You are right Tire Smoke. In fact my one investment in 1000 shares of MSFT for $80,000 in 1990.....ended up generating as much money for me as....ALL....those years of HUGE income. Add in the rest of my investing gains over the past many decades and they are WAY above my entire lifetime of income. I can still remember when we were.....small investors. Our first investment was a few individual stocks that I got from my parents as birthday and Christmas gifts while in High School and College........and for the most part Fidelity Magellan. There were no Index funds back than. I remember when we got up to our first $10,000.....we thought we had hit the jackpot. Not too soon after in typical market fashion a big correction or bear market hit and we probably lost at least 60% or more. We were so bummed and wondered why we had not sold. That money was our life savings and it was difficult to lose it.....but....we stayed in the markets and the rest is history. Over the years.....especially from about 1984 on.....we started to hit our stride as investors and I got enough experience to know the POWER of the LONG TERM. You are also right about Plan for the BEST and plan for the WORST. I was lucky to have a strong talent for visualization of the future in business. I was a very good long term planner. In addition...I thought of my business and financial year from April 15 to April 15....since that is when we had our greatest cash needs with income taxes due and our need to contribute $30,000 to our Keogh Plan. I would usually build up money in the business all year with an eye toward April 15. Than once all the taxes were paid...I would empty the business bank account of all the extra money and put those funds into my brokerage account. I would leave enough money in the business account to pay for two months of overhead. I did this to keep the pressure on myself to perform knowing that I had to produce in order to stay alive and pay overhead after that two months. I also attribute much of our success to the fact that I have NEVER been a follower....or a person that is subject to peer pressure. I always had great belief and confidence in myself and doing things my way. Some of that of course.....is simply because you are too ignorant.....to know that what you are doing is supposed to be impossible. I have been like that my entire life.....I am always underestimated.....in business, sports, music, investing, etc, etc, etc. In fact I learned to use that as a SUPERPOWER......the power of being underestimated till it is too late for the other person to know what hit them. I am a very competitive person but a fairly quiet observer of human behavior.
The above five or six posts....will HOPEFULLY inspire someone else to achieve. It is possible even today.
As you look at my....ADJUSTED GROSS INCOME...from 1984 to 1999. Keep in mind the value of a dollar back than compared to now. Here are a few examples of the value to a dollar back than compared to now: A 1984 dollar is equal to $2.96 now. A 1988 dollar is equal to $2.60 now. A 1990 dollar is equal to $2.35 now. A 1995 dollar is equal to $2.02 now. A 1999 dollar is equal to $1.85 now. The greatest difference I see between my work years and now in terms of our lifestyle, etc, etc.....there are way more people with money out there now. It amazes me.
The death of a LEGEND. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's longtime investing partner, dies at 99 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/char...e-investing-partner-dies-at-99-211406297.html
I gave a thumbs up for "The Death of a LEGEND", not for the fact that Mr. Munger passed. He was a tremendous man.
You have to wonder if any of this government data is remotely correct. It is ALWAYS revised....often significantly. AND.....so much for the recession......remember? The recession we were going to have. US economic growth for last quarter is revised up to a 5.2% annual rate https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-economic-growth-last-quarter-133558430.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "WASHINGTON (AP) — Shrugging off higher interest rates, America's consumers spent enough to help drive the economy to a brisk 5.2% annual pace from July through September, the government reported Wednesday in an upgrade from its previous estimate. The government had previously estimated that the economy grew at a 4.9% annual rate last quarter. In the current fourth quarter, though, economists say growth is likely slowing sharply from the cumulative effects of higher borrowing rates on consumer and business spending. TD Economics, for example, expects growth in the October-December period to come in at a 1.8% annual rate. Wednesday's second estimate of growth for the July-September quarter confirmed that the economy sharply accelerated from its 2.1% rate from April through June. It showed that the U.S. gross domestic product — the total output of goods and services — grew at its fastest quarterly rate in nearly two years. Consumer spending, the lifeblood of the economy, rose at a 3.6% annual rate from July through September — still healthy but a downgrade from the previous estimate of 4%. Private investment surged at a 10.5% annual pace, including a 6.2% increase in housing investment, which defied higher mortgage rates. The economy also received a lift from companies building inventories in anticipation of future sales, which added 1.4 percentage points to quarterly growth. Also driving the third quarter growth was an uptick in spending and investment by governments at all levels — federal, state and local. The U.S. economy, the world's largest, has proved resilient even as the Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark interest rate 11 times since March 2022 to fight the worst bout of inflation in four decades. Those higher interest rates have significantly increased consumer and business borrowing costs. But they have also helped ease inflationary pressures: Consumer prices rose 3.2% last month from 12 months earlier, a marked improvement from the 9.1% year-over-year inflation recorded in June 2022. The U.S. job market is cooling from the red-hot levels of the past two years. But it's still healthy by historical standards: Employers are adding an average of 239,000 jobs a month this year. And the unemployment rate has come in below 4% for 21 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s. The combination of easing inflation and resilient hiring has raised hopes the Fed can manage a so-called soft landing — raising rates just enough to cool the economy and tame price increases without tipping the economy into recession. “We continue to forecast ongoing expansion in economic activity, but the pace should slow quite significantly" in the current fourth quarter, said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. ”We anticipate a deceleration in household spending, not only on payback for an unusually strong third quarter but also from the cumulative effects of monetary policy tightening.'' The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecast Wednesday that the U.S. economy will expand just 1.5% in 2024, down from 2.4% in 2023, as the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases — 11 of them since March 2022 — continue to restrain growth." MY COMMENT No doubt this is mostly driven by one thing......GOVERNMENT SPENDING. I do believe the economy is strong and healthy .......but much of this GDP revision is the impact of government at all levels spending like MANIACS. This government spending is also the big driver of.....inflation. Does the FED ever mention this? NOPE. Does the FED ever try to jaw-bone the government spending? NOPE. Does the FED show any concern at all about government spending? NOPE. In fact the FED does not really do anything.....other than....try to TRASH the stock markets. IDIOCY......and....nothing more than a distraction from the real issues facing the country. the primary one being.....out of control government.
Stocks are up nicely so far today. We have a good first 1.5 hours of market action and good potential to build from here. There is really nothing much in the news toddy. I think the primary short term market driver right now is the Ten Year Treasury yield today......down at 4.274%. That is quite a drop from the 5% rates we were seeing just a short time ago.
In honor of INVESTING GREAT.......Charlie Munger. 44 memorable Charlie Munger quotes about life and markets https://finance.yahoo.com/news/memo...shire-hathaways-charlie-munger-225308303.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) and a legend of the investing world, died on Nov. 28 at the age of 99. To commemorate Munger's monumental legacy, we’ve compiled some of our favorite Charlie quotes: On life: “I think life is a whole series of opportunity costs. You know, you got to marry the best person who is convenient to find who will have you. Investment is much the same sort of a process.” — 1997 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting "Another thing, of course, is life will have terrible blows, horrible blows, unfair blows. Doesn’t matter. And some people recover and others don’t. And there I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He thought that every mischance in life was an opportunity to behave well. Every mischance in life was an opportunity to learn something and your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity, but to utilize the terrible blow in a constructive fashion. That is a very good idea." — 2007 USC Law School Commencement Address “You don’t have a lot of envy, you don’t have a lot of resentment, you don’t overspend your income, you stay cheerful in spite of your troubles, you deal with reliable people and you do what you’re supposed to do. All these simple rules work so well to make your life better.” — 2019 CNBC interview "With everything boomed up so high and interest rates so low, what's going to happen is the millennial generation is going to have a hell of a time getting rich compared to our generation. The difference between the rich and the poor in the generation that's rising is going to be a lot less. So Bernie has won. He did it by accident, but he won." — 2021 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting On learning "Without the method of learning, you're like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. It's just not going to work very well." — 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads — and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.” — Poor Charlie's Almanack “I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than when they got up and boy does that help — particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.” — 2007 USC Law School Commencement Address “I think that a life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time.” — 2017 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting “Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group then to hell with them.” — Poor Charlie's Almanack “Live within your income and save so that you can invest. Learn what you need to learn.” — Damn Right! : Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger On the stock market "I think value investors are going to have a harder time now that there’s so many of them competing for a diminished bunch of opportunities. So my advice to value investors is to get used to making less." — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting "There is so much money now in the hands of so many smart people all trying to outsmart one another. It’s a radically different world from the world we started in." — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting "What everybody has learned is that everybody needs some significant participation in the 12 companies that do better than everybody else. You need two or three of them, at least." — Acquired podcast in 2023 "I wish everything else in America was working as well as Costco does. Think what a blessing that would be for us all." — 2022 Daily Journal Annual Meeting "I love everything about Costco. I'm a total addict, and I'm never going to sell a share." — 2023 Daily Journal Annual Meeting On meme stocks: “What we're getting is wretched excess and danger for the country. A lot of people like a drunken brawl, and so far those are the people that are winning, and a lot of people are making money out of our brawl.” 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting On investing "One of the inane things [that gets] taught in modern university education is that a vast diversification is absolutely mandatory in investing in common stocks. That is an insane idea. It's not that easy to have a vast plethora of good opportunities that are easily identified. And if you've only got three, I'd rather it be my best ideas instead of my worst. And now, some people can't tell their best ideas from their worst, and in the act of deciding an investment already is good, they get to think it's better than it is. I think we make fewer mistakes like that than other people. And that is a blessing to us." — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting “I find it much easier to find four or five investments where I have a pretty reasonable chance of being right that they're way above average. I think it's much easier to find five than it is to find 100. I think the people who argue for all this diversification — by the way, I call it ‘deworsification’ — which I copied from somebody — and I'm way more comfortable owning two or three stocks which I think I know something about and where I think I have an advantage.” — 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting “If you’re going to invest in stocks for the long term or real estate, of course there are going to be periods when there’s a lot of agony and other periods when there’s a boom. And I think you just have to learn to live through them. As Kipling said, treat those two imposters just the same. You have to deal with daylight and night. Does that bother you very much? No. Sometimes it’s night and sometimes it’s daylight. Sometimes it’s a boom. Sometimes it’s a bust. I believe in doing as well as you can and keep going as long as they let you.” — 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting “Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean (merely average performance).” — Poor Charlie's Almanack "I think that the modern investor, to get ahead, almost has to get in a few stocks that are way above average. They try and have a few Apples and Googles or so on, just to keep up, because they know that a significant percentage of all the gains that come to all the common stockholders combined is going to come from a few of these supercompetitors." — 2023 Wall Street Journal interview “There are huge advantages for an individual to get into a position where you make a few great investments and just sit on your ass: You are paying less to brokers. You are listening to less nonsense. And if it works, the governmental tax system gives you an extra 1, 2 or 3 percentage points per annum compounded.” —Worldly Wisdom by Charlie Munger 1995-1998 “I have a friend who’s a fisherman. He says, ‘I have a simple rule for success in fishing. Fish where the fish are.’ You want to fish where the bargains are. That simple. If the fishing is really lousy where you are you should probably look for another place to fish.”— 2020 Daily Journal Annual Meeting "I think the reason why we got into such idiocy in investment management is best illustrated by a story that I tell about the guy who sold fishing tackle. I asked him, 'My God, they're purple and green. Do fish really take these lures?' And he said, 'Mister, I don't sell to fish.'" — "A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom As It Relates To Investment Management & Business," 1994 speech at USC Business School “The world is full of foolish gamblers and they will not do as well as the patient investors.” — 2018 Weekly in Stocks interview “It takes character to sit with all that cash and to do nothing. I didn’t get to be where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.” — Poor Charlie's Almanack “Understanding both the power of compound interest and the difficulty of getting it is the heart and soul of understanding a lot of things.” — Poor Charlie's Almanack On new technologies "The electric vehicle is coming big time, and that’s a very interesting development. At the moment, it's imposing huge capital costs and huge risks, and I don't like huge capital costs and huge risks." — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting "I am personally skeptical of some of the hype that has gone into artificial intelligence. I think old-fashioned intelligence works pretty well." — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting On Big Tech regulation: "I would not break them up. They've got their little niches. Microsoft maybe has a nice niche, but it doesn't own the Earth. I like these high-tech companies. I think capitalism should expect to get a few big winners by accident." — 2023 "Acquired" podcast “We now have computer algorithms trading with other computers. And people buying stocks who know nothing, being advised by people who know even less. It’s an incredibly crazy situation ... All this activity makes it easier for us.” — 2022 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting "We are going to miss these newspapers terribly. Each newspaper... was an independent bastion of power. The economic position was so impregnable … and the ethos of a journalist was to try to tell it like it is. And they really were a branch of the government — they called them the Fourth Estate, meaning the fourth branch of the government. It arose by accident. Now about 95% of [newspapers are] going to disappear and go away forever. And what do we get in substitute? We get a bunch of people who attract an audience because they’re crazy .... I have my favorite crazies, and you have your favorite crazies, and we get together and all become crazier as we hire people to tell us what we want to hear. This is no substitute for Walter Cronkite and all those great newspapers of yesteryear. We have suffered a huge loss here. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s the creative destruction of capitalism, but it’s a terrible thing that’s happened to our country." — 2022 Daily Journal Annual Meeting On crypto "A cryptocurrency is not a currency, not a commodity, and not a security. Instead, it’s a gambling contract with a nearly 100% edge for the house, entered into in a country where gambling contracts are traditionally regulated only by states that compete in laxity." — 2023 Wall Street Journal op-ed "I am not proud of my country for allowing this crap — well, I call it crypto shit. It's worthless, it's crazy, it's not good, it'll do nothing but harm, it's antisocial to allow it." — 2023 Daily Journal Annual Meeting "I think the people that oppose my position are idiots. And so I don’t think there is a rational argument against my position." — 2023 Daily Journal Annual Meeting "When you’re dealing with something as awful as crypto shit, it's just unspeakable. I’m ashamed of my country that so many people believe in this kind of crap and the government allows it to exist." — 2023 Daily Journal Annual Meeting "I'm proud of the fact that I avoided it. It's like some venereal disease. I just regard it as beneath contempt. Some people think it's modernity, and they welcome a currency that's so useful in extortions and kidnappings [and] tax evasion." — 2022 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting "When you have your own retirement account and your friendly adviser suggests you put all the money into bitcoin, just say no." — 2022 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting "I hate the bitcoin success and I don’t welcome a currency that’s useful to kidnappers and extortionists, and so forth. Nor do I like just shuffling out a few extra billions and billions and billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air. So, I think I should say modestly that I think the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization." — 2021 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting On the US economy and business: “What makes capitalism work is the fact that if you’re an able-bodied young person, if you refuse to work, you suffer a fair amount of agony, and because of that agony, the whole economic system works ... You take away that hardship and say, ‘You can stay home and get more than if you come in to work,’ that’s quite disruptive to an economic system like ours. The next time we do this, I don’t think we ought to be so liberal.” — 2022 Daily Journal Annual Meeting "Usually, I don’t use formal projections. I don’t let people do them for me because I don’t like throwing up on the desk, but I see them made in a very foolish way all the time, and many people believe in them, no matter how foolish they are. It’s an effective sales technique in America to put a foolish projection on a desk."—2003 Herb Kay Undergraduate Lecture, University of California, Santa Barbara Economics Department “Capitalism without failure is like religion without hell.” — Tao of Charlie Munger On mental models and decision-making frameworks: “We’ve had enough good sense when something is working very well to keep doing it. I’d say we’re demonstrating what might be called the fundamental algorithm of life — repeat what works.” — 2010 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting “I spent a lifetime trying to avoid my own mental biases. A.) I rub my own nose into my own mistakes. B.) I try and keep it simple and fundamental as much as I can. And, I like the engineering concept of a margin of safety. I’m a very blocking and tackling kind of thinker. I just try to avoid being stupid. I have a way of handling a lot of problems — I put them in what I call my ‘too hard pile,’ and just leave them there. I’m not trying to succeed in my ‘too hard pile.’” — 2020 CalTech Distinguished Alumni Award interview Bonus compilation from Warren Buffett From Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett in the latest Berkshire Hathaway letter to shareholders, published in February: "Charlie and I think pretty much alike. But what it takes me a page to explain, he sums up in a sentence. His version, moreover, is always more clearly reasoned and also more artfully — some might add bluntly — stated. Here are a few of his thoughts, many lifted from a very recent podcast: • The world is full of foolish gamblers, and they will not do as well as the patient investor. • If you don’t see the world the way it is, it’s like judging something through a distorted lens. • All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there. And a related thought: Early on, write your desired obituary — and then behave accordingly. • If you don’t care whether you are rational or not, you won’t work on it. Then you will stay irrational and get lousy results. • Patience can be learned. Having a long attention span and the ability to concentrate on one thing for a long time is a huge advantage. • You can learn a lot from dead people. Read of the deceased you admire and detest. • Don’t bail away in a sinking boat if you can swim to one that is seaworthy. • A great company keeps working after you are not; a mediocre company won’t do that. • Warren and I don’t focus on the froth of the market. We seek out good long-term investments and stubbornly hold them for a long time. • Ben Graham said, 'Day to day, the stock market is a voting machine; in the long term it’s a weighing machine.' If you keep making something more valuable, then some wise person is going to notice it and start buying. • There is no such thing as a 100% sure thing when investing. Thus, the use of leverage is dangerous. A string of wonderful numbers times zero will always equal zero. Don’t count on getting rich twice. • You don’t, however, need to own a lot of things in order to get rich. • You have to keep learning if you want to become a great investor. When the world changes, you must change. • Warren and I hated railroad stocks for decades, but the world changed and finally the country had four huge railroads of vital importance to the American economy. We were slow to recognize the change, but better late than never. • Finally, I will add two short sentences by Charlie that have been his decision-clinchers for decades: 'Warren, think more about it. You’re smart and I’m right.' And so it goes. I never have a phone call with Charlie without learning something. And, while he makes me think, he also makes me laugh."" MY COMMENT You will see most of the above echoed throughout this thread....over and over and over. the rules of investing success are really pretty simple and they tend to never change. Investing fads and styles come and go....but the basic rules of success....remain the same. The hard part is for people to recognize the rules....the truth....and than execute based on the simple suggestions for successful investing. I ESPECIALLY agree with the comments on diversification under the "INVESTING" heading above. The way diversification is practiced and defined today is simply not rational. Most people are way over diversified and end up with just average returns at best. This is why I try to identify and own the cream of the crop.....the most ICONIC, BIG CAP, WORLD WIDE REACH, MONSTER COMPANIES that exist in the worlds most successful economy......the USA. It really does not take a huge amount of work to identify these companies.....just look at the TOP ten holdings in the SP500. These are the companies that have risen to the top of the pile measured by market cap. As to Crypto........too bad he does not tell us what he really thinks....he is a shrinking violet.....NOT. I dont do Crypto so I will not comment on it.
I will add one little comment to the above article.......as a long term investor.....HAVE FUN....CELEBRATE and REJOICE when the markets are up. Reward yourself mentally. When the markets are down....just ignore it all. No need to get caught up in the constant doom and gloom. No need to beat yourself up. Just ignore it all and move on by doing nothing. Over the long term....if your investing plan is rational....you will CELEBRATE much more than you will mourn your losses.
Well I see it is time for the typical mid-morning market slump. It usually seems to happen about the time that the Wall Street Professionals head out to lunch. BUMMER.
Here is another good sign for the economy. Here in my little local area.....gas is now down at.....$2.47......and dropping.
Well another dull and listless day in the markets today. A pause....hopefully.....the pause that refreshes. I am still looking for a nice Santa Rally this year heading to year and and into January. This little lull is not much to be worried about.....yet. It seems like people are currently simply distracted by the change over from Thanksgiving to Christmas and with early holiday shopping. I dont get the....feeling...that anyone is paying any attention to the markets this week.
I ended the day with another mild loss today. I had only a single UP stock today and it was....NVDA. That helped to hold down my loss since it is my largest holding. I also got beat by the SP500 by....o.27% today. Lets MOVE ON UP from here.
Should be the story of the day. Inflation hits lowest level since 2021, Fed's preferred gauge shows https://finance.yahoo.com/news/infl...021-feds-preferred-gauge-shows-133230834.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Inflation continued to cool in October. The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Index grew 3% year over year for the month, down from 3.4% in September and with expectations. "Core" PCE, which excludes the volatile food and energy categories, grew 3.5%, down from 3.7% from the month prior and in line with what economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected. Month-over-month, core PCE rose 0.2% in October, down from 0.3% in September. Core PCE is the inflation measure most often mentioned by Fed Chair Jerome Powell and therefore is watched closely by investors. Ahead of the print's release, markets had upped bets that the Fed was likely done hiking interest rates as economic data had recently showed inflation declining while the economy continued to grow. The moves coincided with recent commentary from Fed officials that investors deciphered to mean the central bank could cut interest rates sooner than many had initially thought. "I’m sensing greater clarity about a few important currents. One is the direction of inflation. There’s no question the rate of inflation has slowed materially over the past year-plus," Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic in an essay published Wednesday. As of Wednesday, markets were pricing in a 78% chance of an interest rate cut by the end of the Fed's May meeting. A month ago, markets had priced just a 41% chance of a cut in the same time period, per the CME FedWatch Tool. Thursday's PCE release falls in line with what investors already digested earlier this month from another popular inflation gauge, the Consumer Price Index (CPI). On November 14, the CPI print showed headline inflation declining at its lowest pace since September 2021. MY COMMENT More good news as the good economic data piles up lately. The question....does anyone care about good news? OR.....if good investing news happens......and no one cares about it....did it really happen?
Here is another take. Fed’s favorite gauge shows inflation rose 0.2% in October and 3.5% from a year ago, as expected https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/30/pce-inflation-report-october-2023-.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Inflation as measured by personal spending increased in line with expectations in October, possibly giving the Federal Reserve more incentive to hold rates steady and perhaps start cutting in 2024, according to a data release Thursday. The personal consumption expenditures price index, excluding food and energy prices, rose 0.2% for the month and 3.5% on a year-over-year basis, the Commerce Department reported. Both numbers aligned with the Dow Jones consensus. Headline inflation was flat on the month and at a 3% rate for the 12-month period, the release also showed. Energy prices fell 2.6% on the month, helping keep overall inflation in check, even as food prices increased 0.2%. Goods prices saw a 0.3% decrease while services rose 0.2%. On the services side, the biggest gainers were international travel, health care and food services and accommodations. In goods, gasoline led the gainers. Personal income and spending both rose 0.2% on the month, also meeting estimates and indicating that consumers are keeping pace with inflation. While the public more closely watches the Labor Department’s consumer price index as an inflation measure, the Fed prefers the core PCE reading. The former measure primarily looks at what goods and services cost, while the latter focuses on what people actually spend, adjusting for consumer behavior when prices fluctuate. In other economic news Thursday, weekly jobless claims rose to 218,000, an increase of 7,000 from the previous period though slightly below the 220,000 estimate. However, continuing claims, which run a week behind, surged to 1.93 million, an increase of 86,000 and the highest level since Nov. 27, 2021, the Labor Department said. Markets already had been pricing in the likelihood that the Fed is done raising interest rates this cycle, and the PCE reading, along with signs of a loosening labor market, could solidify that stance. Along with the anticipation that the rate hikes are over, markets also are pricing in the equivalent of five quarter percentage point rate cuts in 2024. The fed funds rate, the central bank’s benchmark level for short-term lending, is targeted in a range between 5.25%-5.5%, its highest in more than 22 years. After implementing 11 hikes since March 2022, the Fed skipped its last two meetings, and most policymakers of late have been indicating that they are content now to watch the impact of the previous increases work their way through the economy. Other economic signals lately have shown the economy to be in fairly good shape, though several Fed officials recently have said the data doesn’t square with comments they are hearing on the ground. “I’m hearing consumers slowing down,” Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said Wednesday at the CNBC CFO Council Summit. “I’m not hearing [the] consumer falling off the table. I’m hearing normalizing, not recession, but I am hearing consumer slowing down.” The Fed’s inflation report comes the same day as encouraging news from the euro zone. Headline inflation there fell to 2.4% on a 12-month basis, though core, which excludes food, energy and tobacco, was still at 3.6%. Like the Fed, the European Central Bank targets 2% as a healthy inflation level." MY COMMENT OK.....well lets see if the short term markets today put their money where their mouth is.....on this news and the other recent positive events.
Another dull market day. The Ten Year yield is up to 4.34%. Nothing going on right now.....so I will wait and watch as usual. I continue to be fully invested for the long term as usual.
LOL.....I have not looked but I think every one of my seven stocks is down at this moment. I hate these....economic data...... good news days. They never seem to work out the way the market predictors think. BUT....it is early in the day. Lets see what is going on at the close. At least it is the final market day of November. Onward....to the final month of the year.
I ended the day with four stocks up...better than expected. But...NVDA is top heavy in my portfolio and dragged me down today. I am going to have to expect more day to day volatility and perhaps a disconnect from the averages, in my portfolio now that I only have seven stocks and one of them.....NVDA.....is an oversize position. Today.....a medium loss for me. Plus a loss to the SP500 by 1.16%. My UP stocks today were....COST, HD, AAPL and MSFT.
OK....November is oficially in the can. Stocks post best month since 2022 as investors look ahead to rate cuts https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stoc...estors-look-ahead-to-rate-cuts-211309899.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Stocks soared in November with the S&P 500 (^GSPC), Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI), and Nasdaq (^IXIC) all posting their best monthly gains of 2023 as investor focus shifts from when interest rates will peak to when they'll start falling. The S&P 500 closed the month up 8.9% while the Nasdaq popped 10.7%, the indexes' best monthly gains since July 2022. The widespread rally also included major moves higher in areas that had lagged throughout 2023 such as the Russell 2000 (^RUT), which gained about 8.8% on the month. The Dow also rose about 8.8% in November, for its best monthly performance since October 2022. "It's one of the best months we've seen in the last decade," eToro US investment analyst Callie Cox told Yahoo Finance Live. "And I think it shows us how a lot of investors were caught off guard by the Fed's flexible stance after the Nov. 1 meeting." The Fed kept interest rates steady at its last meeting at the beginning of November, and investors largely digested the central bank's messaging to indicate it's done hiking rates. Since then, incoming economic data has only backed up that case. Two different reads on inflation showed price increases are at their lowest levels in more than two years. Meanwhile, the latest jobs data has pointed to a softening labor market that's robust enough to support some economic growth but not so tight that it could spark a resurgence in inflation. This has prompted investors to bet that interest rates will move lower in 2024. Markets are now pricing in a 92% chance of a rate cut by the end of the June meeting, up from a 60% chance a month ago, per the CME FedWatch tool. Within stocks, interest rate sensitive sectors leading the way. For the month, Real Estate (XLRE) and Technology (XLK) gained more than 12% while Financials (XLF) and Consumer Discretionary (XLY) rose more than 10%. Cox's research shows that when a one-month rolling return for the S&P 500 hits more than 9.2%, a stat the benchmark average reached earlier this week, then the path forward is usually higher. On average, stocks gain 14.9% in the 12 months after a run like the recent spurt for stocks. Anything lower brings the S&P 500 an average return of 8.7%. "Momentum begets momentum in the stock market, that can work in the bulls' favor," Cox said." MY COMMENT Yes....momentum does beget momentum. And...it gave us a great month in November. But...there is still a fortune sitting on the sidelines trying to figure out when to come into the markets. Sooner or later it will happen....BIG. All of us on here that are long term investors and in the markets got the BIG GAINS from last month. Our reward for having the GUTS to be in the market.
Another day of consolidation.....as the FED comes out and tries to once again TRASH the markets. It would be nice if they gave even 1/1000 of their time talking about out of control government and government spending....the primary cause of the economic issues we have and inflation. BUT....nothing I can do about that.....so I will move on to an ICONIC figure that actually achieved as an investor compared to the phony government stooges that are the FED. Timeless Truths From Charlie Munger https://www.fisherinvestments.com/e...ommentary/timeless-truths-from-charlie-munger (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Remembering the investment great. The investment world lost an icon Tuesday, with Charlie Munger passing peacefully at the ripe old age of 99. As Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner, Munger was famous for always being ready and willing to say “no” to bad investment ideas—a valuable, underrated trait—earning him the affectionate nickname of The Abominable No-Man. But he was also a wise investor in his own right, an established one even before joining with Buffett. And he had a healthy dose of wit to boot. So what better way to pay tribute than to round up our favorite Mungerisms—timeless truths that investors, and people in general, can always learn from. “A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.” “In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time—none, zero.”[ii] “Trying to minimize taxes too much is one of the great causes of really dumb mistakes in investing.”[iii] “Anytime somebody offers you a tax shelter from here on in life, my advice would be don’t buy it. In fact, anytime anybody offers you anything with a big commission and a 200-page prospectus, don’t buy it. Occasionally, you’ll be wrong if you adopt the ‘Munger’s Rule.’ However, over a lifetime, you’ll be a long way ahead — and you will miss a lot of unhappy experiences that might otherwise reduce your love for your fellow man.”[iv] “If you’re going to invest in stocks for the long term or real estate, of course there are going to be periods when there’s a lot of agony and other periods when there’s a boom. And I think you just have to learn to live through them. As Kipling said, treat those two imposters just the same. You have to deal with daylight and night. Does that bother you very much? No. Sometimes it’s night and sometimes it’s daylight. Sometimes it’s a boom. Sometimes it’s a bust. I believe in doing as well as you can and keep going as long as they let you.”[v] “Understanding both the power of compound interest and the difficulty of getting it is the heart and soul of understanding a lot of things.”[vi] “I spent a lifetime trying to avoid my own mental biases. A.) I rub my own nose into my own mistakes. B.) I try and keep it simple and fundamental as much as I can.”[vii] “It’s so simple. You spend less than you earn. Invest shrewdly, and avoid toxic people and toxic activities, and try and keep learning all your life, etcetera etcetera. And do a lot of deferred gratification because you prefer life that way. And if you do all those things you are almost certain to succeed. And if you don’t, you're gonna need a lot of luck.”[viii] “Generally speaking, envy, resentment, revenge and self-pity are disastrous modes of thoughts. Self-pity gets fairly close to paranoia, and paranoia is one of the very hardest things to reverse. You do not want to drift into self-pity. ... Self-pity will not improve the situation.”[ix] “Confucius said that real knowledge is knowing the extent of one’s ignorance. Aristotle and Socrates said the same thing. Is it a skill that can be taught or learned? It probably can, if you have enough of a stake riding on the outcome. Some people are extraordinarily good at knowing the limits of their knowledge, because they have to be. Think of somebody who’s been a professional tightrope walker for 20 years – and has survived. He couldn’t survive as a tightrope walker for 20 years unless he knows exactly what he knows and what he doesn’t know. He’s worked so hard at it, because he knows if he gets it wrong he won’t survive. The survivors know.”[x] “If you can get really good at destroying your own wrong ideas, that is a great gift.”" MY COMMENT We are going to lose many of the old time investing GREATS over the next decade or two. Tt will be interesting to see if anyone steeps up to take their place. There will of course be many billionaires that are created due to entrepreneurship......but.....will be see the great stock investors like we have had in the past? I dont know......I kind of doubt it.
