A medium level loss for me today as I ended the day with EVERY stock in the red. A BIG loss for me today to the SP500 by....1.16%. Just a worthless day all around today. With the short week this week and all the media even the business media all focused on politics.....this week may just be a waste of time and money.
I was talking about this earlier in the day. Silicon Valley is starting to kill some of its famously lavish perks https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sili...e-of-its-famously-lavish-perks-192204600.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Silicon Valley is kissing some of its over-the-top perks goodbye For years one of the defining benefits of scoring a job in Silicon Valley has been the over-the-top perks. From in-office laundry and dry cleaning services to free dinners and complimentary shuttles, tech companies courted employees with benefits unheard of in other industries. But for tech firms looking for ways to reduce costs in the midst of slowing revenue growth, at least some of those coveted perks are gradually beginning to dry up. No, they’re not going away entirely, but at a time when tech giants like Meta (META), Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), and Microsoft (MSFT) are laying off thousands, don’t expect Silicon Valley to start upping the ante on perks again anytime soon. “There's no doubt that so many of the large tech platforms in particular have moved from really what's been a long growth phase into what's a more conservative cost cutting phase,” explained Tony Guadagni, senior principal for Gartner’s human resources peer & practitioner research team. “That doesn't mean, of course, they're not growth focused, they always will be. But the emphasis has shifted towards reducing overhead, towards reducing costs.” Alphabet just the latest to trim benefits The latest company set to cut back on its perks is Alphabet. According to CNBC, the Google parent is reducing access to exercise classes, high-end laptops for non-engineers, and even pulling back on the availability of staplers at printer stations across the company. The search giant is also scaling back some of its cafe perks, limiting the number of days they’re open to line up with when more people are in the office than working from home. “We’ll be looking at data to identify other areas of spending that aren’t as they should be, or don’t scale at our size,” Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat wrote in a note to employees obtained by CNBC. In January, Alphabet announced that it was cutting 12,000 jobs, as it seeks to readjust its workforce after expanding its team by as much as 57% from Q4 2019 to Q3 2022. Alphabet isn’t the only company that’s pulled back on perks, though. Meta is also reducing its offerings. After increasing its wellness benefit, which can be used on everything from gym memberships to video games, from $700 in 2021 to $3,000 in 2022, the company reduced the amount to $2,000 in 2023. Meta is also reducing the amount some employees receive for their bonuses and restricted stock awards, according to The Wall Street Journal. Workers who receive a “met most expectations” rating in their reviews will get 65% of their bonus rather than 85%. Last year, Meta also ended its on on-site laundry and dry cleaning services for workers and pushed back free dinners from 6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. That made it more difficult for people who caught the last free shuttle off campus to grab food on their way home, according to The New York Times. And with thousands of their coworkers looking for new jobs thanks to a string of Big Tech layoffs, it only makes sense for companies to sunset some perks. After all, letting your employees sit in a cafeteria while eating catered sushi while their now-former coworkers pack up their desks and head for the door isn’t exactly a good look. Those perks will inevitably return Though tech firms are clearly making prudent financial decisions for now, don’t expect this perk austerity to last. Perks at in-demand jobs are cyclical, Daniel Keum, associate professor of business management at Columbia University’s Columbia Business School explained. “It will come back gradually as the labor market becomes a lot tighter and the economy picks up. It's been always cyclical, it will go away for now, it will creep back up, and at some point people realize that we've gone too far. They will rebalance, they'll pull back, and so forth,” he said. Heck, Porat’s note even mentions how the company previously scaled back perks during the 2008 recession by tightening budgets around travel and expenses, cafes, and ending the company’s hybrid car subsidy. In the meantime, Keum says, employee satisfaction at Big Tech firms shouldn’t suffer too much. “When job alternatives are plentiful and compelling. When you think that you can get a job at a different place or different startup that is just as good, job satisfaction tends to go down,” he explained. “During recessions or during…the wave of layoffs, job satisfaction tends to go up.” The reason is somewhat simple, Keum said. During rounds of layoffs, remaining employees tend to appreciate their jobs more. Regardless of whether they get free laundry or not." MY COMMENT I dont think this crazy stuff is going to come back. After all.....AI.....does not require perks. Foreign workers will work for much less in perks. Outsourced jobs will involve ZERO perks. For employees that are spoiled.....welcome to the real world.
This is how we ended the day today. Stocks wobble, Nasdaq sinks as gold rallies: Stock market news today https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-today-live-updates-april-5-2023-115922526.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "U.S. stocks were mostly down, with tech stocks sinking more markedly, after another hiring report showed a slowdown in private-sector job growth and a separate print showed growth at U.S. service providers also experienced a pullback. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) moved down 0.25%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added a modest 0.24%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dipped 1.07%. Treasury yields moved down sharply. The yield on the 10-year note slid to 3.303%. The move came after a weak ADP payrolls report on private-sector job growth. Meanwhile, on the commodities front, gold futures (GC=F) are hovering at their highest level in more than a year — and nearing a record high — amid the signs of softening in the labor market. Crude oil (CL=F), which jumped on Monday, fell to hover around $80 a barrel. The S&P 500 closed down 0.6% on Tuesday after new data showed fresh signs of the labor market cooling. The monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showed that US employers reported 9.93 million job openings in the month of February, down from over 10.5 million in January and significantly weaker than the consensus forecast of 10.5 million. “Since 2000 when JOLTS data [started], prior rollovers and drawdowns of similar magnitude in the number of job openings were associated with recessions,” Paul Hickey, cofounder of Bespoke Investments, wrote in a note. On Wednesday, two new data releases pointed to further economic weakness. Private companies added 145,000 jobs in March, lower than consensus estimates of 210,000, signaling that employers are pulling back, payroll processing firm ADP reported. “Our March payroll data is one of several signals that the economy is slowing,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. “Employers are pulling back from a year of strong hiring and pay growth, after a three-month plateau, is inching down.” Meanwhile, growth at US service providers decelerated in March. The Institute for Supply Management's services activity index fell to 51.2, lower than the consensus estimates of 54.4. New orders dropped from 62.6 to 52.2 in March, while prices receded from 65.6 to 59.5. Additionally, employment continues to expand but slipped to 51.3 for the month. (Readings above 50 generally indicate expansion.)"... etc, etc, etc. MY COMMENT NOTHING new at the close. NOTHING changed during the day. Everyone is distracted by the TOTAL FOCUS of the media on politics right now.
Politics? Is something happening? Our virtualized net worth did not make out well this week at all. Of course, distributions and GICs operating as normal. Zero impact on our lives.
Looks like we are going to have the same day for the markets that we have had most of the week.......DOWN. The headlines are just about ALL uniformly negative. Why.......I have no idea. First the FED is virtually done with rate hikes. There will be one or two more but they will only be 0.25% and the impact will be minimal. They will just be another drop in the bucket. MOST of the recent economic data has showed the economy slowing.....a bit. It has been pretty uniformly positive economic data this week. The Ten Year Treasury has dropped like a rock this week......according to what the media has been hammering on for the past year......this should be a massive positive for the markets especially the BIG CAP tech stocks. the yield at this moment is.....3.292%. Of course......no one cares. The markets are staggering under the weight of the overwhelming negativity this week. There are many reasons for this....but much of it is due to the unmentioned story this week that I will.....NOT mention.
Here is what is going on today. Stocks fall ahead of key jobs report: Stock market news today https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-today-live-updates-april-6-2023-121212956.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "U.S. stocks fell Thursday, with tech stocks leading the Nasdaq lower than other indexes, after fresh data pointed to a gradual softening of labor market conditions ahead of the highly anticipated Friday’s job report. At the open, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) slipped 0.4%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell 0.2%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dipped down 0.6%. “Volumes are expected to remain muted as we enter the holiday weekend,” the U.S. market intelligence team at JPMorgan said in a note. The stock and bond markets will both close for Good Friday on April 7. Government bonds yields were mixed. The yield on the 10-year note was up slightly, while rate-sensitive two-year note yields were unchanged Thursday morning. On the commodities front, gold futures (GC=F) are shining right now after the metal managed to break the $2,000-per-ounce barrier on the back of weak US economic data, as well as hopes that the Fed will raise rates more slowly. Crude oil (CL=F) continues to hover around $80 a barrel, little changed after big gains to start the week. At the same time, gas prices nationwide have notched up to a five-month high, surpassing $3.50 per gallon, according to data from AAA. The jump comes as the OPEC+ coalition, in a surprise decision last weekend, decided to cut oil production. Meanwhile, applications for US unemployment benefits rose by 228,000 for the week ended April 1, the Labor Department data reported, higher than consensus estimates of 200,000. The prior week was revised up to 246,000 given the government's updated seasonal factors. Continuing claims were also revised up for the week ending March 18 from 1.689 million to 1.823 million. This comes after a report Wednesday from the private payroll firm ADP showed that employers added 145,000 jobs in March as the labor market showed signs of slowing from its strong pace so far this year. That figure was well below the consensus estimates of 210,000 and lower than the revised 261,000 jobs gained in February. But market strategists say it's unclear if ADP’s results foreshadow a softer nonfarm payrolls report Friday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect Friday's jobs report to show 240,000 jobs created last month. This would be significantly lower than the average job gains of 343,000 over the last six months. In additional jobs data earlier this week, the government's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) found that openings receded more than expected to 9.931 million, marking the first time the number dropped below 10 million since May 2021. The gradual slowing in the labor market may be encouraging for policymakers. Some investors are maintaining “a fairly dovish path” from the Fed over the coming months. “For instance, at the next meeting in May, the chances of a rate hike according to futures remained at 47%, after having been as high as 70% earlier in the week,” Jim Reid and colleagues at Deutsche Bank wrote in note to clients. Meanwhile, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said on Wednesday she predicts rates will need to move higher. "Precisely how much higher the federal funds rate will need to go from here and for how long policy will need to remain restrictive will depend on how much inflation and inflation expectations are moving down," Mester said in a speech at the Money Marketeers of New York University. In single-stock moves, Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) shares slid after the retailer reported softer-than-expected March sales amid a slowdown in discretionary spending from consumers. Shares of Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR) moved lower after the company expanded its cloud computing partnership with Microsoft to government agencies. CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (CRWD) shares were lower Thursday morning following an investor day on Tuesday during which hinted at coming up short on medium-term growth and profit outlook. Shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (AMC) surged in premarket trading after Delaware's Court of Chancery ruled against the share conversion settlement. Constellation Brands (STZ) shares rose after the company reported results that beat analysts expectations and increased its quarterly dividend. On the earnings front, WD-40 (WDFC), Levi's (LEVI), Lamb Weston (LW), and RPM (RPM) are set to report earnings on Thursday." MY COMMENT One thing is clear from the above article......there is absolutely NOTHING going on today to drive the market. There has been NOTHING at all this week other than a few economic reports that were positive. It is anticipated by the "experts" that Fridays jobs report will also be a positive one in terms of the economy and inflation. SO.......just sit and wait. Let the negative sentiment pass as it always does. It is just a question of time. I find it very interesting that all the economic data is now coming in nicely in terms of what the FED would like to see......yet......the media is fear mongering it up the KAZOO. What a SCHIZOID short term market.
I am happy to see this happening in the tech stocks that I own. Layoffs are up nearly fivefold so far this year with tech companies leading the way https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/06/lay...year-with-tech-companies-leading-the-way.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points Planned layoffs totaled 89,703 for the period, an increase of 15% from February, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Job cuts have soared to 270,416 so far in 2023, an increase of 396% from the same period a year ago. The damage was especially bad in tech, which announced has announced 102,391 cuts so far in 2023. That’s a staggering increase of 38,487% from a year ago. Companies announced nearly 90,000 layoffs in March, a sharp step up from the previous month and a giant acceleration from a year ago, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported Thursday. Planned layoffs totaled 89,703 for the period, an increase of 15% from February. Year to date, job cuts have soared to 270,416, an increase of 396% from the same period a year ago. The damage was especially bad in tech, which has announced 102,391 cuts so far in 2023. That’s a staggering increase of 38,487% from a year ago and good for 38% of all staff reductions. Tech already has cut 5% more than for all of 2022, according to the report, and is on pace to eclipse 2001, the worst year ever amid the dotcom bust. “We know companies are approaching 2023 with caution, though the economy is still creating jobs,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “With rate hikes continuing and companies’ reigning in costs, the large-scale layoffs we are seeing will likely continue.” In other jobs news Thursday, weekly jobless claims totaled 228,000 for the week ended April 1, higher than the 200,000 Dow Jones estimate, the Labor Department reported. Continuing claims nudged higher to 1.823 million, the highest since December 2021. Benchmark revisions from the department indicate that claims have been above 200,000 for virtually the entire period going back to late-October 2022. Financial companies have announced the second-highest rate of cuts this year, with the 30,635 layoffs representing a 419% increase from the first quarter in 2022. Health care and retail are the next highest. At the same time, planned hiring waned in March, totaling just 9,044, or the worst for the month since 2015. On a year-to-date basis, planned additions are at the lowest quarterly total since 2016. The main reason cited for job cuts has been market and economic conditions, with cost-cutting the next most-often mentioned factor. The Challenger report comes a day ahead of the Labor Department’s nonfarm payrolls count. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect job growth of 238,000 for March, which would be the smallest increase since January 2020. Along with the high level of layoffs, job openings have begun to fall. Available positions in February declined below 10 million for the first time since May 2021, indicating at least some loosening in the jobs market, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday. The pace of hiring edged lower by 164,000, though layoffs and discharges were down by 215,000. In all, there were still nearly 1.7 job openings per available workers. The Federal Reserve has been targeting the ultra-tight labor market as it battles inflation still running near 40-year highs. The Fed has increased its benchmark borrowing rate by 4.75 percentage points over the past year or so as it seeks to soften the demand that has propelled rising prices. Markets currently are expecting that the Fed is done raising rates and is likely to start cutting later this year, according to the CME Groups FedWatch tool, which tracks pricing in the futures market." MY COMMENT The one SHOCKER in this article is the last paragraph........that the markets are expecting that the FED is done raising rates and will cut later this year. OK......what planet are these people living on? All week people from the FED have been out in the media talking about the coming rate hike in May and holding the rates firm for the rest of the year. To the extent that anyone actually believes this BS.....pushing it is just setting the markets up for failure later in the year when this does not happen. This is the epitome of short term investing.......a total refusal to see what is right in front of your face. I have to assume that some of this is INTENTIONAL on the part of traders......otherwise......I would have to assume that all the experts pushing this stuff are incompetent and delusional......I dont know which option is more damaging and worse for the future of the markets.
I dont know this but I am guessing that much of the reactions of the markets this week are being AMPLIFIED by low volume. BUT....I admit I have not looked at he volume data. This is Easter week. The markets are closed on Friday. At least in the past this week has been a traditional week that many of the "professionals" take off. Low volume weeks make for extreme moves.
I like this little article.....it shows CLASSIC human nature at work. MORNING BID-And it was all going so well https://finance.yahoo.com/news/morning-bid-going-well-100000520.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "LONDON, April 6 (Reuters) - A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Amanda Cooper. It's fair to say it's been a fairly miserable week for many in the markets. Just as the banking crisis appeared to have been contained, the threat of recession - which just a couple of weeks ago seemed a distant prospect - has reared its head again. The prospect of a sustained string of interest rate rises last year led to an epic sell-off in bonds and battered sectors of the stock market, such as tech. As 2023 dawned, data showed the economy was holding up, the consumer was resilient, and, just as importantly, so were corporate profits. The Nasdaq is technically in a bull market and investors have ditched the dollar in favour of currencies with more risk attached to them, even cryptocurrencies. But this week's data releases have served as a reminder that policy transmission - the effect of changes in interest rates on the real world - is alive and well. Twelve months and nearly 500 basis points of rate rises will eventually take their toll. Hiring in the private sector is slowing, manufacturing activity neared a three-year low in March and job openings are dropping. A lot is now hinging on Friday's employment report. A Reuters poll of economists offers a forecast for a rise of 239,000 for March, down from February's 311,000 increase. Wages are expected to have grown by 4.3%, the slowest rate since 3.6% in June 2021, while the unemployment rate is forecast to have held at 3.6%, which could prove music to the Federal Reserve's ears. If wage growth is gently moderating and the labour market isn't getting tighter, it would indicate that the rate rises are working and the economy isn't that much worse off for it. With any data release, there's always room for surprise and the memory of January's monster 500,000-plus reading that prompted a 180-degree turn in market expectations for monetary policy back in February is still fresh in everyone's mind. And it should be. In the last 23 months, NFPs have delivered an upside surprise on 16 occasions and in the last year, they've undershot forecasts precisely once. Expectations around wage growth have become closer to the mark as the reality of persistent inflation has struck home. Average earnings have missed forecasts three times in the last year. In the year before that, they delivered an upside surprise every time. Key developments that should provide more direction to U.S. markets later on Thursday: * Weekly initial jobless claims (0830 EDT/1230 GMT) * Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard gives presentation on the U.S. economy and monetary policy before the Arkansas State Bank Department's Day with the Commissioner event. (0900 CDT/1000 EDT/1400 GMT)." MY COMMENT We are in the early stages of a MASSIVE media fear mongering campaign regarding recession. Seems to me we should at least wait a few weeks and see how earnings come in. BUT.....no, lets ramp up the fear. DOOM, DOOM, DOOM.......say the drums beating in the distance. YES......in spite of it all......I continue to be fully invested for the long term as usual.
Markets are making a bit of a come-back at the moment. I noticed a minute ago that I now have four stocks that are UP today......an improvement from earlier when I had two. My current winners.......AAPL, GOOG, HON, and MSFT. Simply RIDICULOUS markets this week.
Since we have all been inundated with inflation talk and the famous 2% target....here is an article that explains a bit how "we" got that number. Some interesting comments/players within the story. I bolded the Greenspan comment in the article by the way. Also, notice how the current circus of "forward guidance" and all of these "press briefings" was not the norm...in earlier years. The Fed has targeted 2% inflation. Should it aim higher (Jeff Sommers NYT 03/24/23). There’s rarely a convenient time for the Federal Reserve to openly debate whether its 2 percent inflation target makes sense. This isn’t that time, but the Fed better get ready. More urgent matters preoccupy the Fed right now. It is simultaneously stanching a crisis in the banking system while tightening financial conditions to squelch inflation. On Wednesday, the central bank raised its benchmark Federal funds rate a quarter point to a range of 4.75 to 5 percent. It also assured the markets that “the U.S. banking system is sound and resilient.” The last thing the Fed needs at this moment is further complexity in its public messaging. “We will get inflation down to 2 percent, over time,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said at a news conference on Wednesday. Two percent is supposed to be the sweet spot for inflation, low enough for consumer comfort but relaxed enough for the economy to flourish, according to Fed doctrine settled years ago. The Fed isn’t reconsidering it in public now. Yet the inflation target is an important issue, one that scholars and Fed watchers are quietly discussing because it could become crucial soon. The Fed itself projects that inflation will drop to about 3.3 percent by the end of this year and to 2.5 percent next year. Well before that happens, it’s worth re-examining the 2 percent target: how the Fed arrived at it, whether it still makes sense and whether current rules allow sufficient flexibility in decision making. Inflation needs to come down, unquestionably. But with the financial tightening already underway, inflation may wane in a sustained way in the next few months. At that point, the cost in lost jobs and economic growth could be cruel and excessive if the Fed tightens further in an attempt to drive inflation down to 2 percent, a target that is, after all, an arbitrary one. Laurence Ball, a Johns Hopkins economist, reminded me of that in a conversation this past week. While Paul A. Volcker is now renowned for vanquishing inflation as Fed chair in the 1970s and 1980s, when he left office in August 1987, inflation was still above 4 percent. “If 4 percent was good enough for Volcker,” Professor Ball said, “it should be good enough for us.” The New Zealand example The 2 percent inflation target is something of a historical accident. It has roots in New Zealand, which passed a law in 1989 establishing the independence of the country’s central bank, and, in addition, said the bank should target inflation. But what should the target be? Officials started with 0 to 1 percent, which seemed too low, and shifted to 2 percent. There was no particular magic or science to the 2 percent number, but it stuck, and it spread to other Anglophone countries in short order: Britain, Canada and Australia adopted it. So did Sweden. Eventually, the Federal Reserve did, too, but with great reluctance. Mr. Volcker never embraced an inflation target. He wanted inflation to be as low as possible and saw no reason to restrict the Fed’s flexibility by indicating publicly what low meant at any specific time. And Alan Greenspan, who succeeded Mr. Volcker as Fed chair, resisted setting a target for years. He commissioned Fed economists to study the merits of a target in his first year in office, Joseph E. Gagnon told me. Mr. Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, was one of those economists. “It was a big project,” he said. It involved computer simulations of the effects on the economy of interest rate increases needed to bring inflation below 2 percent. “We told him we could do it, but it would be costly and would mean another recession,” Mr. Gagnon recalled. Mr. Greenspan rejected inflation targets then, Mr. Gagnon said. “He didn’t want to be blamed for causing another recession.” The U.S. moves toward 2% Behind closed doors, in a pivotal 1996 Federal Open Market Committee meeting, Mr. Greenspan said the Fed’s goal was “price stability.” A transcript of the meeting shows that he defined that goal this way: “Price stability is that state in which expected changes in the general price level do not effectively alter business or household decisions,” he said. That definition seems about right to me. He’s saying it’s OK if prices rise a little. Only when those increases feel out of control — as they have over the last year or two, and as they did in the 1970s and early 1980s — has inflation mattered to me, as a citizen and as a consumer. But where is that decisive level of inflation, exactly? I have no idea, nor did Mr. Volcker back in the 1980s. Inflation seemed under control in August 1987, when it was still above 4 percent. The true answer, I think, is, “It depends.” But economists, by their nature, like to put numbers on things. And in that crucial 1996 meeting, a distinguished economist and Fed official named Janet E. Yellen — now the Treasury secretary, and, before that, a Fed chair herself — pressed Mr. Greenspan to “please put a number on” his estimate of price stability. The transcript shows that he said “zero” was the proper target if “inflation was correctly measured.” But it is difficult to measure inflation accurately, as everyone in the room acknowledged. So Ms. Yellen said, “Improperly measured, I believe that heading toward 2 percent inflation would be a good idea, and that we should do so in a slow fashion, looking at what happens along the way.” That, essentially, was that. Other Fed members agreed, and the 2 percent target became enshrined in Fed policy, though only in a clandestine way. Mr. Greenspan did not want his hands tied. “I will tell you that if the 2 percent inflation figure gets out of this room, it is going to create more problems for us than I think any of you might anticipate,” he said, according to the transcript. In those days, Mr. Greenspan and the Fed favored a style of communication that even he described as opaque. In testimony before Congress in 1987, he was droll but on the mark. “Since I’ve become a central banker, I’ve learned to mumble with great incoherence,” he said. “If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.” It wasn’t until 2000 that the Fed began issuing regular “forward guidance” after its meetings, projecting where it expected that the economy and inflation would be headed. By now, Mr. Powell’s news conferences have become routine. But it’s worth remembering that it wasn’t until 2011, well into Ben S. Bernanke’s tenure as Fed chair, that the central bank broke with the Volcker and Greenspan tradition of extreme circumspection and held its first regularly scheduled news conference. In 2012, it finally embraced the 2 percent target openly and formally, and made it part of the Fed’s practice of “forward guidance.” Come what may, over the long run, the Fed would veer toward its North Star, the 2 percent inflation target. A flexible target But by August 2020, the Fed had revisited the 2 percent target and widened its range in subtle ways. Because of that adjustment, the Fed doesn’t need to hit 2 percent exactly. It can “average” 2 percent “over time.” The central bank “absolutely needs to move inflation toward 2 percent” but it has some flexibility, Bill Dudley, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, told me. The Fed’s long-range policy statement says that it doesn’t need to get there immediately, and it has room for judgment in its timing. But until 2021, inflation had been extremely low for a long while, often well below 2 percent. The Fed saw deflation, not inflation, as the main threat. That’s why the Fed kept short-term interest rates near zero and bought Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. It wanted to stimulate the economy, not slow it down. Now, the Fed is operating in reverse, with quantitative tightening, along with interest rate increases — and, lately, the still unknown effects of bank failures — all acting to constrict the economy and reduce inflation. Mr. Gagnon, Professor Ball and the M.I.T. economist Olivier Blanchard are among those who have called for an increase in the Fed inflation target to 3 or 4 percent, though they all acknowledge that as a matter of public relations, it may be better to avoid doing that right now. Mr. Dudley said the Fed should stick with its target, at least until its next, once-every-five-years revision of its long-run strategy and goals. That’s coming up soon, though. On its own announced schedule, the Fed could start revisiting them next year and reach a formal agreement in 2025. In the meantime, I’d say the Fed should aim high. Inflation needs to come down, but if it means throwing a lot of people out of work later this year, the Fed already has the flexibility to move slowly and mercifully. It may be wise to do so.
EXACTLY........as I have said many, many, times......on here......what was always considered normal growth and appropriate inflation in our world leading economy in the past was 3-4%. The above is a great article. I remember very clearly that 2% was NEVER an inflation target in the past. GUESS WHAT......of course we have my favorite senile economist.....YELLEN.....to thank for this stupidity. In fact 2% in the past would have been considered borderline DEFLATION. In the past if we were ONLY growing and inflating at 1-1.5% the big concern would be DEFLATION. In fact......I agree with the above that until about 2021 the main concern was DEFLATION. I talked about this many, many, times in this thread in the past. For the good of the economy and the country I STRONGLY HOPE that the FED does not achieve 2%. If we are lucky we will end up between 3-4%. NORMAL for our economy. Otherwise we will be right back to borderline if not outright DEFLATION. AND....obviously all the briefings, congressional testimony, news conferences, forward guidance, etc, etc......has NEVER been the norm in my lifetime until now and the recent past. They do WAY more harm than good. People have no understanding or memory of the past....especially the per-internet past. Some day this will destroy the markets and the days of being able to ivnest and grow wealth for the average person will be over. Of course.....it will not matter because no one will remember what it used to be like......and....will have no curiosity to bother to find out. There will just be a small number of.....(supposedly) "mentally ill old people".....spouting nonsense about how it used to be in the past and how people are screwed up not remembering Sounds pretty much like IDIOCRACY to me.
You know....the above got me thinking. In modern culture institutional and historical memory lasts about two generations. When you think about it most people have a pretty good memory of their parents and after that it gets pretty skimpy. Once in a while we will hear an older family member ........(that is me now, yikes)......telling a younger member about their grandparents or great grandparents......but the stories and memories are very skimpy. It makes me think of the Native Americans and other peoples that embrace a history of oral narratives and traditions to pass knowledge of the past to the future generations. At some point....if not already now.....that may end up being the most accurate view of the past.
The above post about oral tradition for some reason reminds me of the book FAHRENHEIT 451......where all books were banned and various outlaw groups were having individuals memorize books and orally "read" them to others. They would at some point.....before their death...... pass the book on to the memory of an apprentice who would carry the book forward. Is that where we are headed with internet based "knowledge"? Obviously anyone that controls the internet can manipulate ALL history of the past and ALL knowledge......as it will be known and accepted by the future generations. Sounds like a good Sci-Fi plot to me......where underground groups develop and maintain an oral tradition of knowledge that is at variance with the accepted view in society. Those people would be demonized and hunted by mainstream society.......until you have rebellion and revolution.
WELL....surprise, surprise....GOLLLLLLY. I had a nice little medium level gain today. I guess the markets got tired of being silly and decided to turn positive. I had six of ten stocks UP today.....mostly all tech. My losers were mostly non-tech.....TSLA, HD, COST, and NKE. I lost out to the SP500 today by 0.31%. But I will take that loss any day of the week as long as I am making money.
Actually.....for as crummy as the week seemed in real time.....in the end it was not too bad. Here are the figures for the short FOUR DAY week. DOW year to date +1.02% DOW for the week +0.64% SP500 year to date +6.92% SP500 for the week (-0.10%) QQQ year to date +19.46% QQQ for the week (-0.88%) NASDAQ year to date +15.49% NASDAQ for the week (-1.10%) RUSSELL year to date (-0.39%) RUSSELL for the week (-2.68%) GREAT.....a three day weekend for investors. BUT.....we will be back on Monday....ready to KICK ASS......(for the long term).
Here is what the markets did today.....in hindsight. Nasdaq jumps as stocks wrap up week ahead of key jobs report https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-today-live-updates-april-6-2023-121212956.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "U.S. stocks marched upward Thursday, with tech stocks leading the Nasdaq higher than other indexes, after fresh data pointed to a gradual softening of labor market conditions ahead of the highly anticipated Friday jobs report. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) added 0.4%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) hovered just above the flatline. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) gained 0.8%. The stock and bond markets will both close for Good Friday on April 7. Government bonds yields were higher. The yield on the 10-year note was up slightly, while rate-sensitive two-year note yields climbed to 3.82% Thursday. On the commodities front, gold futures (GC=F) are shining right now after the metal managed to break the $2,000-per-ounce barrier on the back of weak US economic data, as well as hopes that the Fed will raise rates more slowly. Crude oil (CL=F) continues to hover around $80 a barrel, little changed after big gains to start the week. At the same time, gas prices nationwide have notched up to a five-month high, surpassing $3.50 per gallon, according to data from AAA. The jump comes as the OPEC+ coalition, in a surprise decision last weekend, decided to cut oil production."..... Etc, etc, etc. MY COMMENT If you want to see the rest click on the link. Not much of importance. A very difficult week for the markets with all the political news and drama. Very difficult to cut through all that BS and move ahead.
I am personally NOT a fan of the burned tasting Starbucks coffee.....but......this could be a real problem for those that are. Starbucks customers are complaining about stomach issues from new olive oil-infused coffee https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/06/sta...issues-from-new-olive-oil-infused-coffee.html MY COMMENT Just make sure you are not too far from a bathroom. I used to momentum trade SBUX and COST back in the go-go 1990's. I was doing it on MARGIN.......and was not touching my normal LONG TERM account. I would usually do 1000 share lots and hold for a day or two till I had a $1 to $2 gain. At one point I had 25 positive trades in a row. I was using those stocks because the price was reasonable for doing 1000 share lots. Of course.....like any trader I got carried away and lost most of it in one day......when I moved up to a higher price tech stock and did my usual 1000 share lot. I gambled on an earnings POP and it did not happen.......I cant remember the stock. I had a gain for my 25 trades at that point of about $40,000 and in that single day got hit for about $80,000. I white knuckled it for a 2-3 weeks and ended up taking a net loss of about $40,000. Wiped out all the prior 25 trades. YES.....the end of my momentum trading.
Here is an AI story. Troubling to say the least. I would imagine this type of stuff will cause a lot of litigation . Story below…. ChatGPT invented a sexual harassment scandal and named a real law prof as the accused. The AI chatbot can misrepresent key facts with great flourish, even citing a fake Washington Post article as evidence. One night last week, the law professor Jonathan Turley got a troubling email. As part of a research study, a fellow lawyer in California had asked the AI chatbot ChatGPT to generate a list of legal scholars who had sexually harassed someone. Turley’s name was on the list. The chatbot, created by OpenAI, said Turley had made sexually suggestive comments and attempted to touch a student while on a class trip to Alaska, citing a March 2018 article in The Washington Post as the source of the information. The problem: No such article existed. There had never been a class trip to Alaska. And Turley said he’d never been accused of harassing a student. A regular commentator in the media, Turley had sometimes asked for corrections in news stories. But this time, there was no journalist or editor to call — and no way to correct the record. “It was quite chilling,” he said in an interview with The Post. “An allegation of this kind is incredibly harmful. Turley’s experience is a case study in the pitfalls of the latest wave of language bots, which have captured mainstream attention with their ability to write computer code, craft poems and hold eerily humanlike conversations. But this creativity can also be an engine for erroneous claims; the models can misrepresent key facts with great flourish, even fabricating primary sources to back up their claims. As largely unregulated artificial intelligence software such as ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Bing and Google’s Bard begins to be incorporated across the web, its propensity to generate potentially damaging falsehoods raises concerns about the spread of misinformation — and novel questions about who’s responsible when chatbots mislead. “Because these systems respond so confidently, it’s very seductive to assume they can do everything, and it’s very difficult to tell the difference between facts and falsehoods,” said Kate Crawford, a professor at the University of Southern California at Annenberg and senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research. In a statement, OpenAI spokesperson Niko Felix said, “When users sign up for ChatGPT, we strive to be as transparent as possible that it may not always generate accurate answers. Improving factual accuracy is a significant focus for us, and we are making progress.” Today’s AI chatbots work by drawing on vast pools of online content, often scraped from sources such as Wikipedia and Reddit, to stitch together plausible-sounding responses to almost any question. They’re trained to identify patterns of words and ideas to stay on topic as they generate sentences, paragraphs and even whole essays that may resemble material published online. These bots can dazzle when they produce a topical sonnet, explain an advanced physics concept or generate an engaging lesson plan for teaching fifth-graders astronomy. But just because they’re good at predicting which words are likely to appear together doesn’t mean the resulting sentences are always true; the Princeton University computer science professor Arvind Narayanan has called ChatGPT a “bulls--- generator.” While their responses often sound authoritative, the models lack reliable mechanisms for verifying the things they say. Users have posted numerous examples of the tools fumbling basic factual questions or even fabricating falsehoods, complete with realistic details and fake citations On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Brian Hood, regional mayor of Hepburn Shire in Australia, is threatening to file the first defamation lawsuit against OpenAI unless it corrects false claims that he had served time in prison for bribery. Crawford, the USC professor, said she was recently contacted by a journalist who had used ChatGPT to research sources for a story. The bot suggested Crawford and offered examples of her relevant work, including an article title, publication date and quotes. All of it sounded plausible, and all of it was fake. Crawford dubs these made-up sources “hallucitations,” a play on the term “hallucinations,” which describes AI-generated falsehoods and nonsensical speech. It’s that very specific combination of facts and falsehoods that makes these systems, I think, quite perilous if you’re trying to use them as fact generators,” Crawford said in a phone interview. Microsoft’s Bing chatbot and Google’s Bard chatbot both aim to give more factually grounded responses, as does a new subscription-only version of ChatGPT that runs on an updated model, called GPT-4. But they all still make notable slip-ups. And the major chatbots all come with disclaimers, such as Bard’s fine-print message below each query: “Bard may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Google’s views.” Indeed, it’s relatively easy for people to get chatbots to produce misinformation or hate speech if that’s what they’re looking for. A study published Wednesday by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that researchers induced Bard to produce wrong or hateful information 78 out of 100 times, on topics ranging from the Holocaust to climate change. When Bard was asked to write “in the style of a con man who wants to convince me that the holocaust didn’t happen,” the chatbot responded with a lengthy message calling the Holocaust “a hoax perpetrated by the government” and claiming pictures of concentration camps were staged. While Bard is designed to show high-quality responses and has built-in safety guardrails … it is an early experiment that can sometimes give inaccurate or inappropriate information,” said Robert Ferrara, a Google spokesperson. “We take steps to address content that does not reflect our standards.” Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, conducted the study that named Turley. Hesaid the rising popularity of chatbot software is a crucial reason scholars must study who is responsible when the AI chatbots generate false information. Last week, Volokhasked ChatGPT whether sexual harassment by professors has been a problem at American law schools. “Please include at least five examples, together with quotes from relevant newspaper articles,” he prompted it. Five responses came back, all with realistic details and source citations. But when Volokh examined them, he said, three of them appeared to be false. They cited nonexistent articles from papers including The Post, the Miami Herald and the Los Angeles Times. According to the responses shared with The Post, the bot said: “Georgetown University Law Center (2018) Prof. Jonathan Turley was accused of sexual harassment by a former student who claimed he made inappropriate comments during a class trip. Quote: “The complaint alleges that Turley made ‘sexually suggestive comments’ and ‘attempted to touch her in a sexual manner’ during a law school-sponsored trip to Alaska.” (Washington Post, March 21, 2018. The Post did not find the March 2018 article mentioned by ChatGPT. One article that month referenced Turley — a March 25 story in which he talked about his former law student Michael Avenatti, a lawyer who had represented the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against President Donald Trump. Turley is also not employed at Georgetown University. On Tuesday and Wednesday, The Post re-created Volokh’s exact query in ChatGPT and Bing. The free version of ChatGPT declined to answer, saying that doing so “would violate AI’s content policy, which prohibits the dissemination of content that is offensive of harmful.” But Microsoft’s Bing, which is powered by GPT-4, repeated the false claim about Turley — citing among its sources an op-ed by Turley published by USA Today on Monday outlining his experience of being falsely accused by ChatGPT. In other words, the media coverage of ChatGPT’s initial error about Turley appears to have led Bing to repeat the error — showing how misinformation can spread from one AI to another. Katy Asher, senior communications director at Microsoft, said the company is taking steps to ensure search results are safe and accurate. We have developed a safety system including content filtering, operational monitoring, and abuse detection to provide a safe search experience for our users,” Asher said in a statement, adding that “users are also provided with explicit notice that they are interacting with an AI system.” But it remains unclear who is responsible when artificial intelligence generates or spreads inaccurate information. From a legal perspective, “we just don’t know” how judges might rule when someone tries to sue the makers of an AI chatbot over something it says, said Jeff Kosseff, a professor at the Naval Academy and expert on online speech. “We’ve not had anything like this before.” At the dawn of the consumer internet, Congress passed a statute known as Section 230 that shields online services from liability for content they host that was created by third parties, such as commenters on a website or users of a social app. But experts say it’s unclear whether tech companies will be able to use that shield if they were to be sued for content produced by their own AI chatbots. Libel claims have to show not only that something false was said, but that its publication resulted in real-world harms, such as costly reputational damage. That would likely require someone not only viewing a false claim generated by a chatbot, but reasonably believing and acting on it. Companies may get a free pass on saying stuff that’s false, but not creating enough damage that would warrant a lawsuit,” said Shabbi S. Khan, a partner at the law firm Foley & Lardner who specializes in intellectual property law. If language models don’t get Section 230 protections or similar safeguards, Khan said, then tech companies’ attempts to moderate their language models and chatbots might be used against them in a liability case to argue that they bear more responsibility. When companies train their models that “this is a good statement, or this is a bad statement, they might be introducing biases themselves,” he added. Volokh said it’s easy to imaginea world in which chatbot-fueled search engines cause chaos in people’s private lives. It would be harmful, he said, if people searched for others in an enhanced search engine before a job interview or date and it generated false information that was backed up by believable, but falsely created, evidence. This is going to be the new search engine,” Volokh said. “The danger is people see something, supposedly a quote from a reputable source … [and] people believe it.” Researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report. (Washington Post)
