The Long Term Investor

Talk about a FLAT market today.....NVDA down by 12cents. The DOW at 0.00% for the day.....and....the SP500 at +0.01% for the day.

I am stalling and treading water with this post........ till the close.

 

A VERY flat day today......the DOW +0.02%.....the SP500 +0.07%.....the NASDAQ +0.01%.

BUT....I ended the day with a moderate gain. I had five of eight stocks UP today.........GOOGL, COSt, HON, AAPl, and NVDA. I was also hapy to see my account with a beat on the SP500 of 0.26%.

Considering this go nowhere day today.....I WILL TAKE IT.

 

The POSITIVE spin....ALL the averages above were positive for the day and in the GREEN.

 

It is RARE to see a positive spin story like this one.

S&P 500 Marks 100 Days Without 1.5% Drop, First Time Since 2018

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/p-500-marks-100-days-201455253.html

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

"(Bloomberg) -- US stocks continued their slog through the end of summer, but the S&P 500 Index just notched a resiliency milestone not seen in five years.

The benchmark for American equities closed for the 100th straight session without a drop of at least 1.5%. It’s had four losses of more than 1% in the two months since it peaked for the year, but otherwise daily swings have been muted to an extent not matched since 2018.

Part of the resilience has come from optimism that the economy has withstood the worst of the Federal Reserve’s policy tightening. Also, investors are still channeling money into stocks. US exchange-traded equity funds saw a $13.4 billion net inflow in the week through Sept. 13, the ninth week of additions in the past 12, LSEG Lipper data show.

“It’s unusual, but there haven’t been reasons for big drops in the stock market,” said Thomas Martin, a senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments. “Unless the Fed really surprises investors this week, there isn’t going to be a reason to reposition because we know rate hikes are nearly done.”

The S&P 500 ended Monday little changed and is down 1.2% in September. While gains have slowed since a torrid first half, investors haven’t been daunted by the highest Fed benchmark rates in more than two decades.

Supporting sentiment, consumer spending remains strong and Americans are beginning to conclude that price pressures are receding. The S&P 500 index is up 16% in 2023 as investors await a key Fed announcement Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg anticipate officials led by Chair Jerome Powell will hold rates steady and pencil in one more rate increase this year.

Crude Complication

Of course, oil prices leaping to the highest since last year may make the Fed’s fight against inflation tricky. In remarks last month, Powell kept the door open to raising rates again if the economy doesn’t cool enough to keep the inflation rate slowing.

The S&P 500’s September performance doesn’t bode well for the rest of the month. Over the past two decades, the market has typically seen its September peak on or around the 11th trading day of the month, which would be Monday, according to Jeffrey Hirsch, editor of the Stock Trader’s Almanac.

The average decline from mid-September through the end of the month has been about 2%, data from the Stock Trader’s Almanac show.

“We maintain our restrained outlook for the remainder of September and into October,” Hirsch wrote in a note to clients. “Inflation’s cooling trend is being challenged by rising energy prices and geopolitical concerns are numerous.”"

MY COMMENT

WHOOPS.....I spoke too soon....before I got to the final couple of sentences.

It is an unwritten rule of financial journalism that NO ARTICLE can be totally positive. There MUST be a negative message....preferably at the end of the article.

You know......I think the rest of September is going to be just fine for stock investors. The auto strike will end in 1-3 weeks. The FED will do nothing. AND....people will simply realize that the constant negativity and fear mongering is a bunch of BS. YES....we are still in the beginning or at worst middle of a BULL MARKET.

 

Since I own both......either one is fine with me.

Microsoft Eyes Apple’s Spot as World’s Largest Stock

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-eyes-apple-spot-world-111103613.html

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

"(Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. is narrowing the gap with Apple Inc. in the stock market as investors see better growth and far less China risk in the software giant.

The Redmond, Washington-based company’s shares have outperformed the iPhone maker’s this month, bringing its market value closer to Apple, which is at the center of a flareup in tensions with China. While hundreds of billions of dollars still separate the two companies, Microsoft’s positions in markets including cloud computing and artificial intelligence make it more attractive to some investors.

“Microsoft has more of what the market wants right now, and given where we stand on the pair’s growth prospects, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it overtake Apple,” said David Klink, senior equity analyst at Huntington Private Bank.

“We have more faith in Microsoft’s margins, while the cloud and AI are growth areas that can stand the test of time over a decade. We don’t know if the iPhone can do the same,” he said. “It’s hard to make a bear case for Apple, given its services business, but the bull case clearly favors Microsoft.”

The last time Microsoft was larger than Apple was in November 2021. Apple’s market cap is nearing $2.8 trillion, down from a peak of nearly $3.1 trillion but still above Microsoft’s roughly $2.4 trillion. While Apple shares have dropped this month, Microsoft has held steady, narrowing the gap between the two to roughly $200 billion at one point last week.

A preference for Microsoft over Apple is fairly common on Wall Street. The company’s recommendation consensus — a proxy for its ratio of buy, hold, and sell ratings — stands well above Apple. Nearly 90% of Microsoft analysts recommend buying the stock, compared with under two-thirds for Apple.

While neither stock scans as particularly cheap, Microsoft’s growth outlook may make its valuation of 29 times estimated earnings easier to justify. The software giant is expected to see double-digit growth in revenue and net earnings per share in fiscal 2024 and the subsequent three years. That consensus reflects the strength of the company’s cloud-computing business, with investors also enthusiastic about its backing of OpenAI, the fast-growing startup behind ChatGPT.

Microsoft Windows Takes Subtle Approach to Adding AI: Tech Daily

Apple is coming off three straight quarters with negative revenue growth, and a fourth — as analysts expect to see — would represent its longest streak in two decades. While that’s expected to turn positive in Apple’s 2024 fiscal year and continue growing in the subsequent two years, the rate isn’t expected to be nearly as robust as that of Microsoft, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The iPhone maker is “looking like the old IBM,” wrote Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Bernstein. International Business Machines Corp.’s “strength in mainframes and associated account control once seemed unassailable,” Sacconaghi noted, warning that “Apple’s key risks are that iPhone is replaced by a new computing/internet access platform.”

That new something could be AI, the hottest investment theme of the year. Needham recently wrote that Apple could fall to fourth place among US stocks — behind Microsoft, Alphabet Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. — because it “is not a core beneficiary of the trend toward generative AI.” Separately, Rosenblatt Securities wrote that Apple’s crown could be threatened by Nvidia Corp, the chipmaker that has been the biggest beneficiary of the AI boom so far, and which is currently less than half of Apple’s size.

Apple’s latest device announcements offered few surprises, though there are signs of strong demand. Its efforts to design chips in-house may be taking longer than expected, while a new phone from Huawei Technologies Co. could be a competitive threat amid concerns about government restrictions on iPhones in China, which accounts for nearly a fifth of Apple’s revenue. Microsoft, by contrast, gets less than 2% of its revenue from China, President Brad Smith told senators last week.

China’s Apple iPhone Ban Appears to Be Retaliation, US Says

“Consistency is worth a lot when considering a company’s valuation, and Microsoft, because of its consistency and projected growth rate, has an advantage over Apple right now,” said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder. “I like both, but the risk is higher with Apple.”

Tech Chart of the Day

The strong outperformance by Wall Street’s biggest stocks has led to a dramatic divergence in the returns of tech stocks categorized by size. The S&P 500 tech sector index has risen 38% in 2023, compared with a 16% gain for an equivalent mid-cap index. The index for small-cap tech stocks, meanwhile, has risen less than 11% this year."

MY COMMENT

I own both.....and like both. And.....recently both have been disrespected by the media and traders. Not a hard decision to own BOTH of the largest companies in the world. Somehow I think APPLE will muddle along.

 

Although I do see this.

Apple Stock Rises On Reports Of Strong iPhone 15 Pro Demand

https://finance.yahoo.com/m/d74cf927-e0c7-356e-ae70-ac4547042f20/apple-stock-rises-on-reports.html

 

Unfortunately if we dont change things here.....this is where we are headed.

Germany went from envy of the world to the worst-performing major developed economy. What happened?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/once-global-ideal-germanys-economy-062845919.html

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

"ESSEN, Germany (AP) — For most of this century, Germany racked up one economic success after another, dominating global markets for high-end products like luxury cars and industrial machinery, selling so much to the rest of the world that half the economy ran on exports.

Jobs were plentiful, the government's financial coffers grew as other European countries drowned in debt, and books were written about what other countries could learn from Germany.

No longer. Now, Germany is the world’s worst-performing major developed economy, with both the International Monetary Fund and European Union expecting it to shrink this year.

It follows Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the loss of Moscow's cheap natural gas — an unprecedented shock to Germany’s energy-intensive industries, long the manufacturing powerhouse of Europe.

The sudden underperformance by Europe's largest economy has set off a wave of criticism, handwringing and debate about the way forward.

Germany risks “deindustrialization” as high energy costs and government inaction on other chronic problems threaten to send new factories and high-paying jobs elsewhere, said Christian Kullmann, CEO of major German chemical company Evonik Industries AG.

From his 21st-floor office in the west German town of Essen, Kullmann points out the symbols of earlier success across the historic Ruhr Valley industrial region: smokestacks from metal plants, giant heaps of waste from now-shuttered coal mines, a massive BP oil refinery and Evonik's sprawling chemical production facility.

These days, the former mining region, where coal dust once blackened hanging laundry, is a symbol of the energy transition, dotted with wind turbines and green space.

The loss of cheap Russian natural gas needed to power factories “painfully damaged the business model of the German economy,” Kullmann told The Associated Press. “We’re in a situation where we’re being strongly affected — damaged — by external factors.”

After Russia cut off most of its gas to the European Union, spurring an energy crisis in the 27-nation bloc that had sourced 40% of the fuel from Moscow, the German government asked Evonik to keep its 1960s coal-fired power plant running a few months longer.

The company is shifting away from the plant — whose 40-story smokestack fuels production of plastics and other goods — to two gas-fired generators that can later run on hydrogen amid plans to become carbon neutral by 2030.

One hotly debated solution: a government-funded cap on industrial electricity prices to get the economy through the renewable energy transition.

The proposal from Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens Party has faced resistance from Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, and pro-business coalition partner the Free Democrats. Environmentalists say it would only prolong reliance on fossil fuels.

Kullmann is for it: “It was mistaken political decisions that primarily developed and influenced these high energy costs. And it can’t now be that German industry, German workers should be stuck with the bill.”

The price of gas is roughly double what it was in 2021, hurting companies that need it to keep glass or metal red-hot and molten 24 hours a day to make glass, paper and metal coatings used in buildings and cars.

A second blow came as key trade partner China experiences a slowdown after several decades of strong economic growth.

These outside shocks have exposed cracks in Germany's foundation that were ignored during years of success, including lagging use of digital technology in government and business and a lengthy process to get badly needed renewable energy projects approved.

Other dawning realizations: The money that the government readily had on hand came in part because of delays in investing in roads, the rail network and high-speed internet in rural areas. A 2011 decision to shut down Germany's remaining nuclear power plants has been questioned amid worries about electricity prices and shortages. Companies face a severe shortage of skilled labor, with job openings hitting a record of just under 2 million.

And relying on Russia to reliably supply gas through the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea — built under former Chancellor Angela Merkel and since shut off and damaged amid the war — was belatedly conceded by the government to have been a mistake.

Now, clean energy projects are slowed by extensive bureaucracy and not-in-my-backyard resistance. Spacing limits from homes keep annual construction of wind turbines in single digits in the southern Bavarian region.

A 10 billion-euro ($10.68 billion) electrical line bringing wind power from the breezier north to industry in the south has faced costly delays from political resistance to unsightly above-ground towers. Burying the line means completion in 2028 instead of 2022.

Massive clean energy subsidies that the Biden administration is offering to companies investing in the U.S. have evoked envy and alarm that Germany is being left behind.

“We’re seeing a worldwide competition by national governments for the most attractive future technologies — attractive meaning the most profitable, the ones that strengthen growth,” Kullmann said.

He cited Evonik’s decision to build a $220 million production facility for lipids — key ingredients in COVID-19 vaccines — in Lafayette, Indiana. Rapid approvals and up to $150 million in U.S. subsidies made a difference after German officials evinced little interest, he said.

“I'd like to see a little more of that pragmatism ... in Brussels and Berlin,” Kullmann said.

In the meantime, energy-intensive companies are looking to cope with the price shock.

Drewsen Spezialpapiere, which makes passport and stamp paper as well as paper straws that don't de-fizz soft drinks, bought three wind turbines near its mill in northern Germany to cover about a quarter of its external electricity demand as it moves away from natural gas.

Specialty glass company Schott AG, which makes products ranging from stovetops to vaccine bottles to the 39-meter (128-foot) mirror for the Extremely Large Telescope astronomical observatory in Chile, has experimented with substituting emissions-free hydrogen for gas at the plant where it produces glass in tanks as hot as 1,700 degrees Celsius.

It worked — but only on a small scale, with hydrogen supplied by truck. Mass quantities of hydrogen produced with renewable electricity and delivered by pipeline would be needed and don't exist yet.

Scholz has called for the energy transition to take on the “Germany tempo,” the same urgency used to set up four floating natural gas terminals in months to replace lost Russian gas. The liquefied natural gas that comes to the terminals by ship from the U.S., Qatar and elsewhere is much more expensive than Russian pipeline supplies, but the effort showed what Germany can do when it has to.

However, squabbling among the coalition government over the energy price cap and a law barring new gas furnaces has exasperated business leaders.

Evonik's Kullmann dismissed a recent package of government proposals, including tax breaks for investment and a law aimed at reducing bureaucracy, as “a Band-Aid.”

Germany grew complacent during a “golden decade” of economic growth in 2010-2020 based on reforms under Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 2003-2005 that lowered labor costs and increased competitiveness, says Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg bank.

“The perception of Germany's underlying strength may also have contributed to the misguided decisions to exit nuclear energy, ban fracking for natural gas and bet on ample natural gas supplies from Russia,” he said. “Germany is paying the price for its energy policies.”

Schmieding, who once dubbed Germany “the sick man of Europe” in an influential 1998 analysis, thinks that label would be overdone today, considering its low unemployment and strong government finances. That gives Germany room to act — but also lowers the pressure to make changes.

The most important immediate step, Schmieding said, would be to end uncertainty over energy prices, through a price cap to help not just large companies, but smaller ones as well.

Whatever policies are chosen, “it would already be a great help if the government could agree on them fast so that companies know what they are up to and can plan accordingly instead of delaying investment decisions," he said."

MY COMMENT

What is happening in Germany is totally obvious. They screwed the country with their woke energy policies and other ridiculous BS they imposed on their people and business. They have allowed MORONS in government and special interest groups to impose policies on the country and business that have no basis in fact or reality.

Unfortunately this little article can hardly bring itself to realize the truth. Much of the content above is backwards. And....much of the "fixes" mentioned above will simply lead further down the road they are on right now. The same thinking PERMEATES the.....socialist leaning....... EU.

 

The open today.

Stocks fall Tuesday with investors on edge before Fed decision

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/18/stock-futures-today-live-updates.html

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

"Stocks retreated on Tuesday as Wall Street watched for updates out of the Federal Reserve policy meeting.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 58 points, or 0.2%. The S&P 500 slid 0.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite
dropped 0.4%.

Deere, often seen as a barometer of future economic activity, fell more than 2% in the session. The drop came after Evercore ISI downgraded the stock to in-line from outperform due to agricultural production cuts.

The central bank’s two-day meeting begins on Tuesday. The Fed is not expected to raise rates when announcing its decision Wednesday, with traders pricing in a 99% probability that the central bank skips a hike, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool, a gauge of pricing in fed funds futures. Traders are putting just a 29% chance of a hike in November.

The Fed will also offer market forecasts on Wednesday. Investors will watch for commentary around the path of inflation and future path of interest rates.

“The Fed remains focused on engineering a soft landing in the US economy,” said Joseph Gaffoglio, president of mutual at America Capital Management. “Though consumer spending stayed strong through the summer months, we anticipate that spending will begin to slow, as excess savings from stimulus payments received during the pandemic finally run out, and many younger Americans face the prospect of restarting student loan payments.”

The major averages are coming off a largely flat session on Monday, with the S&P 500 inching up 0.07%. The Nasdaq Composite eked out a 0.01% gain, while the 30-stock Dow edged up 0.02%, or 6.06 points."

MY COMMENT

Of course everything above is totally obvious to investors and has been for a long time. This is called a NORMAL market.

 

The correction in NVDA continues. Now down by 13.4% over the past month. A big short term haircut.

At some point the market is going to wake up and we will see some buying. But.....I would not bet the farm that we are near a bottom......no matter how irrational the recent action in this stock is.

 

I do like this little commentary....not that it is actually related to the current correction in NVDA.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Dumped Nearly 60,000 Shares of the Stock. What's Happening to the Leader of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Revolution?

https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/09/15/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-dumped-shares-ai/

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

"Nvidia's CEO is selling shares again. Is it time for investors to panic?

Nvidia's (NVDA -0.71%) co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been selling shares of his company's stock lately. Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed that he sold 59,376 shares across daily trading sessions on Sept. 12 and 13. All told, the executive's company stock sales on those days totaled up to $26.9 million.

Notably, it wasn't the first time that Huang unloaded Nvidia shares this month. Last week, the CEO sold roughly $42 million worth of stock after exercising options on the shares. The graphics processing unit (GPU) leader is undoubtedly at the forefront of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, but its chief executive's recent moves could raise red flags in the eyes of some investors.

After Nvidia's stock soared roughly 213% year to date, are Huang's recent moves a sign that Nvidia is in danger of running out of steam?

Why some investors might worry about Huang's move

Investors understandably get skittish when they see that a company's CEO is unloading shares. Rightly or wrongly, it's often interpreted as a lack of confidence in future performance. And more so than any other company in the world, Nvidia is under the microscope right now.

Investors are wondering whether AI stocks are in a bubble or still in the very early stages of a much more substantial long-term bull run. It's not surprising that the processing leader has become a battleground stock. Performance expectations are sky-high.

Nvidia published its second-quarter report roughly three weeks ago and delivered virtually unprecedented sales and earnings beats. While the average Wall Street analyst target guided for earnings per share of $2.09 on sales of $11.22 billion, the AI leader blew the doors off those targets and posted per-share earnings of $2.70 on sales of $13.51 billion.

Making the historical quarterly beat even better, the company guided for revenue of approximately $16 billion in the current quarterly period. This far eclipsed the average analyst estimate's forecast for sales of $12.61 billion.

Yet despite the incredible performance, Nvidia's stock is now down more than 3% since its Q2 earnings release.




NVDA data by YCharts

With lingering concerns about inflation and interest rates, fears of a potential recession somewhere on the horizon, and rising bond yields, there are a variety of macroeconomic factors that could weigh on Nvidia's stock performance in the near term. Adding another layer of bearish complexity, tensions remain high between the U.S. and China.

Given all of those dynamics, it might be tempting to interpret Huang's recent stock sales as yet another bearish signal. But the CEO's moves hardly look concerning when placed in context.

Don't sweat the small stuff

While Huang's stock sales might seem alarming at first glance, it's important to put them in context. Nvidia's most recent DEF-14A filings, which break down insider and institutional ownership stock holdings, help show why the average shareholder probably shouldn't be concerned about the CEO's latest moves.

Nvidia's last comprehensive stock ownership document was filed with the SEC on May 8 and reflected holdings on April 3. As of the second date, Huang owned 86,878,193 shares of company stock -- giving him a 3.5% ownership stake in the company and making him the largest individual shareholder.

For comparison, Vanguard, BlackRock, and Fidelity Investments owned 8.3%, 7.3%, and 5.6% of the company's shares, respectively. These are massive investment companies that manage trillions of dollars in assets, while Huang is a single shareholder.

Huang's recent combined stock sales don't even come close to approaching 1% of his total holdings in the company. Additionally, because the stock sold was originated through options granted as part of his executive compensation plan, his total shares owned didn't decrease.

In short, Huang's recent stock sales amount to little more than a blip on the radar. Even after selling shares this month, Nvidia's CEO remains heavily invested in the business. He still has plenty of skin in the game, and his heavy insider ownership position should continue to incentivize him to pursue actions and strategies that work to the benefit of the broader shareholder base.

There are many reasons why a CEO might sell company shares. Insider selling is worth monitoring, but Nvidia shareholders should keep their eyes on the big picture and avoid reading too much into what amounts to a relatively small move from Huang.

This revolutionary technology could be bigger than Amazon.

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to boost productivity across virtually every industry, creating tremendous wealth for investors in the process. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has called it a “game-changing technology,” and Cathie Wood believes AI could approach $17 trillion in market cap in the future – the equivalent of 12 Amazons.

Applications like ChatGPT have captivated the world with generative AI, but more momentous use cases are already visible on the horizon: autonomous machines, intelligent avatars, and self-driving cars. But investors need to act quickly. Countless companies are racing to incorporate AI into their products, and the window of opportunity on this revolutionary technology gets smaller each day."

MY COMMENT

This is why it is called.....long term investing. Playing the PROBABILITIES. Even with single stocks....corrections are normal. I am sure there is some PANIC selling and FEAR selling contributing to the drop in NVDA. Also some profit taking going on.

BUT.....as to company basics and fundamentals....I cant find anything that has changed over the past month. The PROBABILITIES look the same as they were a month ago to me.

 

I have been working some this week on my attempt to get an Exhibition going on one of the artists that I collect. This is a long term project since it will probably take at least 2-3 years if I can make it happen. I am dealing with the museum CEO/President and others in this effort.

The primary focus on this sort of thing is always funding and fundraising. At this early point....my main focus is to keep the ball rolling......and try to slowly build momentum.

I have two paintings by this particular historical Impressionistic artist.....as I type this I am staring at both of them here on the walls of my study.

 

I have also been doing music related......"stuff"......here and there over the past few weeks......a few times a week. I have had a couple of people want me to play with them....but....I turned them down. As a "side person"......I am picky at this point in my life.

 

Another....pretty meaningless day today for the markets and for me. I had a mild to moderate loss today. Only three stocks UP.....AAPL, HON, and COST. I also lost out to the SP500 today by 0.18%.

the markets seem to be simply lingering and not doing anything as we wait for the FED to blab tomorrow. I cant wait.

 

The meaningless close today.

The Dow closes 100 points lower as the Federal Reserve’s rate decision approaches

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/18/stock-futures-today-live-updates.html

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

"Stocks retreated on Tuesday as Wall Street awaited the results of this week’s Federal Reserve policy meeting.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 106.57 points, or 0.31%, to end at 34,517.73. The S&P 500 slid 0.22% to 4,443.95. The Nasdaq Composite slid 0.23% 13,678.19.



CNB

Disney slid more than 3% after announcing plans to nearly double its investment in its cruise and parks business. Deere, often seen as a barometer of future economic activity, fell nearly 3% in the session after investment bank Evercore ISI downgraded the stock due to agricultural production concerns.

Grocery delivery stock Instacart climbed more than 12% after going live on the market.

The central bank’s two-day meeting begins on Tuesday. The Fed is not expected to raise rates when announcing its decision Wednesday, with traders pricing in a 99% probability that the central bank skips a hike, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool, a gauge of pricing in fed funds futures. Traders are pricing just a 29% chance of a hike in November.

The Fed will also offer economic forecasts on Wednesday. Investors will watch for commentary around the path of inflation and future of monetary policy.

“Now … that we’re face to face with the Fed meeting, markets are just taking a little breather and waiting to see what they say to take their next cue,” said Chris Fasciano, portfolio manager at Commonwealth Financial Network.

“We know that we’re closer to the end of the hiking cycle than the beginning,” said Kevin Gordon, senior investment strategist at Charles Schwab. “How they’re viewing the next year out, or at least turning the corner in 2024, is much more important.”

West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude prices settled lower after hitting highs not seen since November. The move seemed to buoy market sentiment and lift stocks off their lows. Elsewhere, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield
hit a high not seen since November 2007.

Leadership of the striking United Auto Workers union said more members could be called on to withhold labor if progress is not made by a Friday deadline. Stellantis advanced more than 2% in the session, while Ford and General Motors each added more than 1%."

MY COMMENT

A very BORING market the past week or so. Not much happening that is new or exciting. the FED is simply an excuse to linger at this point. I suspect not much would be happening even if the FED was not going to talk tomorrow. It is sort of the LULL.....before we end September and start talking about earnings again.

That is how it works as a long term investor.....the majority of the time is spent in boredom. SO.....we sit and wait for the markets to get active again.

 

HAPPY FED DAY.

AND....the markets open to the GREEN side of things. A common occurance on a FED day.

A typical FED DAY will go like this......the markets open higher......after the announcement this afternoon the markets move strongly higher........the FED MORONS start to talk.......as they talk the markets lose all their gains and close negative.

 

Here is one take on the expectations for today.

Fed expected to stand pat, signal another rate hike

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fed-expected-to-stand-pat-signal-another-rate-hike-110118019.html

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

"The Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold interest rates steady Wednesday afternoon while also leaving the door open on future actions to bring down inflation.

Many economists and Fed watchers expect officials to pencil in one more rate hike before moving into an extended pause.

"I think the market is correct in expecting the Fed to skip this meeting" and "maintain its vigilance," Marvin Loh, State Street senior global macro strategist, told Yahoo Finance Tuesday. The Fed, he added, will keep "optionality for another hike before they are done with the tightening process."

Rates now stand in the range of 5.25%-5.5%, following 11 rate hikes since March 2022, the most aggressive action from the central bank to tackle inflation since the 1980s.

But while many expect just one more rate hike, the bigger question may be how long will the Fed stay on hold at elevated levels. Will officials still see 100 basis points of rate cuts next year or will there be fewer rate cuts projected, implying rates will remain higher for longer?

"They might signal they are not going to cut as aggressively going into next year," Loh added. "So this higher-for-longer message is probably where we are starting to see concerns around interest rates being ...higher over the last couple of days and a little bit of volatility within the equity markets as of late."

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is likely to note up front that the job is not done on inflation and the Fed will stay the course in order to get inflation back to 2%.

Powell is also likely to reiterate his message from Jackson Hole that the Fed is "in a position to proceed carefully" as it mulls future actions, while also leaving rate hikes squarely on the table.

"One thing I will give Powell and company credit for is they have guided the markets pretty well up to now," Kevin Flanagan, WisdomTree's head of fixed Income strategy, told Yahoo Finance.

Investors will get a new set of economic projections as well that could revise inflation forecasts down and GDP higher given data suggesting that prices are cooling and the economy remains resilient.

The Fed's preferred inflation measure — the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Index that excludes the cost of food and energy, or so-called "core" PCE — rose 4.2% over the prior year in July, up from 4.1% in June but down from the range of 4.5%-4.6% for the first half of the year.

Another gauge of inflation — the Consumer Price Index on a "core" basis — rose 4.3% in August, slowing from 4.7% in July, its slowest pace since October 2021.

The Fed will announce its monetary policy decision at 2:00 p.m. ET Wednesday followed by a press conference with Powell at 2:30 pm ET."

MY COMMENT

YES.....this will probably be either the end of the hikes or we will get one more perhaps in November as the icing on the cake. Either way the FED is done.

If they do somehow manage to get to the 2% inflation target......they will tank the economy......probably putting us into a period of DEFLATION. Unfortunately I still see that as the default around the world.

I hate to see the talk in this little article about rate cuts.....that creates very foolish expectations and fodder for continuous speculation in the stock markets.

 

Ok......I am out of here for now. I have to go do a routine blood draw. I typically do four a year....so I am used to them......since I have been doing this for 15 years now.

KEEP THOSE MARKETS UP WHILE I AM GONE. I dont want to come back and see the markets down.