The FUN is back in the markets. Investors that sat through the BRUTAL market last year are being rewarded BIG TIME this year. It seems like ZUKODANY is our star of the moment....up by over 40% year to date. Is there anyone on here that can beat that? Perhaps TireSmoke with his very concentrated chip stock portfolio. WELL DONE Zukodany. If you feel inclined.....please post what you currently hold in your portfolio.
Yes W & Emmet, it feels like the stock market is “giving free money” to people right now. Which is what really concerns me, particularly in regards to the fed. They DONT want that. Of course, if you own the wrong stocks you don’t feel that at all, so maybe it’s just a personal feeling. I am up 41.99 YTD so technically 42% My two largest positions are NVDA and TSLA but I also have some Div yielding stocks which are big like O realty and AMCR. Here is the list of my positions from smallest position to largest: INTU M CSCO PLTR YUM O CHDN NKE CRM META AMZN AMCR GOOG AAPL TSLA NVDA As I mentioned earlier I did do a few trades late last year and early this year… I got in with 20k 3 times on 4 positions and made 30% total on those short trades, this took about a month each time to achieve, and I guess I wouldnt attempt to do it now. I am watching ENPH and VZ among a few other stocks that have recently dipped and trying to ascertain if I should get into those positions soon. Also considering adding more to NKE and if the real estate sector falls another 10% I will certainly buy more O Happy investing everyone!
But again, for all those reading it and thinking GEEZ 42% YTD is a lot… There was a WORLD of pain to go through last year to get to this today. Last year I was down 26% and it was no fun. I bought NVDA on the dip on the ruins of really shitty stocks that I dumped when the stock gods were angry and they were asking me to sacrifice a virgin or two from my portfolio in order to stop the bleed. So I’m happy as a relatively new investor to experience all of this, and I gain ALOT more experience in the process. I have my sources for stock analyzation on seeking alpha, simply Wall Street, random YouTube analyzation videos for what I may have missed, and I watch Squawk on CNBC, The compound with Josh Brown. Oh and I daily digest that thread, I forgot it’s name, I think it’s called The Long Term Investor… or something like that
Some good posts. I think zukodany touched on a very important part of investing and managing ones plan. Each investor is different when it comes to risk tolerance. During bull markets everyone is confident and loving the party until the music stops. I have always felt that bear markets are where you really learn the most about yourself as an investor and your plan. When the days are a grind and it seems as if there is no bottom, one can learn many things about what they are capable of withstanding and what type of tolerance level you may have. Once you come out the other side the experience is valuable. It is painful, but valuable in the long run. After one has some of those notched on their belt, you quickly learn what you are capable of handling. It makes it a bit easier down the road once your plan is constructed around your own personal tolerance level. The other thing good about it, is when you are able to stay with it, you catch all of those early gains that many miss out on. I suspect there are still plenty waiting and watching. Again, everybody has to do it their own way. For me it is just easier to manage my plan to ride it out and stay all in. I am comfortable doing so and have been for many years. I am going to have a comfortable retirement due to sticking with it all of those years.
Spot on analysis Smokie. Everyone adapts differently, and everyone assesses different lows differently. When I started buying again in October of last year I had one goal in mind- buy and get out at 10% gain, but… I knew that if it slides lower, I’m still investing in a good long term company. So I chose Amzn msft and meta as my go to quick flips. And I was just lucky enough to hit them at a time they rebounded. So the gain was quick. I think I was much smarter than lucky with my NVDA purchases last year and the year before, that’s when no one was touching that stock with a 10’ pole. But again, my intuition was its NVDA on sale!! I didn’t see it any other way, but I knew this would take YEARS possibly till it rebounded, ended up being much quicker and boy did it EVER! So, so far in my past five year of investing, I struck gold with TSLA before the bull run, and now NVDA. The only thing I have to do next is train my emotions to deal with larger amounts, as I’m only a couple hundred Ks in, but running a business simultaneously prevents me from investing larger amounts
OK.....we are into a new day at the start of a new week. DOW down and SP500 and NASDAQ slightly in the green. Seems like a normal open as we head toward FED WEEK in a couple of weeks.
I did my long drive yesterday to inspect and pick up a new painting. It passed with flying colors and is now hanging on my wall. Often with a painting it is impossible to know the history of the painting. This one, I got lucky...... I was able to get family information from the current owner back through multiple generations of his family all the way back to the artist 80 years ago. I will compile that information and photos of the painting with photos of the family and submit that material to an organization that will keep it on file for this painting for future owners.
As I was driving yesterday I was thinking of my results this year and the results of others I have seen on here....Smokie and Zukodany. I thought I would mention: Investing is NOT a competition. In fact there is no way to compare different investor results. Every investor has different stocks and funds and different goals. What counts is the goals of each individual investor and whether or not they are meeting their goals. Some investors like Zukodany have an aggressive portfolio. Some like me have an agresive portfolio......and....at the same time have a good chunk of their money ( about 38% of the entire portfolio) in the SP500 and Fidelity Contra Fund as a more conservative balance to the stocks. TireSmoke does something similar......he has his taxable brokerage account very aggressively invested in a few chip stocks......and at the same time keeps his retirement money all in the SP500. That is the GLORY of investing......everyone can do what they need to do how they need to do it. SO......for anyone reading this thread: 1. Invest in what is right for you.....it is NOT relevant what anyone else does. 2. Pick rational and realistic holdings that fit your style. 3. Have an investing goal and/or some index to compare your results to in order to see if you are performing or not. 4. Invest for the long term. I have mentioned it often on here....but I will do it again. I have had two investing goals over my investing lifetime: 1. Achieve a total long term average return of 10% or more. 2. Try to beat the SP500 each year. The first goal is absolute. If I can not get at least 10% per year long term.....that means I can not beat the SP500. I might as well just put everything in the SP500 and not worry about it. The second goal is aspirational and more difficult. Some years I achieve it and some years I dont. This is also a PASSIVE GOAL....I do NOT do any trading or active moves to try to achieve this goal. So far after over 50 years of being a long term investor......I am HANDILY achieving goal number one and often hitting goal number two. I will mention the number one KILLER of investing results......GREED and ENVY........avoid these at al costs.
I like this little philosophical article and how it can be extrapolated to investing. Paying Attention https://collabfund.com/blog/paying-attention/ (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Sherlock Holmes says in the book, The Study of Scarlet: I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands. This was written in 1887. Imagine how he’d feel today – phone buzzing in his pocket, social media feeds gushing out useless information. Deciding what to pay attention to is hard, overlooked, and most important, it’s a negative skill – it’s about what you willfully ignore as much as what you actively seek out. Francis Crick, who discovered the double helix structure of DNA, was once asked what it takes to win the Nobel Prize. He responded: “Oh it’s very simple. My secret had been I know what to ignore.” Author John Barry writes: Einstein reportedly once said that his own major scientific talent was his ability to look at an enormous number of experiments and journal articles, select the very few that were both correct and important, ignore the rest, and build a theory on the right ones. The best reading strategy I’ve come across is the idea of a wide funnel and tight filter. Be willing to read anything that looks even a little interesting, but abandon it quickly and without mercy if it’s not working for you. Be choosy about what you let into your attic. A few other things I’ve found helpful in choosing what to pay attention to: When reading an article, book, or report, ask, “Will I still care about this in a year?” Five years? Ten? Most of the time you’ll realize you won’t care about whatever you’re reading in a week. It’s newsy – maybe it’s interesting, but it has an expiration date. There are two types of knowledge: Expiring and permanent. Expiring knowledge is things like quarterly earnings, election polls, market information, and politics. It catches more attention than it should, for two reasons. One, there’s a lot of it, eager to capture our short attention spans. Two, we chase it down, anxious to squeeze out insight before it loses relevance. Permanent knowledge tends to be principles and frameworks that help you make sense of expiring information. I read newspapers and books every day. I can not recall one thing I read in a newspaper from, say, 2011. But I can tell you details about a few great books I read in 2011 and how they changed how I think. I’ll remember them forever. I’ll keep reading newspapers. But if I read more books I’d probably develop better filters and frameworks that would help me make better sense of the news. Asking how long you’ll care about the information you read pushes you to focus on permanent things and care little about temporary things – a great mindset for long-term thinking. Memorize stories, highlight facts, skip the fluff There’s a line I love: People don’t remember books; they remember sentences. More specifically, they remember stories. Even in the best book you’ve ever read, what do you remember? A couple sentences, a few stories. Those sentences and stories might change your life, but they’re all you’ll take away from a book. I try to remember that when reading. For nearly every blog post and most non-fiction books: there is no need to devour and focus on every word. If I can remember a few great stories and epic lines, it’s a win. Too many readers get too bogged down in details they’re never going to remember anyways, when they could have pulled a few memorable lines out of a book and moved onto the next. Pay close attention when someone you admire disagrees on a topic you’re passionate about. Charles Darwin, according to Charlie Munger, wasn’t exceptionally bright, but became a first-class scientist because he spent his life trying to prove himself wrong. “One of the great things to learn from Darwin is the value of extreme objectivity,” Munger once said. “He tried to disconfirm his ideas as soon as he got ‘em. He quickly wrote down in his notebook anything that disconfirmed a much-loved idea.” That is an amazing trick, and for most people the way to disconfirm your own beliefs is paying attention to people who disagree with you. But that’s hard, because it’s so easy to assume those who disagree with you aren’t as smart or informed as you are. A lot of good ideas are ignored, or intentionally rejected, because they are said by people you don’t admire. If you’re not blessed with perfect empathy, the trick to opening your mind to viewpoints you disagree with is to find people whose views on one topic you respect – that checks the box in your head that says “this person isn’t crazy” – and listen to them about topics you disagree on. When those two things align – a person you admire disagrees with you about something fundamental – pay close attention. There’s a good chance this is information you’ll want stored in your head." MY COMMENT The above is a significant part of the investing process. The amount of information out there is GIGANTIC. At the same time for long term investors the process is actually supremely simple. That simple process is discussed in this thread over, and over, and over. In the end much of investing comes down to personal self awareness and ability to be extremely CLINICAL when taking in the world around us.
I like this little article and fact as an APPLE investor. Apple shares hit all-time high ahead of developer conference https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-shares-hit-time-high-134100354.html
HERE is the market today and this week......another MILD week on hand for us.......I like it. Stocks waver, oil rises after Saudi output cut https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stoc...ut-cut-stock-market-news-today-133818042.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "US stocks wavered Monday, with the S&P 500 (^GSPC) flat, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) edging down 0.22%, and the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) slightly advancing above the flatline at 10:20 am ET. The Federal Reserve's policy meeting next week came into sharper focus, after strong jobs data and the passage of the US debt ceiling bill on Friday gave investors reason for hope, with the major US stock indexes closing higher on Friday. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law over the weekend. Crude prices were higher but paring earlier gains after Saudi Arabia on Sunday said it will slash its oil output by another 1 million barrels per day starting in July. The world's top oil exporter is going it alone with the voluntary cut, as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+) and its allies agreed to stick to their current oil-production target through 2024 at their meeting this weekend. US benchmark WTI crude futures were up over 2% at $73.62 on Monday morning, while Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, added 2.43% to trade at $78.01 a barrel. Meanwhile, Treasury yields lost steam, with the benchmark 10-year Treasury slipping to 3.66%. The two-year yield fell to reach 4.43%, while the 30-year bond declined to 3.86%. Speculation is growing among investors that the Fed will likely hold interest rates steady at its June 13-14 meeting, but then raise them again later this summer. “At the moment, markets price in around a 1 in 3 chance of a hike next week and maybe CPI might be the main thing that shifts those odds towards a hike if the report is strong,” Jim Reid and colleagues at Deutsche Bank wrote to clients Monday morning. “If the Fed wants to subtly communicate to the market one way or another ahead of next week, then well placed media stories might surface. However before CPI, that does seem unlikely, as nothing will be 100% decided until then. We are back to having a fair bit of uncertainty over the near-term Fed outlook though,” Reid added. On the economic docket, investors digested data that showed that new orders for US manufactured goods climbed 0.4% from the previous month in April, the US Census Bureau said Monday, slowing from the downwardly revised 0.6% gain in the prior month and missing economists expectations of a 0.8% increase. Separately, ISM services PMI fell to 50.3 in May from 51.9 in April, the lowest reading since May 2020 and below forecasts of 52.4. Elsewhere, Apple Inc. (AAPL) is set to unveil its new hardware product on Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference, in Cupertino, California. The iPhone maker's shares moved higher Monday morning and were on pace to close at a record high. In other news, shares of Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (PANW) climbed over 3% amid news that the stock will join the S&P 500 index, replacing Dish Network (DISH). Separately, bitcoin (BTC-USD) fell to below $27,000, while ethereum (ETH) dipped to $1,866." MY COMMENT YES.....a WILD and..........no not crazy....BORING week ahead for investors. Just what we need after the INSANE last three years. It is so nice to simply sit and experience some normal investing days. I am looking for the SP500 and the NASDAQ to strengthen into the day......so COME ON MAN.......I want to make some money today.
I have a nice medium level gain in my portfolio at this moment.......I will build from here for the rest of the day. Six stocks UP and four stocks DOWN. The DOWNERS today are.....NKE, NVDA, HD, and HON.
Yup, absolutely. I still, till this day, invest for the purpose of experience and learning. That’s the reason why I avoid etfs and indexes. It’s MUCH more engaging for me to learn how a stock acts based on companies performance and market perception. I do follow some indexes for market analyzation overall, like the dollar, crude oil, vix, Bitcoin etc… but I get my feet wet with investing in businesses. Also, as I mentioned, I invest a very small amount of money. I only have 200k invested and I dribble 20k annually when I “anticipate” an opportunity. So that allows me to possibly act more aggressively. Case in point, today at the open I got rid of CRM and swapped it for ENPH. I honestly don’t believe I would buy ENPH if I invested 100s of thousands of dollars, because it’s still a very young company and its very volatile. But I’m a big fan of buying good profitable companies on the dip and I’ve been monitoring it closely. ENPH biggest challenge is that it relies on low interest rates to keep a steady cash flow, and like many here (or maybe not), I think the rate hike is either done, or almost there. So other than it being a leader in its field, profitable, and being heavily discounted - I sensed an opportunity. I rarely ever trade, but last year I had an inclination to do so, and it worked. But when I achieved my short term goals I took all of that money and invested it in AMCR where it’s gonna stay long term, mainly because of the company’s history and great dividend yield. It also balances my portfolio somewhat, so I’m not just heavily invested in tech. I’m almost at the edge of my rope with NIKE, but I don’t think I will be selling it unless it sheds another 10%, in fact, if it starts to rebound I may add MORE to it.
So in good ol’ W fashion, here is my updated portfolio! INTU M CSCO PLTR YUM O CHDN NKE ENPH META AMZN AMCR GOOG AAPL TSLA NVDA
Yeah poor NKE.....they have never recovered from the shutdown and the China closure. I was thinking about them the other day and looked at their stock performance data for time spans from a week to five years. I am ALSO going to keep an eye on them. If they dont recover within about 1-2 years I will probably pull out and put that money to use somewhere else. Being a clothing and shoe company i really dont expect them to be keeping up with the current TECH RALLY......but they are having a hard few years.
I had a very small loss today.....down by 0.11% for the day. Five stocks UP and five stocks DOWN. today the losers were.....AAPL, NKE, NVDA, HD and HON. The best I can claim today is a small beat on the SP500 by 0.09%.
Market opens red. Been AWHILE since I saw red all across the board with drips of green like today. The whole episode with binance and crypto likely still has an affect on the market… COIN is down 20%…. Sheesh… that stock was over $300 only 16 months ago
I have been reading and scanning all my sources since the open today........and.....I GOT NOTHING. We did open in the red. I had my head in the computer and was listening to the business TV......when after about 45 minutes I happened to look up and was surprised to see green in the markets. After all my normal reading and looking I was not able to find a SINGLE article that had any relevance to long term investing or anything else of interest. It is a simple.....no news.....nothing interesting.....flat dull market.....shallow market.....boring....go nowhere day.
