The Long Term Investor

HERE is the market close today.

Dow closes nearly 200 points higher, S&P 500 notches third straight advance as bank shares jump: Live updates

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/26/sto...ll-street-looks-to-build-on-winning-week.html

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

"The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose Monday, building on last week’s gains, as investors attempted to move on from the crisis that broke out in the regional bank sector earlier this month following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

The blue-chip stock index gained 194.55 points, or 0.6%, to end at 32,432.08. The S&P 500 was up 0.2% to 3,977.53. The Nasdaq Composite finished lower by 0.5% at 11,768.84.

Regional banks rose broadly. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) rose about 1%, after climbing more than 3% earlier in the day. First Republic surged 11.8%. PacWest also gained 3.4%.

“Market sentiment is improving as policymakers take steps to alleviate the recent challenges,” said Brian Levitt, global market strategist at Invesco. “An extension of the liquidity facility that had been set up by the Federal Reserve meaningfully eases prior concerns that a series of bank runs could be in the offing.”

The Dow on Monday

A series of events helped sentiment in the sector. CNBC reported over the weekend that the deposit outflows from small banks to industry giants like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo has slowed in recent days.

Also, Bloomberg News reported that U.S. authorities were considering expanding an emergency lending program for banks, which could give First Republic more time to shore up its liquidity. First Republic ended last week down 46.3% as investors contemplated whether the plan from a group of banks to deposit $30 billion would be enough to bolster its balance sheet.

And First Citizens BancShares agreed to buy large parts of Silicon Valley Bank, the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said overnight. The deal includes the purchase of approximately $72 billion of SVB assets at a discount of $16.5 billion, but around $90 billion in securities and other assets will remain “in receivership for disposition by the FDIC,” which is the acronym for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

“We continue to think that the Treasury has the capacity to provide a backstop for uninsured deposits if it becomes necessary,” Goldman Sachs’ Jan Hatzius said in a Monday note. “While we would not entirely rule out Treasury action if acute banking stress returns, the odds of a unilateral move from the Treasury appear very low.”

Deutsche Bankalso rebounded by 4.7% after traders last week targeted the German lender following the forced takeover of Credit Suisse.

But technology shares fell as an increase in interest rates dampened hopes of a better outlook for growth stocks. Alphabet slid 2.8%, while Meta slipped 1.5%.

Wall Street was coming off a winning week despite volatility related to the Federal Reserve’s latest interest rate hike and the ongoing bank crisis. Despite the recent turmoil, the S&P 500 is on track to finish March flat and the first quarter ending on Friday with an increase of more than 3%."

MY COMMENT

Now that the bank issues are going to fade it will once more be all about interest rates.....especially....the Ten Year Treasury.

Unfortunately that will cause a bit more turmoil for the TECH companies since for some reason the financial industry has convinced themselves.....FOOLISHLY and FALSELY in my view.....that the BIG CAP TECH companies that are flush with cash and have a license to mint money....should be seen as interest rate sensitive.

I can see how the young startup tech companies that need to borrow might be impacted by treasury rates. BUT.....the BIG CAP tech companies....no way. If anyone has the cash on hand to NOT have to borrow of depend on financing it is the big tech companies.

 

A relevant story for buyers and sellers.

Home prices drop for seventh-straight month to start 2023

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/home...h-straight-month-to-start-2023-130026707.html

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

"U.S. home prices logged a seventh-straight monthly decline in January as rising interest rates continue to pressure home prices and the housing market overall.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price index fell 0.5% in January compared to the previous month, according to data released on Tuesday. On a yearly basis, the index climbed 3.8% in January, down from 5.6% in the previous month.

The report's 20-City Composite index, which tracks prices in the 20 largest metros, showed prices fell 0.6% over the prior month in January and rose just 2.5% over last year. All 20 cities reported lower prices in the year ending January 2023 versus the year ending December 2022, the report said.

Regionally, the cities that saw the largest price gains over last year in January were in Miami, Tampa, and Atlanta with year-over-year increases 13.8%, 10.5%, 8.4%, respectively.

On the other hand, once-popular markets such as San Francisco, San Diego, Portland, and Seattle all saw homes prices fall against the prior year, with drops of 7.6%, 1.4%, and 5.1%, respectively.

"January's market weakness was broadly based," wrote Craig Lazzara, Managing Director at S&P DJI, in the release.

"Before seasonal adjustment, 19 cities registered a decline; the seasonally adjusted picture is a bit brighter, with only 15 cities declining. With or without seasonal adjustment, most cities' January declines were less severe than their December counterparts."

"Financial news this month has been dominated by ructions in the commercial banking industry, as some institutions' risk management functions proved unequal to the rising level of interest rates,” Lazzara added.

"Despite this, the Federal Reserve remains focused on its inflation-reduction targets, which suggest that rates may remain elevated in the near-term. Mortgage financing and the prospect of economic weakness are therefore likely to remain a headwind for housing prices for at least the next several months."

Relationship between home prices and monetary policy

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark rate 0.25% to a range of 4.75%-5% and said additional policy rate increases may be appropriate, which could impact future home prices.

In a study published in March, researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found that home prices respond to surprise monetary policy changes in just a few weeks.

"Housing list prices fall within two weeks after the Federal Reserve announces an unexpected policy tightening, similar to responses of other financial assets," Denis Gorea, Augustus Kmetz, Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Marianna Kudlyak, and Mitchell Ochse, wrote in the research letter.

The twist, though, is that home prices react to unexpected changes in "long-term" interest rates rather than shifts in the short-term federal funds rate. This explains why changes in mortgage rates following the Fed's policy changes are "key" to rapid home price moves.

“When mortgage rates increase, list prices tend to decrease due to the higher total cost of owning a home,” the researchers noted.

Mortgage rates remain on the downswing, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate tumbled to 6.42% from 6.6% the week prior, according to Freddie Mac."

MY COMMENT

This home data is so distorted it is meaningless. Many area continue to see MASSIVE lack of inventory. May area is an example of this. We are still severely under normal inventory.

 

NOTHING in the financial news today. If you thought yesterday was devoid of news.....today is even more so.

I will be gone for most of the day today......so you guys hold up the markets and....MAKE ME SOME MONEY.

Good luck.

 

Sorry.....not speaking to congress. It has been a long time since I have testified in a legislature and that was at the state level....not national.

I was at the Round Top, Texas antique Show today.....all day. Population.....87. The tiny town is the location of one of the largest and most well known antique shows in the country. Thousands and thousands dealers scattered over many miles of venues.

Today we did not buy anything. We are extremely selective now.....since we have been collecting for about 50 years an dhave limited space at this point. We bought an item last year but not this year.

Anyone that is an antique fan......the show is held twice a year, once in the Spring and once in the Fall. The Round Top area is extremely scenic and historic. It is located in the original Austin land grant from Mexico where the original 300 settlers under Austin settled. A highly recommended vacation destination.....half way between Houston and Austin.

 

I did not see any of the markets today and have read nothing....but.....I imagine that the day was dominated by the banking hearings and by the rate on the Ten Year Treasury.

I ended the day in the RED. For the second day in a row I ended the day with a single stock in the green......today it was NKE.
I got beat by the SP500 today by 0.42%........all in all a fairly moderate loss today.

 

I guess this was the markets today......I was out of touch all day.

Stock market news today: Stocks fall, bond yields rise

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-today-live-updates-march-28-2023-121200860.html

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

"U.S. stocks turned sour on Tuesday, while bond yields continued to extend gains as investors monitored the latest developments in the banking sector after the sale of Silicon Valley Bank.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) declined 0.1%. Contracts on the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) turned red by 0.5%.

Bond yields moved higher. The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note moved to about 3.56%on Tuesday. On front end of the yield curve, two-year yields jumped over 4%. WTI crude oil (CL=F) rose more than 5% to start the week on Monday, and it ticked up to above $73 a barrel Tuesday.

Stocks ended Monday mixed, after North Carolina-based First Citizens (FCNCA) bank bought Silicon Valley Bank. Communication services, tech, and real estate were the only sectors to finish the day lower; the former two sectors also dragged on the Nasdaq, resulting in the tech-heavy index to fall 0.5%, according to Bespoke Investments.

Shares of First Citizens jumped to a record high, extending gains for the second consecutive day on Tuesday after acquiring the deposits and loans of SVB. Meanwhile, shares of SVB Financial, which were delisted on the New York Stock Exchange, began trading over the counter for less than 30 cents.

As banks dominated the headlines again this week, federal regulators were slammed with intense questions from lawmakers on Tuesday regarding the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank. All three regulators agreed that financial regulations need to be tightened following the recent turmoil.

“I anticipate the need to strengthen capital and liquidity standards for banks with over $100 billion,” Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr said at the Senate Banking Committee hearing, responding to Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren's question.

During the hearing, lawmakers also pressed on the issue that executives of the banks should face consequences leading up to the failures.

The House Financial Services Committee will hold its own hearing on Wednesday and question Barr, FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg, and Treasury Undersecretary Nellie Liang.

“If bank contagion fears subside, then we may see a resurgence in both bond yields and commodities as growth, before the banking crises, was stronger than expected led by the US and a reopened China,” wrote the U.S. market intelligence team at JPMorgan in a note.

“However, banking crises typically have wide-ranging, and negative, impacts on growth and employment,” the team added.

Bank sentiment turned red on Tuesday. Regional bank stocks traded down Tuesday, including First Republic Bank (FRC), PacWest Bancorp (PACW), and Western Alliance Bancorporation (WAL).

Big bank stocks including Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC) also moved lower, while Citigroup (C), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) traded up.

Meanwhile, the largest money managers have signaled that the Federal Reserve will continue to raise rates despite trader’s recent bets amid the bank fallouts, according to BlackRock.

BlackRock Investment Institute strategists, including Wei Li, wrote in a client note that the Fed and its peers have made it clear that the troubles in the banking sector won’t detract from its battle against inflation.

Separately, there’s speculation that Charles Schwab (SCHW) could be the next name to follow in the banking sector’s troubles, Bloomberg reports. This comes as higher interest rates have pushed some investors to move cash out of certain accounts, which bolster Schwab’s bottom line and business."

On the economic front, February wholesale inventories gained 0.2% compared to economists expectations of 0.1% and retail inventories climbed 0.8%, the strongest reading since August, higher than expectations of 0.2%.

Separately, home prices logged their seventh consecutive monthly decline in January as rising interest rates continue to pressure prices and the housing market overall. Meanwhile, the consumer pulse notched upward to 104.2 in March, higher than the prior month, according to the Conference Board.

Elsewhere, in the cryptocurrency world, Binance's regulator case is spilling beyond Changpeng Zhao’s company, Bloomberg reports, raising the stakes for American firms that worked with the exchange."

MY COMMENT

We will slowly see the end of the banking FEAR. At this point that is all it is.....simply fear of the unknown. Of course the constant media frenzy is not helping.

I consider the Schwab content of this article as typical fear mongering.

What we are seeing now in about the third week of this little adventure in irrational fear on the part of some investors is simply the continued impact of social media driven herd behavior.

 

As to the above...here you go.

Regulators blame social media for SVB's rapid collapse: 'Complete game changer'

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/regu...collapse-complete-game-changer-173615151.html

From the article:

"...modern communication dynamics, in Barr's view, sit at the heart of what brought down Silicon Valley Bank with such great speed.

On March 9, depositors scrambled to pull out more than the $40 billion from SVB as panic spread throughout Twitter, along with other social media platforms like Slack and WhatsApp, after the bank revealed a $1.8 billion loss within its bond portfolio and plans to raise more than $2 billion in new capital.

"In response, social media saw a surge in talk about a run, and uninsured depositors acted quickly to flee..."

AND

"...Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser said social media and mobile banking was a "complete game changer" in SVB's demise."It's a complete game changer from what we've seen before," she said. "There were a couple of tweets and then this thing went down much faster than has happened in history...."

MY COMMENT

Social Media and modern herd behavior are going to have a HUGE impact on investing and finance and economics. We will now ROUTINELY see huge swings happening day to day in various stocks, investments, or businesses based on nothing more than........instantaneous communication......true or not.

Since this is ALL new.......no one has any idea of what the impact will be on our market system. Somehow.....I fear it will not be a positive.

Investors better get ready for a....."NEW ERA".....of extreme, and at times irrational, volatility.

 

I sure hope this DOES NOT happen. I dont see any realistic way for Amazon to use this company to promote themselves. They will simply end up in the Hollywood quagmire. I really do like amazon....but some of the moves they are making and considering lately seem extremely foolish to me.

Amazon reportedly considering purchase of AMC Entertainment
Amazon's reported interest in AMC is preliminary, and no offers have been made to acquire the distressed movie theater chain

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/amazon-reportedly-considering-purchase-amc-entertainment

Having a streaming service (Prime) is one thing. Owning and running a failing....bricks and mortar......movie theater chain is totally another thing. Amazon needs to FOCUS on reviving it profitability in it's core businesses.....retail and web services. They dont have the time or management to waste on this sort of crazy idea.

 

How true.

Why the Stock Market Makes You Feel Bad All the Time

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2023/03/why-the-stock-market-makes-you-feel-bad-all-the-time/

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

"The last new all-time high for the S&P 500 was on January 3, 2022.

That means it’s been almost 450 days since we’ve experienced new highs in the stock market.

That feels like a long time.

But based on the history of bear markets, it’s really not all that long. It might be a while until we hit new highs again if we use history as a guide.

I looked at every bear market going back to 1950 to see how long it has taken for the market to reach new all-time highs from the previous peak.

This table looks at the drawdowns for each bear market, the number of days it took to go from peak to trough and the number of days to go from the prior peak to new highs:


If we include the current bear market1 the average peak-to-trough drawdown is a loss of a little less than 35%.

The average number of days to go from peak to trough is 381, so just over a year.

The average number of days to go from the previous peak to new all-time highs is 1,166 days or more than 3 years.

The shortest roundtrip from peak to peak was the Covid crash in March 2020. We saw new highs in 6 months. Before that slingshot of a bear market, the shortest amount of time to see new highs again was 436 days in 1950.

So it can take some time to fully recover from a bear market.2

I don’t know how long this one will take but it’s not out of the ordinary for the stock market to make you feel terrible on a regular basis.

One of my favorite long-term stock market charts shows the historical win rate over various time horizons:


Historically speaking, the longer your time horizon, the better your chances of seeing positive returns.

On a daily basis, the historical win rate is only around 55%, meaning 45% of all trading days have been losses. And just 5% of all trading days have closed at new all-time highs.

Basically, the more often you look at your investments in the stock market, the worse it is going to make you feel since we spend so much time in a state of drawdown.

Richard Thaler’s behavioral finance term for this phenomenon is myopic loss aversion.

Loss aversion is the idea that losses sting twice as bad as gains make us feel good. And myopia is the idea that the more frequently you look at your portfolio, the more likely you are to experience the sting from loss aversion.

The more you look the worse you’re going to feel about your performance.

And the less you look the more often you’re going to see gains over time.

Plus, it’s not like paying more attention to your portfolio will guarantee better results. For most investors, paying more attention can lead to more mistakes because that myopic loss aversion tempts you into making more changes to your portfolio, which can lead to more mistakes from your emotions.

It’s not easy to ignore your investments or the stock market in this day and age. Information is everywhere.

But the less you look the better you will feel about your performance."

MY COMMENT

Probably true for most people. Fortunately I assume that the average investor does not have much time to obsess over their account every day with everything that people are busy with.

One thing is true.....the emotions and human brain based genetic behavior are killers for investment returns. They draw people into all the various investing behaviors that destroy returns over the long term.

 

To continue the above little theme.

What Can a Book Published in 1912 Teach Us About Investor Psychology?

https://behaviouralinvestment.com/2...d-in-1912-teach-us-about-investor-psychology/

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

"A friend of mine recently asked if I had read a book called Psychology of the Stock Market. Given the subject matter, I was quite surprised that I hadn’t come across it. Even more surprising is that it was first published over 100 years ago. So, how do George Charles Selden’s thoughts on investor and market behaviour from 1912 compare with today? Has much changed?

Let’s look at some highlights:
_

“The market is always a contest between investors and speculators.”

Selden argues that there are two types of market participants. Investors – who are focused on the fundamental attributes of a security or asset, and speculators – who are concerned only with the direction of the price.

_

“The speculator cares nothing about interest return…He would as soon buy at the top of a big rise as at any other time.”

The idea that large swathes of investors have no real concern about the underlying value of a security is similar to something I wrote about valuation and price in 2022. He just got there a little earlier than me.

—

“However firm may be his bearish convictions, his nervous system eventually gives out under this continual pounding, and he covers everything…with a sigh of relief that his losses are no greater.”

Selden writes of a short seller who – despite retaining a stridently negative opinion – capitulates because of the pain of being the wrong side of a trade. Evoking not only loss aversion, but the emotional strain of being wrong.

—

“It is hard for the average man to oppose what appears to be the general drift of public opinion. In the stock market it is perhaps harder than elsewhere.”

We are inescapably drawn towards the behaviour of the crowd. Taking and maintaining contrary views can be exacting and exhausting.

—

“the average man is an optimist regarding his own enterprises and a pessimist regarding those of others…he comes habitually to expect everyone else will be wrong, but is, as a rule, confident that his own analysis of the situation will prove correct.”

This description of overconfidence from Selden still resonates today. The odds and evidence are against everyone else successfully picking stocks, timing the market or making economic predictions – but, of course, I can do it.

—

“If you are long or short the market you are not an unprejudiced judge, and you will be greatly tempted to put such an interpretation upon current events as will coincide with your preconceived opinion.”

Confirmation bias remains as strong now as it was back in 1912.

—

“When the market looks weakest, when the news is at the worst, when bearish prognostications are most general, is the time to buy, as every school boy knows; but…it is almost impossible for him to get up the courage to plunge in and buy.”

Here Selden describes the difference between our behaviour in a hot and cold state. In our cool, calculating moments, it is easy to plan what we will do when markets are in turmoil; yet when that moment arrives our emotions will take hold with fear and anxiety overwhelming us. Selden was unknowingly advocating systematising future investment decision.

—

“It is a sort of automatic assumption of the human mind that present conditions will continue”

Extrapolation remains one of the most damaging investor behaviours.

—-

“Some events cannot be discounted, even by the supposed omniscience of the great banking interests.”

Selden is writing of our inability to anticipate or price certain risks. Although we might think of this as similar to black swans, he goes on to mention earthquakes – so this is more about ‘known unknown’ tail risks, than events we have not even considered.

—


“Even the clearest mind and the most accurate information can result only in a balancing of probabilities, with the scale perhaps inclined to a greater or less degree in one direction or the other.”

Selden alights on two vital topics for investors here. The need to think in probabilistic terms and the requirement to temper our confidence. Both are essential for dealing with such a complex system as financial markets. Humility is critical.

—

“The professional trader…eventually comes to base all his operations for short turns in the market not on the facts but what he believes the facts will cause others to do.”

Selden pre-empts the Keynesian beauty contest here and describes the behaviour of many investors then and now. Decisions are not made based on new information, but how it is perceived other investors will respond to that new information.

—

“Both the panic and the boom are eminently psychological phenomena.”

It is at the extremes of market behaviour that investor psychology is most apparent and difficult to resist.

—

“The “long pull” investor buying outright for cash and holding for a liberal profit, need only consider this matter enough to guard against becoming confused by the vagaries of public sentiment or by his own inverted reasoning.”

By “long pull” Selden is referring to long-term, fundamentally driven investor. To benefit from the long-term benefits of stock market investing one must ignore the fickle and forceful shifts in investor opinion and resist our own behavioural foibles. Easier said than done!
—

“Another quality that makes for success in nearly every line of business is enthusiasm. For this you have absolutely no use in the stock market… Any emotion – enthusiasm, fear, anger, depression – will only cloud the intellect.”

It is difficult to overstate the extent to which our investment judgments are driven by how they make us feel. A good rule of thumb is – the stronger our emotion, the worse the decision.

—

“Sometimes it may become necessary to close all commitments and remain out of the market for a few days”

Selden is writing from a trader’s perspective here, so most of us can turn his “days” into weeks, months and years. The less we check our portfolios and watch financial news, the better our outcomes are likely to be.

—

Although Selden doesn’t use the same terms, it is impossible not to recognise the behaviours he describes. I am often asked whether an improved awareness of the pitfalls of investor psychology has improved behaviour. Unfortunately, I don’t think it has. Rather the ease of which we can trade, monitor our portfolios, and receive new information (noise) has made things worse. Selden’s words from 1912 are just as relevant today, if not more so."

MY COMMENT

A perfect example of the FACT that human behaviors do NOT change. The book that contained this information was written over 110 years ago. Yet....the investor behaviors described are common and typical today and all through history.

Now for the scary part.......take all these behaviors and all the others that we know impact investing results.......and......AMPLIFY THEM with instantaneous Social Media and the modern, instantaneous, fanatical, watching of cell phones and computers all day long. The result.......the potential for DISASTER massively amplified for most investors.

In addition to the impact on individual investors the tools of modern society......which are in their infancy......WILL severely influence and even have the potential to destabilize the market system that has been in use for hundreds of years. Herd behavior is one thing....but instantaneous world wide herd behavior that can take place within minutes is another.

Add in the FACT that much of the content that people see over the short term on "devices" is simply rumor or false information.........and......we have a SCARY future ahead for investors. Well.....that assumes that we even have investors or markets in the not too distant future.

 

Oh yes......there are markets doing their thing today. So far a nice green day for all the averages. BUT.....at this time of the day, NOTHING is set in stone.

Stocks open higher, crypto rallies as quarter-end nears

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-today-live-updates-march-29-133212119.html

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

"Stocks rose early Wednesday as investors eye the end of an eventful first quarter that has seen a bank crisis break out, a crypto winter show signs of thawing, and last year's stock market performance tentatively reverse.

At the opening bell, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.9% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) was higher by 0.7%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led gains, rising 1.2% at the open.

With the first quarter set to wrap up Friday, the Nasdaq is sitting on gains near 12%, the S&P 500 is up more than 3% so far this year, and the Dow is lagging, falling 2.2% in 2023.

This relative performance is a reversal from what was seen last year when the Nasdaq fell nearly 30%, the S&P 500 lost over 18%, and the Dow fell a more modest 9%.

The price of crude oil was also higher early Wednesday, rising 1.2% to trade near $74 a barrel.

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) was also notably higher, rising more than 5% to trade north of $28,000. So far this year, bitcoin has gained more than 70%.

Wednesday's move higher comes amid a somewhat slower calendar for corporate and economic news, with earnings last night from Micron Technology (MU) and Lululemon (LULU) serving as the key highlights early in the trading session.

Micron shares were up more than 4% early Wednesday after the chip giant last night suggested the battered chip business could be turning a corner, with CEO Sanjay Mehrotra telling investors "we are close to a transition to sequential revenue growth in our quarterly results."

Micron reported revenues for its fiscal second quarter on Tuesday that were down about 10% from the prior quarter and more than 50% lower than the same period last year.

Mehrotra also called out the potential positive impacts that recent investor enthusiasm around AI advances could have on the industry, telling investors: "Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) provide an exciting prelude to the transformational capabilities of large language models, or LLMs, such as ChatGPT, which require significant amounts of memory and storage to operate. We are only in the very early stages of the widespread deployment of these AI technologies and potential exponential growth in their commercial use cases."

Lululemon shares, meanwhile, were up as much as 12% on Wednesday after reporting top and bottom line results that beat estimates, with revenue rising 30% in the fourth quarter as comparable store sales rose 27%."

MY COMMENT

So far I am not seeing much commentary about the upcoming first quarter earnings. Everyone is focused on the banks.....by everyone I mean the financial media.

It will be interesting to see if all the....."so called experts"......continue with the predictions they were making three months ago about how DISMAL earnings would be for the first two quarters this year.

Somehow I doubt that the "experts" will be so BOLD. They have been completely WRONG with their earnings predictions since about the summer of 2020. They are uniformly WRONG to the negative side with their constant predictions of poor earnings.

 

I see that in typical recent style....the markets are backing off from the gains mid-morning.

No doubt this is trading and short term speculation. Much of this is driven by the computer AI trading systems.

These computer trading systems are extremely smart as well as fast.....micro-seconds. Unfortunately we dont pay much attention to the impact of these trading systems.

At some point they will EVOLVE to actually driving and creating the market action and market behavior rather than very quickly trading the market conditions that exist over the micro-second short term. It is just a matter of time and the logical extension of computer trading systems.....before these systems are trading the market action that THEY are creating themselves. At that point it will all simply be.......MARKET and HUMAN manipulation.

 

As I mentioned the other day......the poor housing markets....the data is so distorted by a lack of inventory and other factors it is nearly impossible to know what is really happening. for those that are interested in housing...here is the latest data.....not that it is worth anything to anyone.

US pending home sales post third straight monthly gain in February

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-pending-home-sales-post-140213114.html