers this year. The baseline expectation seems to be a struggling economy hampered by demographics, COVID challenges and government policy. Looking at the data in detail, it seems to us that China is already exceeding this low bar. As the world gradually realizes this, falling uncertainty should be a nice tailwind. "

MY COMMENT

I am happy to see much more focus lately on moving our tech and other manufacturing to India and Viet Nam. After all......India...has a larger population than china and is much more aligned with our values as a business partner.

In addition workers from India are now fully embedded throughout our tech and other big business economy here is the USA. They are our most natural business ally in the world going forward.

AND....between both India and China we have massive..... relatively untapped.......markets for the future growth of AMERICAN companies.

 

HERE is a little about the short term.....today and this week in the markets. AND.....yes.....so far the RALLY continues today.

Stocks rise as big earnings week begins

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-updates-january-23-2023-111002698.html

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

"U.S. stocks gained Monday as investors braced for a jam-packed week of corporate earnings and contemplated the Federal Reserve's next rate move ahead of the central bank's meeting later this month.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) advanced 0.9%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added about 240 points, or 0.7%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) again led the way higher, rallying 1.5%.

All eyes were on Salesforce (CRM) Monday morning after the news hedge fund Elliott Investment Management has taken a multibillion-dollar activist stake in the software giant. Shares advanced 2.6% at the start of trading.

“Salesforce is one of the preeminent software companies in the world, and having followed the company for nearly two decades, we have developed a deep respect for Marc Benioff and what he has built,” Elliott managing partner Jesse Cohn said in a statement. “We look forward to working constructively with Salesforce to realize the value befitting a company of its stature.”

Elsewhere in early moves, Spotify Technology (SPOT) shares rose roughly 5.8% early into the session after the company confirmed the music streaming platform will cut 6% of its workforce, adding to a growing bout of cost-trimming layoffs across the technology sector.

The moves Monday morning come after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rallied toward a winning week on Friday, regaining their footing after two downbeat sessions. The Dow lagged for the week, falling just less than 2%.

Tech stocks have so far led an uptrend across U.S. equities that's kicked off the year, with the Nasdaq gaining more than 6% in January so far.

On the economic side, despite messaging from Federal Reserve officials that interest rates will move above 5%, markets have cheered another expected downshift to a smaller hike in February after some weaker economic data points. The CME FedWatch Tool, which serves as a barometer for imminent Fed rate and U.S. monetary policy, shows markets are pricing in a 99.8% chance of a 25-basis point hike Feb. 2.

The U.S. dollar index, as well as U.S. Treasury yields, retreated Monday morning on these expectations.

The bets were also further bolstered by a weekend piece by Wall Street Journal reporter Nick Timiraos that said officials are preparing to slow down from 50 basis points in December to 25 basis points at their next policy-setting meeting Jan. 31-Feb. 1.

Investors are also entering the throes of what appears to be a murky earnings season. Market giants including Microsoft (MSFT) and Tesla (TSLA) are scheduled to report results this week, along with dozens of other big names. The days ahead will also be packed with economic data, with a reading on gross domestic product (GDP) for the fourth quarter due out Thursday.

Of roughly 11% of companies in the S&P 500 index that have reported fourth-quarter earnings to date, just 67% have seen earnings per share come in above estimates — below the five-year average of 77% that typically do — according to data from FactSet Research. Moreover, Wall Street analysts have been downwardly revising estimates.

History shows, however, that stocks are more inclined to rise in years when earnings fall than not.

"This may seem counterintuitive, but it makes sense when we remind ourselves that markets are forward looking," LPL Financial Chief Equity Strategist Jeffrey Buchbinder notes. "The markets generally price in earnings declines well before they happen—maybe two or three quarters ahead. By the time earnings declines are in the books, stocks have moved higher in anticipation of the next earnings upcycle."


MY COMMENT

I see the earnings.....so far....as very nice. They have primarily been bank earnings so far. I personally see a 67% beat rate for the banks portion of earnings reporting as a pretty good result so far. From here on we will see the guts of the......non-bank....earnings coming in.

I believe the earnings....regardless of how the markets react short term.....will contain much more positive information than negative. RIGHT NOW is the start of the recovery from the bear market......well.....actually it began with the June bottom. NOW.....is the time for long term forward looking investors to have some confidence.

A year or two from now people will be kicking themselves that they did not buy BIG CAP LEADING AMERICAN COMPANIES at the current levels when they had the chance. The market timers and traders.....will as usual.....STILL be trying to decide whether it is time to get back into the markets.

 

I dont even have to look at my account today......I KNOW......I am up nicely for the day. With the big earnings tomorrow there is some slight potential for the dreaded......late day fade.....today. BUT....it sure is a good start to the day.

SHOW ME THE MONEY.

 

Of course I had to look at my account after posting the above......EVERY....stock Up at the moment. AND.....in my usual fashion of rewarding myself psychically........and....CELEBRATING the positive....I am now looking at a gain YTD of 7.31%. I am seeing accounts pushing toward levels that I have not seen in many, many, months. The good news is.....they STILL have HUGE upside potential to get back to prior highs.

As is obvious......I tend to focus on the results of my TEN STOCKS in my day to day and long term analysis. That is what counts to me........are my stock picks a net gain or a net drag on my account? About 40% of my account is in the SP500 and Fidelity Contra Fund, which tends to equal or slightly beat the SP500. There is no reason for me to give that portion of my account any focus.....it is my baseline.

My interest is whether or not MY stock picks.....which reflect my inherent BIASES and personality..... can beat the SP500 long term. If they cant.....well.....I should simply be all in on the SP500. So far over my lifetime, I am well ahead of the game. That is why over the long term the stocks in my account have settled in at about 60% of the total account value.....compared to the funds.

As a long term investor.....I watch those ten stocks.......but dont usually do anything. I let them run as they wish.....I REFUSE to second guess the long term with the short term.

 

Starting to get some tax documents in. Another 3-4 weeks I will have everything and be ready to knock out the returns. I got the Social Security documents today. I am still waiting for Schwab and my six annuities. Schwab is always the last one...usually some time after mid February.

Doing taxes is so simple now compared to the past. Deductions are so limited and the standard deduction is so large that I dont have to do much. Back in the old days being a business owner, and a owning business building....with such things as income averaging, and other items.....I had to use a CPA......even though I have very good tax law knowledge from business and law school. (not to mention there was no such thing as Turbo-tax)

I now do three returns each year......mine, my sibling, and the family trust tax return. At one time I was doing 7 returns each year.......ours, my sibling, my parents, my in laws, the trust, and both kids. Doing only three is now a snap.

 

A GREAT market day today. Strength all day long. I had all ten stocks in the green today. PLUS.....I got in another big beat on the SP500 by 0.91% today.

Microsoft earnings will be in focus tomorrow.....with much speculation going on during the day.

 

I like this little investment for the future by MSFT. They are so flush with money.....I am glad to see them put it to use in this fashion rather than stock buy-backs.

Microsoft to invest billions in OpenAI in quest to beat out Amazon, Google

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/micr...uest-to-beat-out-amazon-google-150243825.html

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

"Microsoft (MSFT) is making a multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI, the company behind the much discussed artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, ChatGPT. The move comes as Microsoft looks to add OpenAI’s capabilities to its own software offerings, giving it a potential edge over competitors ranging from Salesforce (CRM) to Google (GOOG, GOOGL).

“We formed our partnership with OpenAI around a shared ambition to responsibly advance cutting-edge AI research and democratize AI as a new technology platform,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement.

“In this next phase of our partnership, developers and organizations across industries will have access to the best AI infrastructure, models, and toolchain with Azure to build and run their applications.”

Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019. But the latest investment comes as the tech giant is contending with a round of layoffs that struck businesses ranging from its cloud services to gaming.

OpenAI has garnered enormous attention in recent years thanks to AI-powered apps including its DALL-E image platform and, more recently, the chatbot ChatGPT. Interest in ChatGPT exploded in November, when it became available for use by the general public.

In a statement, OpenAI said Microsoft’s investment will enable it to develop and research AI that is increasingly “safe, useful, and powerful.”

“We’ve worked together to build multiple supercomputing systems powered by Azure, which we use to train all of our models,” the company said in a statement.

“Azure’s unique architecture design has been crucial in delivering best-in-class performance and scale for our AI training and inference workloads. Microsoft will increase their investment in these systems to accelerate our independent research and Azure will remain the exclusive cloud provider for all OpenAI workloads across our research, API and products.”

Microsoft’s announcement comes at a perilous time, however. On Jan. 18, the company said it will layoff 10,000 employees by the end of its fiscal Q3. The move will also result in a $1.2 billion charge for the company.

OpenAI’s capabilities, however, have been touted as being a potential win for Microsoft, as it looks to build on the strength of its cloud business. Bringing OpenAI’s artificial intelligence capabilities to those platforms could give Microsoft a strong edge on rivals like market leader Amazon and third place Alphabet in the cloud industry.

There’s also talk of ChatGPT being a possible game changer for Microsoft’s Bing, giving the company what could be a major edge over Alphabet’s Google Search by providing users with easy to understand and conversational answers to their search queries."

MY COMMENT

I like this. It shows that the initial investment back in 2019 is starting to pay-off. I also like to see these BIG CAP TECH GIANTS competing and striving for supremacy. That will benefit ALL my tech holdings.

 

I also like this little story. I did notice that the media seems to have gotten tired of bashing Elon Musk at the moment. He did not cave.....so they moved on. PLEASE NOTE......this is informational ONLY.....I dont do stock recommendations for anyone on this thread.

Buy Tesla stock ahead of earnings, analyst says

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/buy-tesla-stock-ahead-of-earnings-analyst-says-204717696.html

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

"Bet the farm on battered Tesla (TSLA) stock ahead of the company's hotly anticipated earnings report on Wednesday, contends Canaccord Genuity analyst George Gianarikas.

"Buy [Tesla stock] — it's pretty simple," Gianarikas said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "The stock had a pretty bad 2022 in terms of performance. That was based on multiple things, and some would attribute it to Elon Musk's rantings on Twitter. We think it had a lot to do with the demand situation impacting Tesla, first in China and later kind of leaking into other parts of the world, including the United States. People know that. A lot of that seems to be priced into the stock."

The bullish call on Tesla — which has become a rarity in recent months on the Street — runs counter to a host of red flags on the automaker's fundamentals.

Tesla reported a delivery growth figure of 39% for 2022, which badly missed analyst estimates and fell below the company's own guidance of 50%.

And earlier this month, Tesla cut the price of the Model 3 base version by $3,000 to $43,990 and the Model 3 Performance version by $9,000 to $53,990 in the U.S. As for the Model Y Long Range, the price dropped by $13,000 to $52,990 while the Performance model was cut to $56,990, about $13,000 cheaper than the prior price.

The U.S. discounts come hot on the heels of recent price reductions in China, Japan, and South Korea as Tesla looks to reignite demand against growing competitive threats.

Gianarikas said he believes the price cuts will stoke demand, even if it weighs on profit margins. The analyst is also bullish on the margin lift to Tesla from selling more software upgrades to customers.

Still, Tesla stock has plunged 54% over the past year, not helped by Elon Musk's chaotic tenure as Twitter's owner.

"Very simply, this is a fork-in-the-road year ahead for Tesla that will either lay the groundwork for its next chapter of growth OR continue its slide from the top of the perch with Musk leading the way downhill," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a more bearish note to clients this month. "Now is a time for leadership from Musk to lead Tesla through this period of softer demand in a darker macro and NOT the time to be hands-off, which is the perception of the Street.""

MY COMMENT

This is an EXTREMELY aggressive call.....to "bet the farm". I dont EVER bet the farm on anything especially this stock. It represents a little over 1% in all my accounts.

I do agree with the sentiment that the stock is a bargain. i dont consider delivery growth of 39% a disaster by any means. I also believe that having pricing power is going to drive additional market share for the company in the EV space and over the next few years will lead to very large increases in the fundamentals for the company and the stock.

 

The markets in hindsight today.

Tech leads stocks higher as big earnings week begins

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-updates-january-23-2023-111002698.html


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

"U.S. stocks gained Monday as investors braced for a jam-packed week of corporate earnings and contemplated the Federal Reserve's next rate move before officials meet later this month.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) advanced 1.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) jumped about 250 points, or 0.8%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) again led the way higher, rallying 2%.

The moves Monday come after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rallied toward a winning week on Friday, regaining their footing after two downbeat sessions. The Dow lagged for the week, falling just less than 2%.

Tech stocks have so far led an uptrend across U.S. equities to kick off the year, with the Nasdaq gaining more than 9% in January so far.

Chip stocks helped extend the winning streak across tech to start the week, with shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Nvidia (NVDA) each rising 9.2% and 7.6%, respectively, on Monday.

Wayfair's (W) stock surged nearly 27% after the online furniture retailer said it would lay off 1,750 employees to support restructuring and cost-cutting efforts. The company also got an upgrade from JPMorgan.

Meanwhile, eyes were on Salesforce (CRM) Monday after the news hedge fund Elliott Investment Management has taken a multibillion-dollar activist stake in the software giant. Shares advanced more than 3%.

“Salesforce is one of the preeminent software companies in the world, and having followed the company for nearly two decades, we have developed a deep respect for Marc Benioff and what he has built,” Elliott managing partner Jesse Cohn said in a statement. “We look forward to working constructively with Salesforce to realize the value befitting a company of its stature.”

Elsewhere in stock moves Monday, Spotify Technology (SPOT) shares rose roughly 2.1% after the company confirmed the music streaming platform will cut 6% of its workforce, adding to a growing bout of cost-trimming layoffs across the technology sector.

On the economic side, despite messaging from Federal Reserve officials that interest rates will move above 5%, markets have cheered another expected downshift to a smaller hike in February after some weaker economic data points. The CME FedWatch Tool, which serves as a barometer for imminent Fed rate and U.S. monetary policy, shows markets are pricing in a 99.8% chance of a 25-basis point hike.

The U.S. dollar index, as well as U.S. Treasury yields, retreated Monday on these expectations.

The bets were also further bolstered by a weekend piece by Wall Street Journal reporter Nick Timiraos that said officials are preparing to slow down from 50 basis points in December to 25 basis points at their next policy-setting meeting Jan. 31-Feb. 1.

etc, etc, etc."

MY COMMENT

Lets hope that everyone in the media pushing the FED and a 0.25% increase at the start of February.....story line.....is not setting the markets up for an UNNECESSARY drop in February in the event of a 0.50% hike. It seems like this has been the norm lately....people getting a little carried away with FED predictions.

I would be happy with either 0.25% or 0.50%. The larger one will simply move the end of the rate hikes from about 3-4 more to about 2-3 more. After that the FED is basically out of the picture and can sit for as long as they want.

 

One issue that I am seeing all over the financial media lately.....and I dont have the slightest concern or care over......is the debt limit and Social Security insolvency fear mongering that is rampant right now. Anyone my age has seen this same old drama replayed over and over and over. The politicians must think the public are IDIOTS to fall for this fear mongering again.

I could solve the Social Security issue with a single sentence bill......."Congress is absolutely prohibited from removing or borrowing any funds from any Social Security Trust Fund and is prohibited from using the worthless special Treasury IOU's that they currently use to steal the money every year." There you go.

The politicians are freaking out because someday their little scheme of stealing the Trust Fund by using their special debt instruments that pay NO actual interest.....will all come due. It will be time to cash in the special Treasuries.....and they will be worthless.....other than the promise of the government to pay. At that point they will be forced to finance a HUGE amount of Social Security from annual tax revenue or other borrowing. That will severely cut into their ability to spend money like maniacs.

 

Ok Emmett......LOL. BUT......please anyone else......this is not the place to get specific stock buying or selling advice. You have to make your own decisions based on your personal situation.

 

Can you believe this......I am no fan of the IRS......but this is simply insanity. They say they are going to fix this.....we will see.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/irs-...and-deliver-tax-refunds-faster-164937115.html

Here is the part that I find unbelievable.

"As of 2022, the IRS was still processing paper returns manually, meaning IRS employees had to input every number on every paper return into the system. The daunting task left a backlog of 21 million unprocessed returns last year, delaying the disbursement of tax refunds to many households."

No wonder they had a 21 MILLION return backlog for 2021 taxes.......imagine having to input every single number from every return received.....by hand. Come on man.........how long have we had some form of scanning technology being used in business?

I dont know why I always expect more.....but.....the level of incompetence in our government bureaucracy is STAGGERING.

 

Thanks guys.....now that you all bought I am selling all shares. Thanks for driving up the price for me.

A JOKE.......I would NEVER front-run a stock on here or anywhere. AND.......this thread is NOT investment advice.....other than a confirmation of long term investing.

 

I have been watching the markets today since about an hour before the open. I dot feel like there is much confidence in where the averages are siting right now. We could end DOWN......or.......we could end UP. the day is still very much in play for short term traders.

I did hear someone on the TV saying that the J&J earnings were a miss. What the hell. They were DEFINITELY NOT a miss....at worst they were mixed......and....my view is that they were mostly a beat. Yes the failure of their Covid shot dragged then down some. BUT....they did beat some of the primary expectations and were extremely close to others. More importantly their forward looking comments were very positive. It was definately NOT a miss

I see this report as a good harbinger for earnings to come.

"Johnson & Johnson guided to stronger earnings for 2023 than analysts were expecting after a year in which the pharma division suffered because of waning demand for its unpopular Covid-19 shot.".....

"Overall, adjusted earnings were $2.35 a share, compared to estimates for $2.23. Revenue of $23.7 billion was just shy of the average analyst estimate of $23.9 billion. Those quarterly sales were down 4.4% from a year earlier. J&J is in the process of splitting off its consumer division."......

"The company painted a rosier picture for earnings in 2023, which was encouraging for investors".....

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/j-j-guides-higher-full-122220639.html