A very nice week to start October for the big broad averages and the markets. Look at these results and think back to the market on various days this week....what a ride. DOW year to date +0.79% DOW for the week (-0.30%) SP500 year to date +12.22% SP500 for the week +0.48% NASDAQ 100 year to date +36.96% NASDAQ 100 for the week +1.79% NASDAQ year to date +28.33% NASDAQ for the week +1.60% RUSSELL year to date (-0.89%) RUSSELL for the week (-2.22%) BUMMER...so far this year for the DOW and RUSSELL....kind of the extremes of the averages.....the DOW being the old school big cap average and the RUSSELL being the small cap average. I had a really good week this week. My year to date for my entire portfolio is now at +31.31%. Last week I was at +28.96%. So I improved my yearly result significantly this week....by 2.35%. I am very pleased to be significantly beating the SP500 year to date and especially the NASDAQ. I need to hang in there till year end.
Since we are in a time period where everything is about the Ten Year yield.....we ended the day at 4.795%......as of about 20 minutes ago. Perhaps today put a small stake in the heart of the Treasury Yields being the controller of the stock markets. It was at least a positive to get through this week with nice gains. As we move forward the Treasury Yields will become old news....although they will still have some power to move the market narrative.
Somtehing to consider as an investor. The Thin Line Between Bold and Reckless https://collabfund.com/blog/the-thin-line-between-bold-and-reckless/ (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Cornelius Vanderbilt had just finished a series of business deals to expand his railroad empire. One of his business advisors leaned in to tell Vanderbilt that every transaction he agreed to broke the law. “My God, John,” said Vanderbilt, “You don’t suppose you can run a railroad in accordance with the statutes of the State of New York, do you?” My first thought when reading this was: “That attitude is why he was so successful.” Laws didn’t accommodate railroads during Vanderbilt’s day. So he said “to hell with it” and went ahead anyway. Vanderbilt was wildly successful, so it’s tempting to view his law-flouting – which was notorious and vital to his success – as sage wisdom. That scrappy visionary let nothing get in his way! But how dangerous is that analysis? No sane person would recommend flagrant crime as an entrepreneurial trait. You can easily imagine Vanderbilt’s story turning out much different – an outlaw whose young company collapsed under court order. So we have a problem here. People could praise Vanderbilt for flouting the law with as much passion as they criticize Enron for doing the same. John D. Rockefeller is similar: His frequent circumventing of the law – a judge once called his company “no better than a common thief” – is often portrayed by historians as cunning business smarts. Maybe it was. But when does the narrative shift from, “You didn’t let outdated laws get in the way of innovation,” to “You committed a crime?” It’s hard to know. I think we only judge the process by its outcome. Which is dangerous. The hardest thing about studying businesses and investors is that many traits that fueled their success could have just as easily triggered failure. But we rarely think about it that way when learning from specific outcomes. Those eager to learn from others tend to look at the tails. What did the big winners do right? What did the big losers do wrong? It’s often hard to find an actionable takeaway from either because winners and losers often pursued similar risky strategies, with outcomes tilted ever so slightly by chance. My point is that big success requires bucking conventional wisdom, but conventional wisdom is usually right and worth following. We’re left with outcomes where winners are praised more than they should be, losers criticized more than they deserve. There’s more to this than breaking laws. The majority of Benjamin Graham’s investing success is due to owning shares of Geico. Both his initial purchase, and subsequently holding the stock at high valuations, broke nearly every rule that Graham himself laid out in his famous texts. What are we supposed to learn from that? We think Mark Zuckerberg is a genius for turning down a big offer to sell his company. But people criticize Groupon and Yahoo! with as much passion for turning down their big buyout offers. What is the lesson for entrepreneurs here? Uber took no prisoners as it disrupted the entrenched taxi market. But the line between rooting for a scrappy startup and “#DeleteUber” turned out to be a hair thin. Which case study will be taught in business schools? Countless fortunes (and failures) owe their outcome to leverage. The best (and worst) managers drive their employees as hard as they can. “The customer is always right” and “customers don’t know what they want” are both accepted business wisdom. The line between “inspiringly bold” and “foolishly reckless” can be a millimeter thick and only visible with hindsight. But it’s easy to view the process that led to successful outcomes as something to emulate, and the process that led to failures as something to avoid. I don’t think there’s much we can do about this. It’s one of those things that just is. Risk is unfair and unforgiving. But a few things are worth thinking about. Focus less on case studies and more on broad patterns. Case studies can be dangerous because we study extreme examples, and extreme examples are often the least applicable to other situations, given their complexity. You’ll get closer to something actionable by looking for broad patterns of things like how people respond to surprises, how fragile competitive advantages can be, how quickly people/businesses/economies evolve, and what makes people happy. This is also why multidisciplinary learning is so important. Accept that strategies expire. The irony of history is that it’s mostly the study of things changing, often used as a guide for what to do next. The only thing more dangerous than underestimating how risky someone else’s strategy was is not realizing that the entire strategy only worked in a different era. When you accept that things change over time you become less interested in specific strategies used in the past and more interested in broad topics, like how people discovered the strategies to begin with. There’s more to learn from people who endured risk than those who seemingly conquered it. If success requires taking risk that could easily turn into failure, and the line between the two is nearly invisible in real time, I want to learn from people who accidentally stepped over the line and lived to tell the tale. Companies that survived deep recessions. Investors who survived bear markets. Products that flopped, were redesigned, and then worked. In any risky endeavor, the line between success and failure is thin enough that hardly anyone can find it but never walk over it. So you’ll gain more by learning how to put up with and survive the occasional misstep than attempting to avoid them entirely. This is why room for error and humility are so important. “What do I care about the law?” Vanderbilt once said. “Ain’t I got the power?” He did, and it worked. But it’s easy to imagine those being the last words of a story with a very different outcome." MY COMMENT Looking back I can see many key points where I made decisions in life that were critical......and....also outcomes that were critical. At this point in my life I often think....."if I had to start over could I do it all over again, under current society and conditions"? I dont know.....probably not. Risk, risk tolerance, failure or success, winning, losing.....really are a knifes edge. There is often a good amount of luck involved. You can make all the right decisions and put yourself in the right place for success and still fail. That does not mean that you were wrong....it just means that the PROBABILITIES did not work out. I try to invest primarily based on PROBABILITY. I believe this gives me the best "chance" of success....but there is still no guarantee.
All of us handling our own investments....unless we simply invest in passive indexes....are active managers. Active Success: Still Elusive https://www.indexologyblog.com/2023/10/04/active-success-still-elusive/ (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Anyone even vaguely conversant with our SPIVA® Scorecards will realize that most active managers underperform passive benchmarks most of the time. This result is robust across geographies and across time, and is reflected in our recently issued mid-year 2023 report for the U.S. market. Although the scorecard covers 39 categories of equity and fixed income managers, the largest and most closely watched comparison is that between large-cap U.S. equity managers and the S&P 500®. Exhibit 1 shows that 60% of large-cap managers underperformed the S&P 500 in the first six months of 2023; not since 2009 has a majority of large-cap managers outperformed. More important than the last six months’ results is the long-run record of active performance, and here our mid-year report is consistent with its predecessors: as time periods lengthen, active outperformance becomes harder to find. Although “only” 60% of large-cap managers lagged the S&P 500 in the first six months of 2023, after 10 years the underperformance rate is 86%, and after 20 years it’s 94%. We see similar results across all manager categories. The deterioration of results over the long term is strong inferential evidence that the true likelihood of active outperformance is less than 50%; if this were not so, we would expect longer-term results to be better than shorter. As we’ve observed before, skill persists, while luck is ephemeral. There are good reasons why active managers typically underperform, but market movements in early 2023 exacerbated the challenge. Exhibit 2 illustrates the shift in relative sectoral performance between 2022 and the first six months of this year. The three worst-performing sectors in 2022 were the only three sectors to beat the S&P 500 in the first half of 2023. For an active manager to navigate through such a sector reversal is difficult in any circumstance, and especially so when, as now, the three sectors coming into favor are also the three with the index’s highest average capitalization. As Exhibit 3 illustrates, the average return of the stocks in the S&P 500’s largest capitalization decile was more than double the average return of the next-best-performing decile. When an index’s largest constituents are among its best performers, active management becomes especially difficult: the larger a stock’s index weight is, the less likely it is that active managers will overweight it. The relatively weak performance of the largest stocks helped to explain the comparatively good performance of active managers in 2022, just as their relatively strong performance in early 2023 served as a headwind. That headwind blows with particular strength in Exhibit 4, which shows the distribution of the performance of the members of the S&P 500 for the first six months of 2023. The median stock in the index rose by 4.8%, while the simple average of all returns was 7.7%. Because the largest stocks in the index were among the best performers, the index’s 16.9% cap-weighted return was well above the simple average. The skewed distribution of returns, and the presence of so many large names on the right tail of the distribution, meant that only 28% of the stocks in the S&P 500 outperformed the index during the first six months. Twenty-three years of SPIVA data have taught us that successful active management is rare. The remarkable performance of the S&P 500’s largest stocks made it particularly difficult in the first half of 2023. If the index’s larger caps continue to outperform, active managers’ difficulties are likely to continue." MY COMMENT One fact is clear.....most active managers will not outperform the SP500 either annually or over their career. Same with most investors. I have been lucky over my investing life to outperform the SP500. Some....perhaps much.....of that out-performance has come about as a result of particular investments that strongly outperformed....at particular times. I continue to use the SP500 as my one and only measure of investing success. I dont care about investing style, fundamental versus technical, small cap, big cap, value, trader, long term, short term, etc, etc, etc.....the bottom line....if you are not beating the SP500 you are costing yourself money. The first step for any investor....especially a long term investor....is to step back and take a good honest look at your returns and your history and decide if you would be better off simply investing in an SP500 Index ETF. Yes....it is hard to give up control of your investing....the fun and thrill of stock picking.....the feeling of being in control.....the thrill of a good gain when you are right. BUT.....in the long run it is all about maximizing your money and compounding that money to the highest level possible. For many people....probably most people.... the right move is to simply go with the index.
Next week marks the start of EARNINGS REPORTING. I am looking forward to it. This time around the media and all the experts seem to be suspiciously quiet. Not a peep. I like it. We will also get another little report next week......for those on Social Security.....the announcement on October 12 of the cost of living increase. It is anticipated to be about 3.2%. I am also looking forward to this.
With the FTX trial in the news lately I was thinking this morning......shocking I know....to be thinking. This is not some little guy that came out of years of slogging away in garage and slowly building a company. This is a person and a business that was backed and supported by some of the most important and respected business minds in the world.....supposedly. Some of the largest financial institutions in the world were investors. He was strongly backed by venture capital firm Sequoia and many other firms in the venture capital world. He was strongly backed by the financial elites. These are people that are extremely sophisticated in technology and finance. These are people with massive experience managing and guiding big start up companies. Yet the more we see about what was going on at this company and with the leadership of the company.....it was more like the movie...."Animal House". A perfect example why you can NEVER trust anyone with your money.....except for yourself. No matter the supposed expertise of the elites.....in the end....the result is often simply exposure of another empty suit. Another classic example.....Bernie Madoff.
Come to think about it....these two could be brothers in how they look. Too bad John is not around....he would be perfect to play and skewer....Bankman Fried. It would be a role made in heaven for him.
I actually like this little article. But.....I will have some fun with it to illustrate how I think and what I see when I read an article. Wall Street Is Worried the Bear Market Has ‘Unfinished Business’ https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wall-street-worried-bear-market-130000121.html (MY running thinking and comments are in parenthesis and BOLD) "(Bloomberg) -- It was supposed to be one of the greatest stock-market comebacks of all time. But after a summer slump, there’s a nagging fear it might just keep slipping away. (Really? I dont see or hear much evidence of this sort of thinking in the real world) Roughly a year after the S&P 500 Index bottomed out, money managers have seen the stock market’s gains erode on expectations the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates elevated well into next year. (ok, somewhat true....but many investors like myself are siting on historic gains right now in spite of the recent drop) More than 180 stocks in the benchmark are now trading for less than they were 12 months ago, even after the equity market snapped a four-week losing streak with a rally Friday that drove it to a small gain. And in a little over two months, more than a third of the S&P 500’s advance this year has been erased, sapping investors’ confidence and sowing fear that equities have further to fall. (WOW......180 stocks are now trading for less.....SO....I guess out of the slightly over 500 stocks in the SP500 that means that the vast majority...over.....325 stocks are trading higher) (So....we have lost 1/3 of the gains? Well 2/3 of the gains are still intact....so I guess in reality we are still up nicely for the year and since the start of the bull market in July of 2022) Take Bank of America Corp. strategist Michael Hartnett, who’s advising clients to pull back from US stocks because he’s “convinced the bear market has unfinished business.” (Ok...so what.....some guy at a bank thinks we are going down based on "unfinished business" by a bear market....but no mention given of his reasoning or why he thinks this) If the selling revives and the S&P 500 falls below 4,200, there are few breakout levels where buyers could safely swoop in, according to technical analysts who monitor daily averages and other metrics as a gauge of stock-market momentum. It closed Friday at 4,309. (Nothing to do with the opinion of the guy at the bank....and actually pointing out the positive of a short term drop leading to buyers entering the market) That leaves the index vulnerable to sliding to its March lows around 3,900 — or even further. For bulls to have the upper hand once again, the S&P 500 would likely need to hold above its June lows of around 4,350. (The use of the word "That" at the start of the above sentence...what is that referring to? The fact that some guy at a bank thinks we are going down? Or if the selling revives....buyers will swoop in if the selling gets too extreme?....or just the writers opinion?) Of course, the S&P 500 remains up more than 12% for the year. The recent downturn was driven by the interest-rate risk posed by the persistent strength of the economy, not a slowdown that would batter corporate profits, and Friday’s gain in the face of unexpectedly strong employment data shows the market is proving resilient. (Positive presentation of actual FACT...that is contrary to the thesis of the entire article....yes the SP500 is up for the year more than its historic average gain of 10-11% per year) (Seems to be saying that the recent small market drop....which is not anywhere close to being a correction....is simply a reaction to rates....not earnings fundamentals) Moreover, the S&P 500 has never hit a new low after rising as much as it has since last October. To cross that line it would need to fall nearly 17%. (More positive FACT contrary to the thesis of the article....sounds good to me.) (Falling another 17%....highly unlikely) Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at research firm CFRA, said a retrenchment of that scale remains unlikely and he’s sticking to his 4,575 year-end price target for the S&P 500, implying a further gain of some 6%. But he’s still nursing doubts about how long such strength could persist. (I guess this guy also thinks that....."another 17% drop".....is highly unlikely. In fact he is looking for another gain of 6%. Now I am really confused....is this a negative or a positive article) “My real worry is does this bull market die an early death, or do we end up with a new all-time high and worry instead about what happens in 2024?” he said. The post-pandemic economy has fed such doubts by consistently catching markets by surprise, first with the persistence of inflation and now with how resistant it has been to the Fed’s most aggressive rate hikes in four decades. Yet that strength is a double-edged sword: By giving the central bank reason to keep rates elevated, it’s also increasing the risk that parts of the economy will snap, resulting in a recession instead of the soft landing investors had started betting on. (Time to bring in the old recession boogieman) (There is absolutely zero indication of a recession at this time) (The persistence of inflation.....it has been nicely decreasing over the past year) Such concerns have weighed on investor sentiment. A poll of investment advisers from 125 firms by the National Association of Active Investment Managers showed their equity exposure fell to 36% last week, less than it was at this time a year ago. (GREAT......the perfect contrary indicator for investors. These are the same people that I discussed a few posts above....that can not beat the SP500.....the active managers.) (AND....no the markets dont operate on or care about polls) The current view among investors is that “the economy remains resilient, meaning the Fed will remain restrictive, yields will likely keep rising and stocks will continue to decline,’” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance. “Eventually, the higher-for-longer environment will cause something to break.” (OMG....something is going to break.....what?....tell me what is going to break and why and how much) (Of course the FED is going to remain restrictive for at least a year....they have flat out told us this about a thousand times over the past six months) At the same time, the payouts on short-term Treasuries and other low-risk investments have pushed over 5%, giving investors another incentive to pull back from equities. Nearly $71 billion was poured into cash-like instruments during the week ended Wednesday, the biggest inflow since July, according to Bank of America, which cited EPFR Global data. (This is short term and safe money moving.....to where it should be. If this is stock market money...it is simply market timing and fear that will lead to future failure to meet the returns of the averages.....as usual) From a contrarian standpoint, that means investors are sitting on a lot of money that could be used to buy equities when sentiment eventually turns around. Although October has a bad reputation for stocks, it’s historically a seasonally better time for investors following the worst two months of the year for equities, according to Stovall. (Ok.....more good news......the market timers and usual people that churn their own portfolios...will all pile back in with massive amounts of cash when the media coverage drive them to do so.) Investors are waiting for earnings reports in the coming weeks that will show how much of the economy’s recent strength has filtered down to corporate profits, particularly for the big technology companies that were responsible for much of this year’s stock-market gains. The companies in the S&P 500 are expected to notch the fourth straight quarter of profit declines, data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence show, but they will also provide outlooks for where earnings are headed. ( The old......."forth straight quarter of profit declines"....BS. This totally ignores that earnings have been massive BEATS way above expectations for the past four quarters and basically for the past 2-3 years.) ( yes what really counts is earnings and earnings beats) “Not all of the stock market was whistling past the graveyard of uncertainties over the past year,” said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. “But the trifecta of spiking bond yields, with a rising dollar and higher oil prices, has become too much for the stock market.” (Except for the FACT that gas prices are plummeting right now....oil is dropping....in my area by over fifty cents per gallon in two weeks. The bond yields are probably nearly spiked as high as they are going to go.....around 5% for the Ten Year..... and do not have longer term power over the stock markets. This is a traders driven spike in yields. AND.....as I said earlier....the markets and investors are STILL sitting on HUGE gains)
In regards to articles......I guess as an investor..... I am like the old cartoon of what your dog really hears when you are talking to them.....me being the dog...of course.
AND....as a long term investor.....when it comes to all the daily commentary and BS....you should be the dog. All you should hear is....blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I was too busy Friday to get anything done market wise. I did see later that evening where we had a nice comeback though.
Well, looks like we got our black swan event, at least for the traders. I'm going to do nothing but watch the chaos unfold.
I assume you are talking about Israel? If so....I would not personally call this a black swan. Without getting into the issues and talking simply from an investing standpoint....this is a very minor event. It will be over in a week or two......at most. I seriously doubt it will have any significant or lasting impact on the markets....beyond that week or two at most. I would not be surprised if any market impact is only a day or two at most. But as usual....if I am wrong....being very long term it is not an issue for me and not something that I would allow to drive any particular short term investing decision. It is simply a sit and wait and watch event for me from an investing perspective.
Not so sure it will be back to status quo anytime soon, but perhaps the term "black swan" was a bit much. The immediate drop and steady floor of the current futures is what prompted my observation.
I have been siting for a while today reading......I dont believe we will have any clear view of the markets today till later in the day. There is too much emotional and sensational reaction and media content at this time early in the day. I have seen many, many events in the middle East over my lifetime. When it comes to Israel and Palestine.....the end result is a given. Israel will mount a very quick and massive response....as usual.....and this will mostly be over in a short time. With the current make up and atmosphere in the Middle East I do not see this spreading beyond Israel and Garza.
So.....moving on to larger short term market issues. BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) 10-Year Treasuries Aren’t An ‘Important’ Asset, They’re a Consequence https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnta...t-asset-theyre-a-consequence/?sh=1fa586b6556e (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "In a recent opinion piece former Federal Reserve Board Member Kevin Warsh asserted that the “benchmark Treasury rate” (for the 10-year) is “the most consequential price of the most important asset anywhere in the world.” The view here is that Warsh could be convinced he overstated things a bit. He might agree. Why would a government income stream be so important? The latter implies essential, that the health of the global economy and its markets rides on a government bond. This is hard to take seriously. It implies that functioning capital markets require substantial amounts of central planning to function. Think about it. Wealth never, ever sits idle, which means government spending (whether as a consequence of taxes or borrowing) is the economy-sapping scenario whereby information-bereft politicians substitute themselves for information-pregnant markets in the allocation of precious resources. Applied to the U.S., the central planning is immense. As Warsh knows well, total U.S. debt is something north of $33 trillion. In which case we could likely fill Texas with all of the technological, health, and transportation advances that did not take place as a consequence of government arrogating to itself the allocation of so much precious capital. It’s a reminder that there’s nothing important about the 10-year note or any form of Treasury debt other than it existing as a flashing signal of gargantuan, unseen, unfulfilled progress. To which some will reply that to focus on the horrors of government spending is to miss the point. What makes the 10-year so important is benchmarking. So many debt instruments are measured against it. The 10-year informs other asset classes, thus its importance. Ok, nonsense. Utter nonsense. Such a view implies that in order for markets to function, it’s necessary that people with names like Pelosi, McCarthy, Jeffries, Schumer, Trump, and Biden be handed trillions in borrowed funds to move annually. No, it’s not serious. Thinking about this some more, the alleged importance of the 10-year in a benchmarking sense presumes that absent Treasury as the largest borrower in the world, private sector players would be blind as to how to set interest rates. The very notion is laughable. Markets work precisely because they’re the consequence of infinite knowledge and decisions informing the price of everything every second of every day. Markets don’t need government to help them set what is the most important price in the world: the cost of access to capital. It's just a reminder that Warsh misspoke in writing as he did. Realistically the 10-year isn’t even an asset at all. It’s just a market signal that the American people are the most productive people on earth, such that those who’ve arrogated to themselves an excessive percentage of their income can borrow rather cheaply as a result. Put more bluntly, the interest rate on the 10-year note and their global ubiquity is a sign that Americans generate way too much tax revenue for Treasury now, and worse as the $33 trillion (and counting) debt signals, they’ll sadly generate exponentially more in the future. In Warsh’s defense, the aforementioned ubiquity of the 10-year may be his broader point about its importance, but all it tells us is that Warsh isn’t thinking broadly enough. Thinking again about the unseen, how much do Americans and the rest of the world not have so that the world can count a “sure thing” in their portfolio?" MY COMMENT This is a perfect example of the.....government-centric.......thinking of the Fed, the government and the elites. It is simply a joke that they believe they have any real control or ability to control or guide the economy.
HERE is another recent market issue.....ESG. Investment titan BlackRock mutes ESG talk amid backlash https://nypost.com/2023/10/07/inves...taken-massive-hits-because-of-its-use-of-esg/ (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "It’s been a difficult couple of years for BlackRock, the world’s biggest money manager. The firm is still enormously profitable, though it has recently taken some big hits because of its image as a promoter of progressive utopianism through its use of Environmental Social Governance — or ESG — investment guidelines. Red state government officials are defenestrating the company from managing their pension money. The conservative commentariat has blamed the firm’s ESG screening of stocks for higher gas prices and inflation. The rap against BlackRock is that it promotes investing in “sustainable” energy sources but incentivizes oil companies to stop drilling. Larry Fink, its voluble founder and CEO, has been branded as some sort of C-suite leftist. The truth is always more complicated than political agitprop, of course. Fink is really a moderate Democrat aside from being an excellent risk manager during a successful 50-year career on Wall Street. BlackRock’s pure ESG portfolio is just a small percentage — $700 billion — of its $10 trillion in total assets under management. Yes, Fink loves to talk, and he has evangelized, maybe too much, about the necessity of going green, how climate change is a long-term threat to the economy and an investment opportunity. He says that the sustainable economy could be similar to the tech boom — throwing off millions of new jobs and creating trillions in new wealth. And so on, and so on. It’s only a matter of time until the ESG movement will R.I.P. Yet, Fink isn’t quite an ESG zealot as portrayed. He has also said the green economy needs to be done in a transition or you will get the inflation we have now. The vast working class can’t afford electric cars. Plus, you won’t ever hear the letters E-S-G coming out of his mouth again. That’s right. The whole thing has become so politically toxic Fink has banned it from his vocabulary. “You can say it, but I won’t,” Fink recently told me before expounding on the need for sustainable energy sources. Yes, Larry can be a handful, and the red-state pension opposition isn’t letting up. It’s why my sources inside the company say BlackRock’s flacks and marketing teams are working overtime to come up with a new, coherent message that fully explains the company’s ESG work and removes it from the current increasingly nasty political debateo ver the matter. It won’t be easy. BlackRock’s messaging pickle was on display Tuesday night during a “summit” of business and finance execs sponsored by the news outlet Semafor when its business editor, Liz Hoffman, interviewed a man named Mark Wiedman, head of BlackRock’s global client business. Given how many people invest with BlackRock, Wiedman is a pretty big deal in the firm. He is on the company’s short-list to replace the 70-year-old Fink when he retires, as is expected in the next few years. Despite its attacks from conservatives, Wiedman said ESG is a “capitalist impulse . . . a demand from clients.” Fair point. Larry Fink and BlackRock didn’t create the demand from blue-state pension officials and other virtue-signaling investors who want ESG porfolios. He then got to why BlackRock management is grappling with how to message ESG. BlackRock’s problem, Wiedman suggested, can be traced to talking too much about ESG. “Speak softly and invest money,” he said, “We don’t need as much talk,” he said, “ so we’ve been a little quieter because actually, that’s what our clients are looking for.” Good luck with keeping Larry quiet." MY COMMENT My view as an investor is I dont want any outside BS impacting my investments. I am NOT going to invest based on social and political movements. Of course....I dont have any real control over what the management of the companies that I own do on these sorts of issues. But if I am using any sort of money manager or own a fund or ETF......I am going to do what I can to avoid this sort of investing focus. It is a proven return killer. It is also a proven way to piss off half your clients or potential clients. Most of the actual polls of real people that I have seen overwhelmingly show that the average person just wants business to stick to business and cut out the social, cultural, and political "stuff"......right or left.
Here is the open today....although we have seen some improvement in the losses since. Stocks tumble as Middle East conflict rattles markets https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stoc...arkets-stock-market-news-today-133337454.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Stocks sank Monday as the Middle East conflict added a dose of geopolitical risk to the interest rate and inflation concerns already facing markets. At the open, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) dropped roughly 0.2%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) lost about 0.5% while contracts on the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell nearly 1%. Islamist militant group Hamas launched a large-scale attack on Israel on Saturday, prompting a declaration of war in response. That has rattled markets, as investors worry that another full-blown conflict could join the war already being waged by Russia and Ukraine. "Geopolitical risk doesn't tend to linger long in markets, but there are many second-order impacts that could come through in the weeks, months, and years ahead from this weekend's developments," Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid said. Oil prices jumped as much as 5% after the attack amid speculation that key crude-producing countries in the region could be pulled into the fray. WTI crude oil futures (CL=F) and Brent crude futures (BZ=F) were trading over 3% higher at last check as fighting enters its third day. Meanwhile, safe-havens gold (GC=F) and government bonds were in demand. A sustained rally in oil could add to the inflationary pressures that already have investors bracing for another interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve. Investors are increasingly facing up to the reality that borrowing costs are likely to stay higher for longer, with the surprisingly hot September jobs report on Friday just the latest data to make the case for more restrictive policy. The recent rise in bond yields to 16-year highs shook investors who were already worried about the impact on the economy of further rate hikes and put pressure on stocks. But it could give the Fed a reason to pause hiking, given some of its officials believe the bond rout is likely to tighten credit considerably. Trading in US Treasuries is closed on Monday for the US holiday. The next crucial economic indicator up is the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for September, due on Thursday and expected to show a small drop in headline inflation. The release this week of minutes from the Fed's last meeting should also provide more insight into policymakers' thinking about the path of interest rates." MY COMMENT OK....yeah. BUT.....notice what is missing above? Not a word about earnings which start thsi week. I guess the financial media has decided to simply ignore earnings this time around. I dont think this strategy is going to work or make any difference.
Good news for many Americans.......including myself....if this moves forward and becomes law. Temporary Tax Plan Could Boost Your Standard Deduction By Up to $4,000 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/temporary-tax-plan-could-boost-194758604.html "A House panel has passed a bill that would temporarily expand the standard tax deduction used by the majority of taxpayers by $2,000 per person for the next two years. The Tax Cuts for Working Families Act (H.R.3936) recently approved by the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee would temporarily boost the standard deduction by $2,000 for single filers and $4,000 for married filers for 2024 and 2025. The deduction would start to phase out for single taxpayers with $200,000 in income, or $400,000 for joint filers...." MY COMMENT Time will tell if this actually happens. When it comes to government actually doing this or anything.....all bets are off. Without this bill....here is the Standard Deduction for 2023: The standard deduction for 2023 will be $13,850 for singles and $27,700 for couples.
