I avoided and ignored the markets today. Too shallow and non-representative of a market day today. In any event.....It was still real money and I had a moderate LOSS. My four Up stocks were.....HON, HD, COST, and AMZN.....the other four were down. Amazingly three of the four stocks that were up for me today are.....gasp....retail companies. I also got beat by the SP500 today by.......0.70%. We move on to the final few market days of November. We are getting closer and closer to having 2023 results permanently locked in.
BUMMER.....it looks like the site I use for this info is now no longer free. So I did the numbers in a different way. I am switching one of the categories from......."the week".....to......"past five days". DOW year to date +6.80% DOW past 5 days +1.22% SP500 year to date +19.23% SP500 past 5 days +1.10% NASDAQ 1000 year to date +47.13% NASDAQ 100 past 5 days +1.13% NASDAQ year to date +36.16% NASDAQ past 5 days +0.97% RUSSELL year to date +3.24% RUSSELL past 5 days +1.27% I improved a slight bit this week for my entire account. I am now at +40.27% year to date for my entire account. Last week I was at 39.86% year to date......an improvement of.....0.41%. ONWARD AND UPWARD.......to year end and beyond.
HAVE A GREAT CONTINUATION OF YOUR THANKSGIVING WEEKEND, EVERYONE....SEE YOU ALL READY TO MAKE SOME MONEY ON MONDAY.
If we can keep this up....we can thumb our noses at all the FEAR MONGERING EXPERTS.....regarding Holiday retail sales. Black Friday, holiday shopping season off to a strong start Deep discounts in several gift categories driving record consumer spending online https://www.foxbusiness.com/retail/black-friday-holiday-shopping-season-strong-start (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Americans might be feeling the squeeze from inflation, but that apparently is not stopping them from opening their wallets as the 2023 holiday shopping season ramps up. Data from Adobe Analytics indicates the season is off to a strong start, showing that steep discounts in categories such as electronics and toys have driven record consumer spending online since Nov. 1, despite a challenging microenvironment. An estimated 182 million people are planning to shop from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, the most since 2017, according to the National Retail Federation. In advance of Cyber Week, which is the five days from Thanksgiving Day to the following Cyber Monday, consumers spent $63.2 billion online, a 5% year-over-year increase for the same period in 2022. Those figures were released prior to the sharp discounts consumers expect to take advantage of on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Adobe Analytics reported Black Friday was set to have the greatest discounts on televisions, while the best bargains for toys and apparel will be offered this Sunday. The best deals for electronics and furniture are expected on Cyber Monday. Clothing was the top category of purchases made from Shopify merchants on Thanksgiving Day and into Black Friday. (Matthew Hatcher/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images) So far, the hottest items this season have included card games, Roblox toys, Squishmallows, Barbie dolls and Legos. The top-selling game consoles have been the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5, while the top-selling video games were "Super Mario Bros. Wonder" and "Spiderman 2." On Friday afternoon, Shopify released its first look at U.S. shopping data from its merchants during the major shopping day. The findings show the average cart price for Black Friday midday was $118.70, and Thanksgiving Day had an average cart price of $119.30. The top five categories of orders for both days were clothing, personal care, jewelry, shoes and decor. Shopify said 78% of sales were placed from a mobile device, while 22% of orders were made on a desktop computer. Since Black Friday last year, point-of-sale sales made by Shopify retailers in the U.S. have grown by 33%, the company said." MY COMMENT The above is at odds with the many articles that I have seen lately about the consumer having no money and not being willing to shop. It is like they just make this stuff (the fear mongering) up. Well DUH.....they do make it up. it is either the opinion of the writer or the opinion of some "expert" or both. Either way it is simply made up BS. They.....the financial media.....dont even care if they are right or wrong on this sort of prediction. All they care about is generating clicks......and.....the way to do that is with scary headlines and content slanted to the negative.
As to the above.......this is why any long term investor has to.....ABSOLUTELY......ignore the day to day coverage. The key to making generational money for your family is being exposed to the markets for the long term.
The Holiday shopping fear mongering.....not going to work out too well. Energized shoppers break one-day holiday sales record https://finance.yahoo.com/news/energized-shoppers-break-one-day-190741866.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Whether they jostled through brick-and-mortar stores or toggled between tabs and virtual carts, holiday shoppers were eager to participate in Black Friday this year. Both in-store and online retail sales increased year-over-year unadjusted for inflation, according to Mastercard’s SpendingPulse insights, which noted that apparel, jewelry and restaurant categories saw considerable spikes. In-store sales jumped a little more than 1%, while e-commerce led the charge with an increase of 8.5%. However, Sensormatic Solutions, which tracks shopper traffic at brick-and-mortar stores, found that visits on Black Friday were up 4.6% from 2022. This is a turnaround for retailers, the company said, as foot traffic has been down an average of 2.4% this year. “Though we anticipated an increase, in-store shopper traffic outperformed our expectations,” Grant Gustafson, head of retail consulting and analytics at Sensormatic, said in a statement. “Consumers are again finding joy in brick-and-mortar shopping, seeing it as an experience to be shared with loved ones. It’s a testament to the hard work retailers have done to streamline journeys and deliver satisfying experiences.” Adobe Analytics, which tracks US online shopping, reported a record $9.8 billion in Black Friday sales, up 7.5% from 2022, driven by surging demand for electronics such as televisions, smart watches and audio equipment. Most shoppers did their browsing and buying on their phones, with mobile purchases accounting for $5.3 billion in sales. Adobe expects that purchases made through smartphones this holiday season will overtake those made by desktops for the first time. Online shoppers also made considerable use of “buy now, pay later” (BNPL), installment payment plans that allow consumers to split their online cart total into four payments typically due several weeks apart. While some BNPL lenders charge interest or late fees, for major purchases or big spending days, these mini-loans can help stretch holiday budgets. Last week, 72% more shoppers used BNPL plans compared with the week before, Adobe found. E-commerce platform Shopify also reported record sales totaling more than $4 billion worldwide, 22% higher than last year. According to the company, the average cart price for US consumers was $124, and the top-selling categories included personal care, clothing and kitchenware. As holiday shopping ramps up ahead of Christmas, analysts predict a busy time for retailers over the next few weeks. Adobe forecasts that Cyber Monday will be the biggest retail event of the year, driving a record $12 billion in sales, more than 6% higher than last year. Sensormatic predicts that eight of the season’s busiest in-person shopping days will be in December and, combined with Black Friday weekend, they are expected to account for 40% of all holiday foot traffic this year." MY COMMENT So much for the holiday DOOM & GLOOM. Black Friday sales up by 7.5% from 2022....this is MASSIVE. Shopify....up by a WHOPPING 22% compared to 2022. It appears that we have a good shot at a record breaking Holiday Shopping year. I can hear all the little fingers typing away on the keyboards tonight and tomorrow.....as all the "experts" and media people now have to ditch the DOOM & GLOOM stories they had all set for Monday. As I always say......the "expert" predictions are wrong so often......they defy all rules of probability. Makes me wonder if they do it on purpose.
Here is the ghost of stock market future......(next week). Inflation data puts stock market rally to the test: What to know this week https://finance.yahoo.com/news/infl...he-test-what-to-know-this-week-144403936.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important cocntent) "The Federal Reserve's preferred inflation measure will be the main obstacle for stock market bulls looking to extend the recent rally in the week ahead. Thursday morning will bring the release of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index for October, and economists expect "core" PCE inflation — the Fed's preferred gauge — rose 3.5% annually last month. The economic calendar will also feature updates on manufacturing activity, consumer confidence, and home prices. On the corporate side, quarterly reports are expected from Salesforce (CRM), Snowflake (SNOW), Okta (OKTA), Dollar Tree (DLTR), Foot Locker (FL), Kroger (KR), and Ulta Beauty (ULTA). Stocks exited a holiday-shortened trading week higher, with the leadership drama at OpenAI and Nivida's (NVDA) latest quarterly report garnering the bulk of investor attention. All three major averages closed the three-and-a-half days of trading up about 1%. Inflation in focus Broadly, the week ahead will provide a test for the current market as stocks ended Friday pacing towards their best monthly gain in more than a year. Thursday's inflation reading will offer a final chance for economic data to derail the current narrative bolstering stocks that the US economy may be headed for a "soft landing," in which inflation retreats to the central bank's 2% target without a severe economic downturn. Recent economic data has fallen in line with that path, sending beaten up areas of the stock market like small cap stocks and meme stocks into rally mode. This data has pushed around expectations for the Fed, too, with markets now pricing in just a 12% chance the Fed raises rates again, according to data from the CME Group. Economists expect annual inflation according to the Fed's preferred inflation gauge — "core" PCE — clocked in at 3.5% in October. Over the prior month, economists expect "core" PCE rose 0.2%. In a note to clients this month, JPMorgan's chief US economist Michael Feroli noted this 0.2% monthly rise "would leave the 3- and 6-month annualized gains in that measure at 2.5% and 2.6%," much closer to the Fed's 2% target than October's 12-month gain is set to show. "Those increases are close enough to the Fed’s 2% inflation goal that most on the FOMC are likely content to stand pat on policy and let cooling labor market activity finish the job of getting inflation back to target," Feroli added. "We continue to think the next move from the Fed is toward easier policy, but not until 3Q24." Earlier this month, stocks surged and bonds rallied — which sent yields lower — after October's Consumer Price Index showed inflation continued to slow last month. Software, soft sales On the corporate side, a smattering of quarterly results will provide investors a further look at the health of the consumer, a look at the state of software demand, and whether AI is moving the needle for these business' customers. Foot Locker, Ulta Beauty, and Dollar Tree will be closely monitored for any forecasts regarding the holiday season and commentary on whether elevated interest rates and a softening labor market are pushing consumers to trade down. Salesforce's guidance for the current quarter will be scrutinized by the Street, with analysts at Goldman Sachs noting this period captures when customers decide on renewals and add-ons for next year's service. Wall Street analysts expect the company's results to reveal how companies paying for cloud services or tools like Slack are responding to price increases. Updates on demand for Salesforce's AI products will also be in focus. "Customers continue to optimize spend, reduce shelf ware, and prioritize software that delivers near-term value creation, resulting in a challenging demand environment for [Salesforce]," Citi analyst Tyler Radke wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday. Results from Workday, Intuit, Snowflake, and Okta should hit on similar themes in the coming week." MY COMMENT I have no prediction on the inflation readings.....and....simply dont really care at this point. The FED is the ghost of market past.....that continues to haunt the markets. BUT....If the inflation readings come in as expected or even lower......that will be the end of the FED rate hikes....unless we see a spike up in inflation at some point. The consumer is ALIVE and WELL at this point. A good thing for the markets. i dont really see any earnings that I would consider......market moving....this week. BUT....earnings season has been OUTSTANDING. I do think this view is right on point: "In a note to clients this month, JPMorgan's chief US economist Michael Feroli noted this 0.2% monthly rise "would leave the 3- and 6-month annualized gains in that measure at 2.5% and 2.6%," much closer to the Fed's 2% target than October's 12-month gain is set to show." NOW is the time for the FED to sit back and do nothing for at least 3-4 months.....MINIMUM. Let things settle and see where we are....in terms of their RIDICULOUS 2% inflation target. No need to trigger a recession and/or deflation......out of stupidity.
OK. I did a little trade today. HONEYWELL. I sold all shares at the open today. I have been looking at it for a while now. I added this stock about 4-5 years ago.....sorry I dont have the exact date I first bought HON right now.....it was in 2019. I have a gain in the position but not a very large gain. Over the past five years HON shares.....in general..... are up by 31.55%. In comparison the SP500 is up by 65.05% over that same time span. This stock was my smallest position and my lowest value position. I will simply reinvest all the proceeds into my SP500 Index Fund......a lateral move.
So....after this trade my little stock holdings are now even less diversified. I now only have SEVEN individual stocks. NVIDIA MICROSOFT APPLE GOOGLE COSTCO HOME DEPOT AMAZON I prefer to.....(historically)..... have 10 to 15 individual stocks. I am going to have to take a look at the NASDAQ 100 and see if there is anything in there that seems attractive. BUT.....I doubt I will find anything that I want to hold as a long term stock. I am fine with only having a seven stock position that is concentrated in the TECH side of the market. So my BIAS at this time is to simply just leave those funds in the SP500 for the long term.
@WXYZ if you were in Europe I would sugest a couple of solid names to you, but I know you dont invest outside USA. One would be L'Air Liquide S.A. (AI.PA). Other would be LVMH Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton, Société Européenne (MC.PA). Both seem to "feet" your style of investment, long long term, names to buy almost forever, rock solid companies, leaders in their business etc.
I am surprised to see this in the New York Times........but I do agree. In the Stock Market, Don’t Buy and Sell. Just Hold. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/24/business/stock-market-hold-sell-timing.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "There’s new evidence that market timing doesn’t work. Your odds of success are better if you just hang on and aim for average returns, our columnist says. Selling all of your stock just before the market falls, and buying shares just before the market rises, is a brilliant strategy. If you could really do it, you would have bragging rights among your friends. And if you could repeat the feat over and over again, you would be fabulously rich — a true stock market wizard. But the ability to trade like that is rare, if it exists at all. Without question, it’s so hard that the vast majority of professional traders can’t do it, as countless studies have shown. I certainly can’t. Most of us are better off living with the reality that the stock market moves down as well as up, and that we can’t beat it. A new study provides fresh evidence of why it makes sense to strive for an absolutely middling return. And the study implies that a simple, unspectacular strategy — buying and holding the entire market through low-cost index funds — is probably the best bet for most people. The Study A blog about the new research begins provocatively. Its title is suggestive: “We Found 30 Timing Strategies That ‘Worked’ — and 690 That Didn’t.” Most strategies didn’t work: That’s not surprising. But what about those that did? I wanted to find out. Perhaps they contained the secret to future riches and I could share it with the world. Alas, no. I quickly found that there was no secret, just luck, as the researchers readily acknowledged. “Eventually, if you flip a coin enough times, somebody will get heads 10 times in a row,” Wei Dai, head of investment research at the asset management firm Dimensional Fund Advisors, told me from Singapore in a video conversation. “Flipping a coin is just chance,” she said. “The strategies that ‘worked’ were like that.” Audrey Dong, a senior associate at Dimensional, participated in the research with Ms. Dai. The two analysts came up with a comprehensive, though not exhaustive, array of market timing strategies — 720 in total, conducted on a variety of stock markets and using a broad range of rigorously applied timing signals. All of this was a little wonky. They worked carefully and methodically. The signals included several stock valuation measures, market momentum (whether stocks were rising and falling) and whether small or large capitalization stocks were performing well. The researchers applied these measures to a range of time periods. The strategy that appeared to work best was conducted in a variety of developed country stock markets outside the United States from 2001 to 2002. It beat a simple buy-and-hold approach in these markets by an annualized 5.5 percent, seemingly a remarkable achievement. And it managed to do this with a straightforward method — abandoning stocks and buying safe Treasury bills when the stock markets were overvalued. As the blog said, in a teasing, celebratory tone: “Thanks to the decision to sit on Treasury bills during market downturns in 2001, 2008 and 2022, the strategy outperformed the buy-and-hold market portfolio.” Curb Your Enthusiasm But, the blog quickly added, don’t get “too excited.” This strategy used extremely specific measures chosen in a computerized “backtest.” Alter a single one of them and it no longer outperformed the markets reliably, even retrospectively; it didn’t work in multiple markets; and there’s no particular reason to assume that it would work dependably in real time now. In fact, there was a flaw in every one of the 720 approaches the researchers took, including those that seemed superficially superior. What’s more, even if one strategy managed to work for a while, it would be unlikely to remain secret for long. Modern markets are efficient enough that a winning method will be quickly replicated by others, and won’t be winning for long. That’s one of the core insights of what is known as “passive investing”: simply accepting that you can’t beat the overall market and focusing instead on minimizing your costs so you can get as much market return as possible. Broad, diversified, low-fee index funds — either traditional mutual funds or exchange-traded funds — will do this for you. But you need to be willing and able to withstand substantial losses, sometimes for extended periods, because while the stock market has risen over the long haul, it often declines. Timing the market is, for the vast majority of us, a recipe for losses. It may work some of the time, but it’s unlikely to work all of the time. The problem isn’t just knowing when to sell. You also need to know when to get back into the market, and getting both decisions right — selling at a peak and buying at a trough — is rare in any single market cycle. Over decades, it may be impossible. “This is an eternal topic,” Ms. Dai said. “People are always trying to figure out ways of beating the market. But moving in and out of stocks isn’t a good way to do it.” What this Dimensional research didn’t investigate was whether picking individual stocks can be a consistently winning strategy. But other studies have demonstrated that successful stock-picking over long periods is also extremely rare. For instance, a long-running series of reports by S&P Dow Jones Indices — which I have covered in this column — have examined the overall performance of stock funds and found them generally to be lacking. Most active fund managers can’t beat the market year after year, these reports have shown. Aiming for Average I’d be happier knowing a way of beating the market regularly, of course. I’d rather be a stellar performer, not an average one. But, as it turns out, striving to be average is probably a wise choice. Just match the market returns; don’t try to beat the market by buying and selling at moments that seem like great opportunities. You’re likely to hurt yourself. That’s the implication of the Dimensional study and a central message of a classic investing book, “Winning the Loser’s Game,” by Charles D. Ellis. As in amateur tennis, avoiding errors is likely to improve your performance more than reaching for big winners. Consistency and efficiency — low cost and diversification, in the case of investing — is the best approach for most of us. This isn’t an inspiring message, perhaps. There’s no particular glory in merely matching market returns and avoiding dumb unforced errors. Yet this approach isn’t easy, either. You need to stay solidly in the middle of the pack and keep your expenses low, while most of Wall Street tempts you with advice on how to get ahead of everybody else. That advice comes at a substantial cost, however. This latest study, along with much of academic finance, suggests that for most investors, striving to be average is a much better bet. MY COMMENT I am taking my own advice....which is the same as the above. I am putting all the proceeds from my sale of HON today into the SP500 Index fund in my account.
Thank you......rg. I am glad you posted those suggestions. You are one of the rare posters on here that is in the EU. I am sure there are others on here that will want to research those names and their prospects. If you run into other companies in the EU that you suggest....fell free to post them. BUT...you are right....I only invest in USA companies.....so they are not right for me.
The FED.....still just morons. The Fed Has a Story for You https://www.fisherinvestments.com/en-us/insights/market-commentary/the-fed-has-a-story-for-you (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Why the Fed’s allegedly “new” use of anecdotes doesn’t hold any new lessons for investors. Has the Fed tapped into a new source of economic information? Headlines note an uptick in Fed officials’ citations of feedback and anecdotes from local businesses and households, which some tout as a more timely, “real world” look at economic conditions than official, aggregated data. But the story of the Fed increasing its outreach to Real People in Business reeks more of politicking rather than a new move to get insight into the economy. Tune down the claptrap calling this an important shift. A recent Bloomberg article shared how Fed officials are searching for “real-time, on-the-ground” information about the US economy by soliciting feedback from local businesses and consumers. The examples are legion: Last week Thomas Barkin of the Richmond Fed discussed inflation with 120 businesspeople in Westminster, South Carolina. Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan talked to business economists in October, calling those conversations a “critical complement to the hard data.” Philly Fed President Patrick Harker noted small businesses told him they were struggling to get capital while Raphael Bostic of the Atlanta Fed visited factories in Mobile, Alabama to get a sense of labor trends. Even Fed head Jerome Powell visited York, Pennsylvania, to listen to agricultural firms’ concerns about high prices. Bloomberg concluded these local experiences may indicate a disconnect with official economic data. The meetings and stories give an impression the Fed is getting boots on the ground to learn how Main Street is faring—which may factor into monetary policy. For instance, if regional Fed presidents are hearing about local hiring slowdowns, perhaps they will be more reluctant to hike rates—even if the national monthly jobs report looks strong. But slow down. For one, the Fed’s efforts here aren’t new. Some of these visits are part of the “Fed Listens” initiative, which started in 2019 as a way for the Fed to hear how monetary policy impacts peoples’ daily lives. Others are part of regular monthly reports collected by Fed researchers. While individual companies’ situations aren’t necessarily reflective of the broader industry or sector, we aren’t anti-anecdote—hearing directly from company executives and small business owners can add useful color and context. Business owners’ perspective could also help inform Fed officials, whose expertise is more in academia, law and government than business or banking. Yet the Fed has always incorporated a broad spate of data—including anecdotes—into its analysis. A dive into historical transcripts proves it. Over the years, Fed officials have cited myriad local economic developments, from waffle ingredients for ice cream cones to ticket prices for the musical Hamilton. We aren’t pooh-poohing these examples, either, as they can shed revealing insight.For example, in 2011, Jeffrey Lacker of the Richmond Fed noted many firms in his district struggled to hire because prospective candidates couldn’t pass a drug test—interesting perspective that won’t show up in a broad output gauge, even if the monetary implications seem limited.[ii] However, incorporating anecdotes into its outlook doesn’t make its forecasts any more accurate. Go back to September 2008, weeks after the Fed forced Lehman Brothers to fail. Then-San Francisco Fed President, now-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen claimed shuddering financial markets’ effects were limited. She said there may be some impacts (e.g., local plastic surgeons reported fewer elective procedures while high-end restaurants had more availability) but that was about it—part of a relatively upbeat outlook amid recession. It was also wrong, considering the worst financial panic since the 1930s was well underway. Or take December 2009, when Sandra Pianalto of the Cleveland Fed suggested the economy hadn’t yet turned the corner since her business contacts reported little desire to invest due to regulatory uncertainty and weak demand.[iii] Yet at that point, the US was nearly half a year into a decade-long expansion. Note, too, the Fed has slews of surveys that come in providing anecdotes from businesses. Purchasing managers’ indexes, for example, often include color commentary from respondents. To us, the Fed’s more public outreach seems geared to winning some political brownie points and improving its image. It could use the boost given its forecasts have been wide of the mark over the past several years, and its decisions very likely worsened inflation. While the Fed couldn’t do much to alleviate pandemic-driven supply chain issues, it didn’t help matters by flooding the economy with money while things were locked down. M4 money supply growth jumped from 9.7% y/y in March 2020 to 22.0% in April, accelerating to 31.0% y/y that June.[iv] Inflation is a monetary phenomenon—the case of too much money chasing a limited number of goods and services. Deluging the economy with money when available goods and services were severely restricted likely contributed to the rampant inflation of the past two years. Then, to follow that up, the Fed initially called inflation “transitory”—meaning temporary, although it didn’t slap a time frame on that—only to U-turn and label fast-rising prices “persistent,” requiring rapid rate hikes—an apparent reaction to public and political pressure. Fed officials continue to fret about prices even as disinflation reigned this year amid improving supply issues and the money supply boom fading into the rearview. In a sense, that makes hot inflation look fairly transitory. Now the Fed appears to want credit for talking to regular people and incorporating their experiences into monetary policy. Call us cynical, but we think it is rather weird to seek credit now for a long-running practice. There is little reason to see this as a sea change and no reason to think it will improve monetary policy. It seems like mere window-dressing and the coverage of it stems from pundits’ excessive emphasis on all things Fed. So as always, don’t overrate central bankers’ views, whether informed by aggregated data or anecdotes. They are (and have always been) imperfect." MY COMMENT The FED........anyone that believes that they can control the economy is a moron. Every action they take has unanticipated results. It has always been this way and it always will.
This might be useful to someone that is nearing retirement......as a starting point......on how to structure their retirement income. A Retiree’s Guide to Guaranteed Income We compare Social Security, TIPS, annuities, and more. https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance/retirees-guide-guaranteed-income
I like this little......investor psychology....article. How The Market Shapes Your Portfolio https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2023/11/how-your-market-shapes-your-portfolio/ (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "In a rational world every investor would set their asset allocation based on their willingness, ability and need to take risk. One would balance a range of expectations for the various asset classes and match those possibilities with their goals and objectives. Sure, plenty of investors consider their risk profile and time horizon when building a portfolio. But we live in an irrational world — one in which experiences, emotions, circumstances, luck and timing shape both feelings and portfolios. The Economist recently had an excellent profile on how young people should think about investing and why they shouldn’t freak out because of the inflationary bear market of 2022. They point to research from Vanguard that shows your early experience in the markets can shape your asset allocation and investment posture for years to come: Ordering the portfolios of Vanguard’s retail investors by the year their accounts were opened, his team has calculated the median equity allocation for each vintage (see chart 3). The results show that investors who opened accounts during a boom retain significantly higher equity allocations even decades later. The median investor who started out in 1999, as the dotcom bubble swelled, still held 86% of their portfolio in stocks in 2022. For those who began in 2004, when memories of the bubble bursting were still fresh, the equivalent figure was just 72%. Therefore it is very possible today’s young investors are choosing strategies they will follow for decades to come. This is the aforementioned chart: These results are somewhat surprising. Most people assume living through the inevitable bust that follows a boom would leave a sour taste in your mouth. But the opposite is true. Investors who opened accounts during boom times actually retained a higher allocation to stocks for years to come. Maybe it’s inertia but it’s obvious stock market returns in your formative years as an investor can have an impact on how you invest. The hard part about all of this is you don’t get to choose when your returns come as an investor. Sometimes you get good returns when you’re young, sometimes when you’re old. Some retirees get fabulous bull markets right when they leave the working world while some retire into the teeth of a bear market. Timing and luck — both good and bad — play a huge role in your experience as an investor. I calculated the growth of $1 invested in the S&P 500 over a 20 year period at the start of each decade going back to the 1930s: There’s a wide range of results, to say the least. Here’s another way of looking at these numbers: Start investing in 1980 and it looks easy. Start in the 1930s and you probably want nothing to do with stocks.1 It’s also important to note “bad” markets with poor returns aren’t necessarily a poor outcome for everyone. If you’re a net saver, you should want crappy returns, especially early in your career. Risk means different things to different investors depending on their stage in life. Unfortunately, there are many variables outside of your control when it comes to investing. You can’t control the timing or magnitude of returns the markets offer. You also don’t control interest rates or inflation or economic growth or tax rates or the labor market or the actions of the Fed and politicians. Life would be easier if you did but no one said life is easy. The best you can do is focus on what you can control — your behavior, your savings rate, your asset allocation, your costs, your time horizon — and play the hand you’re dealt." MY COMMENT There is only one way to control all the irrational brain and chemistry based emotions and behaviors that impact investing. That is a simple plan of lifetime....long term investing.
Thus.... Stock market news today: Stocks little changed, but still head for blowout month https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stoc...t-still-head-for-blowout-month-123520844.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what i consider important content) "Stocks were little changed on Monday but remained on track to book their best month in over a year as upbeat investors keep rally hopes alive. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI), the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC), and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) were near the flatline at the opening bell after booking their fourth straight weekly win on Friday. High optimism for an end to US interest rate hikes has buoyed November's rally in stocks, setting the Dow up for its strongest month since October of last year — and since July 2022 for the Nasdaq and S&P 500. In a sign those upbeat spirits aren't fading, the VIX — known as Wall Street's "fear gauge" — closed on Friday at its lowest level since January 2020. On Monday, the mood was muted as Wall Street got back to work after the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend. But a fresh reading on PCE inflation due Thursday could put the rally to the test, given it's the Federal Reserve's preferred gauge of consumer price pressures. In the meantime, investors will monitor Cyber Monday updates for insight into whether Americans will splash out on holiday purchases even as purse strings tighten. Black Friday online sales rose 7.5% year over year to a record $9.8 billion while in-store totals also jumped. In commodities, oil prices slid as traders increasingly braced for more output cuts at the delayed OPEC+ meeting this week. Brent crude futures (BZ=F) dropped below $80 a barrel, down 1%, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were 1.4% lower but held above $74." MY COMMENT In other words.....nothing much going on this week.
As an APPLE shareholder I am very glad to see this. My only question is ........why did this take so long. China is a disaster for American business. I hope this is more than just PR and window dressing. Apple iPhone maker Foxconn to invest $1.5 billion in India as it looks to build beyond China https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/27/app...nvest-1point5-billion-in-india-expansion.html
I like this little article......well....lets call it a book review. Same as ever:’ Lessons on wealth, greed and happiness from Morgan Housel https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/27/sam...h-greed-and-happiness-from-morgan-housel.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Morgan Housel has become the Mark Twain of financial writers: funny, pithy, folksy, occasionally sarcastic and always seeking to peel away the layers of reality to reveal a deeper truth below. Housel is a partner at The Collaborative Fund and became a best-selling author with the 2020 publication of his book, The Psychology of Money. It explored the relationship between money and human behavior. The main thesis was to maximize what you can control: managing your own expectations, knowing when was enough, how to stop changing the goalposts. It was a relatively brief (250 pages) book, with short chapters, laden with Housel’s folksy wisdom on savings, the power of compounding interest, and plenty of stories about the role of luck and risk, and how certain key people (like Bill Gates) got lucky breaks that enabled them to go on to greater things (in Gates’ case, he had attended Lakeside High School in Seattle, one of the few high schools that had a computer at the time). The book not only caught on, it has sold roughly 4 million copies worldwide. To give you an idea of how big that is, a typical financial book will sell roughly 5,000 copies. If you can sell 10,000 copies, you’re really doing well. Now Housel is back with a second book, “Same As Ever: Timeless Lesson on Wealth, Greed and Happiness.” It utilizes the same style that Morgan rode to success in his previous book: short chapters, paragraphs, sentences and an emphasis on storytelling to reveal deep insights into very broad topics. Except this time Housel is going for a larger audience than those who wanted financial insights: He is going for timeless wisdom that is aiming to show people how to look at life in general. Morgan’s thesis is that the same things that have motivated men and women throughout our existence (fear, love, hate, greed, envy) are still present today, and because of that, much of what happens is perfectly predictable: Same as ever. The role of envy Take envy. Housel cites Charlie Munger, who noted that the world isn’t driven by greed, it’s driven by envy. Morgan illustrates this with a fine digression: Why are people so nostalgic about the past, and was it really better than the present? Take the 1950s, which baby boomers and their parents seem to think was some kind of golden age. On one level, it was: It was possible to have a family with one wage earner to have a modest, middle-class life. But the idea that people were better off in the 1950s is not supported by the facts. Mortality rates were much higher. People died far younger. Today’s families are also far wealthier than prior generations. Housel notes the median family income adjusted for inflation: 1955: $29,000 1965: $42,000 2021: $70,784 “Median hourly wages adjusted for inflation are nearly 50 percent higher today than in 1955,” Housel noted. “And higher income wasn’t due to working more hours, or entirely due to women joining the workforce in greater numbers.” It was due to gains in productivity. More stats about the “golden era” of the 1950s versus today: The homeownership rate was 12 percentage points lower in 1950 than it is today; An average home was a third smaller than today’s, despite having more occupants; Food consumed 29 percent of an average household’s budget in 1950 versus 13 percent today; Workplace deaths were three times higher than today. So why are we so nostalgic about the 1950s? It gets down to envy and the very human desire to compare how you are doing with everyone else: in the 1950s, “The gap between you and most of the people around you wasn’t that large.” During World War II, wages were set by the National War Labor Board, which preferred flatter wages: “part of that philosophy stuck around even after wage controls were lifted,” Housel noted. During the 1950s, very few people lived in financial circles that were dramatically better than everyone else. Smaller houses felt fine because everyone had one. Everyone went on camping vacations because, well, that’s what everyone did. By the 1980s, that had changed. Changes in the tax code, among other changes, created a group of ultra-wealthy individuals: “The glorious lifestyles of the few inflated the aspirations of the many,” Housel concluded. What did people do? They looked around, saw that some people were doing better, some much better, and they got envious. And then they got mad. Housel notes that envy has been given a much greater boost than in the past thanks to social media, “in which everyone in the world can see the lifestyles — often inflated, faked, and airbrushed—of other people. You compare yourself to your peers through a curated highlight reel of their lives, where positives are embellished and negatives are hidden from view.” “The ability to say, I want that, why don’t I have that? Why does he get it but I don’t? is so much greater now than it was just a few generations ago. Today’s economy is good at generating three things: wealth, the ability to show off wealth, and great envy for other people’s wealth.” Envy triumphs. Same as ever. But Housel goes a bit deeper, which is what makes this book satisfying: Besides demonstrating that envy is a key element, what else does this nostalgia for the 1950s illustrate? This nostalgia, Housel says, “is one of the best examples of what happens when expectations grow faster than circumstances.” Managing expectations “When asked, ‘You seem extremely happy and content. What’s your secret to living a happy life?’ Charlie Munger replied: The first rule of a happy life is low expectations. If you have unrealistic expectations you’re going to be miserable your whole life. You want to have reasonable expectations and take life’s results, good and bad, as they happen with a certain amount of stoicism.” Housel’s conclusion: “Wealth and happiness is a two-part equation: what you have and what you expect/need. When you realize that each part is equally important, you see that the overwhelming attention we pay to getting more and the negligible attention we put on managing expectations makes little sense, especially because the expectations side can be so much more in your control. ” I put this slightly differently: Everyone has circumstances that they are living in: how much money they make, where they live, whom they are living with, what they own. These circumstances have a definitely external reality. Your mortgage is very real, as is your house or apartment, as is your spouse or partner. Beyond your current circumstances, there are needs, and there are wants. Needs are what people require to get by: shelter, food. Wants are what people aspire to: a bigger house, a bigger car, a bigger everything. Those wants are being dramatically inflated by the wealth gap that has opened up and is amplified by social media. Here’s the mental trick: While your circumstances and your needs have a definite external reality, the “wants” only exist in your head; they have no external reality. You don’t have to be envious of your neighbor who has the Rolex or the big house. To the extent that is causing your envy and your anxiety, it is completely in your own control to change those thoughts. By changing your relationship with your wants, which only exist in your head, you can change the way you view your circumstances. Housel comes to the same conclusion: “the expectation side of that equation is not only important, but it’s often more in your control than managing your circumstances.” On risk taking Managing risk is a topic Housel addressed in The Psychology of Money, and he returns to it again. “It’s impossible to plan for what you can’t imagine,” he says, urging his readers to think of risk the way the State of California thinks of earthquakes: “It knows a major earthquake will happen. But it has no idea when, where or of what magnitude.” But the state has emergency crews at the ready, and buildings designed to withstand earthquakes that may not occur for years. The lesson: he quotes Nassim Taleb: ‘Invest in preparedness, not in prediction.’” What does that mean in practice? It’s about managing your own expectations, and risk tolerance. “In personal finance, the right amount of savings is when it feels like it’s a little too much. It should feel excessive; it should make you wince a little.” On the right way to view geniuses like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and even Walt Disney “What kind of person is likely to go overboard, bite off more than they can chew, and discount risks that are blindingly obvious to others? Someone who is determined, optimistic, doesn’t take no for an answer, and is relentlessly confident in their own abilities…the same personality traits that push people to the top also increase the odds of pushing them over the edge.” On why so many events that are supposed to happen once in a hundred years seem to happen quite often “If next year there’s a 1 percent chance of a new disastrous pandemic, a 1 percent chance of a crippling depression, a 1 percent chance of a catastrophic flood, a 1 percent chance of political collapse, and on and on, then the odds that something bad will happen next year—or any year—are . . . not bad.” On why companies are much more than just the sum of their financial figures “The valuation of every company is simply a number from today multiplied by a story about tomorrow.” On the impossibility of predicting the future and the need to be more comfortable with uncertainty “The ones who thrive long term are those who understand the real world is a never-ending chain of absurdity, confusion, messy relationships, and imperfect people.” On the value of patience “Most great things in life—from love to careers to investing—gain their value from two things: patience and scarcity. Patience to let something grow, and scarcity to admire what it grows into.” “The trick in any field—from finance to careers to relationships—is being able to survive the short-run problems so you can stick around long enough to enjoy the long-term growth…An important lesson from history is that the long run is usually pretty good and the short run is usually pretty bad. It takes effort to reconcile those two and learn how to manage them with what seem like conflicting skills. Those who can’t usually end up either bitter pessimists or bankrupt optimists.” On why compounding interest is the key to understanding stock market investing “If you understand the math behind compounding you realize the most important question is not ‘How can I earn the highest returns?’ It’s ‘What are the best returns I can sustain for the longest period of time?’ Little changes compounded for a long time create extraordinary changes.” On what the best financial plan looks like “The best financial plan is to save like a pessimist and invest like an optimist. That idea—the belief that things will get better mixed with the reality that the path between now and then will be a continuous chain of setback, disappointment, surprise, and shock—shows up all over history, in all areas of life.” On trying to understand people who don’t agree with you The question “Why don’t you agree with me?” can have infinite answers. Sometimes one side is selfish, or stupid, or blind, or uninformed. But usually a better question is, “What have you experienced that I haven’t that makes you believe what you do? And would I think about the world like you do if I experienced what you have?” Same as ever? Housel ends with a series of questions the reader should be asking themselves, including “What strong belief do I hold that’s most likely to change? What’s always been true? What’s the same as ever?” This is an ambitious book that sits at the intersection between investing, self-help, leadership, and motivation & personal success. The primary message is simple but easy to lose sight of: technology, politics and other trends seem to be accelerating, but human behavior has not changed. And as long as those age-old emotions that motive us don’t change, the new fancy gadgets we all have are just different tools to help us engage the same old emotions. Thanks to advances in vaccines, home appliances (washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, plumbing), life in the 1950s were “prosperous in a way that would have seemed unbelievable to someone living in the 1920s. … The same is true today—a 1950s family would have found it unfathomable that their grandchildren would earn more than twice as much as they did.” Here’s how often the U.S. stock market has generated a positive return based on how long you held stocks for. One way to think about this chart is that there’s a “most convenient” investing time horizon—probably somewhere around 10 years or more. That’s the period in which markets nearly always reward your patience. The more your time horizon compresses, the more you rely on luck and tempt ruin. Housel spends a good deal of time discussing the amazing progress that has been made in expanding the human lifespan in the last century, noting that the age-adjusted death rate per capita from heart disease has declined more than 70% since the 1950s, but that few pay attention to it because the progress has occurred only gradually. Good news comes from compounding, which always takes time, but bad news comes from a loss in confidence or a catastrophic error that can occur in the blink of an eye. The irony is that growth and progress are way more powerful than setbacks. But setbacks will always get more attention because of how fast they occur. So slow progress amid a drumbeat of bad news is the normal state of affairs." MY COMMENT Some very true investing observations above. Also some very true observations of human behavior. Both of these topics are complete intertwined......always have been and always will be. Reading like this is important....the better you understand yourself, your behavior and your emotional basis to your behavior......the better your long term investing results will be. Always trust the POWER of compounding and the power of long term investing. At all costs avoid the KILLERS of success.....GREED and ENVY.
WOW......the NASDAQ has now gone positive......and....seems to be suddenly moving up nicely. I note that the Ten Year yield is slightly down today. We are having a random listless day in general. I suspect is is one of those days where how anyone does will depend on their very specific holdings. For example.....I think I am doing pretty well today.....I have not looked.....since ALL seven of my stocks are UP so far.
