We are now in the red across the big averages. A bit of inflation and FED punch back to the markets. In addition the Ten Year yield is up and above 4% on the news today. A morning soft spot or the direction for the entire day? Time will tell. The real question.....do I care. Short answer.....NO. When I see such a massive and broad market turn.....I know it is the big bank and big trader....AI TRADING PROGRAMS.....trading the news headlines and commentary and basically driving the market direction.
As to the above: 10-year Treasury yield rises above 4.06% after higher-than-expected December CPI https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/11/us-treasury-yields-ahead-of-consumer-inflation-report.html
I will miss the markets tomorrow. I will be making a little four day.....driving..... trip from Austin to LA and back. We will leave on Friday and be back late on Monday. So I guess I will also miss the markets on Monday.
Looks like I have a couple of stocks UP today at this moment.....AMZN and NVDA. Considering the market at the moment.....I will take it and be happy. We have had an EPIC run up over this week so the markets are entitled to rest a bit today. Yesterday I blew past my all time high. Doubtful that I will hit another one today. BUT....I dont rule out a mixed close today. I see all the RED today as simply being short term trading action. The underlying market strength and BULL MARKET is alive and well as we head into the start of earnings season tomorrow.
The current BULL MARKET started about July of 2022.....at least as to the SP500. It became more obvious.....in hindsight..... starting in about October of 2022. It was in stealth mode for many months. It is now about 18 months old. I hear and see most market professionals viewing it as anywhere from 2-14 months old. Very few of them.....called it as it was happening. I remain fully invested for the long term as usual.
OK...it is happening. My account just turned POSITIVE for the day. I now have added MSFT to my stocks in the green. The close today is in active play.
Today was up a little, led by VLO and NVDA for me. VLO wasn't doing so hot earlier this week so I sold about 60% of my shares Wed to preserve some of the gain, repurchased it yesterday after it had dropped further, and therefore took part in the gain of today. I forgot to sell my GIS before the 2 days prior to ex-dividend date so now my small stake in that is down. DE been dropping over the last few days so I bought some more shares, to gain when it rebounds. XOM foundering and not doing much. Up 1.32% YTD versus .26% for the S&P 500 Lastly, looking forward to dividend payments in early Feb. for DE and GIS.
A mixed day at the close as I predicted. Nice to see the come-back today. A sure indicator of the strength of the BULL MARKET. I am on the road. We decided to get a start today and shave four or five hours off tomorrow. I ended the day in the GREEN....but I dont know how much. My UP stocks today....COST, AMZN, NVDA and MSFT. I will be AWOL tomorrow.
In the interest of BRUTAL HONESTY.....not politics. U.S. deficit tops half a trillion dollars in the first quarter of fiscal year https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/11/us-...lars-in-the-first-quarter-of-fiscal-year.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points For the period from October 2023 through December 2023, the budget deficit totaled just shy of $510 billion, following a shortfall of $129.4 billion in December alone. The deficit has continued to pile up despite the Biden administration’s assurances that the Inflation Reduction Act, in addition to reducing prices, would shave “hundreds of billions” off the deficit. The U.S. government ran up another half a trillion dollars in red ink in the first quarter of its fiscal year, the Treasury Department reported Thursday. For the period from October 2023 through December 2023, the budget deficit totaled just shy of $510 billion, following a shortfall of $129.4 billion in just December alone, which was 52% higher than a year ago. The jump in the deficit pushed total government debt past $34 trillion for the first time. Compared to last year, which saw a final deficit of $1.7 trillion, 2024 is running even hotter. In the first quarter of fiscal 2023, for example, the difference between spending and receipts totaled $421.4 billion. On an unadjusted basis, that’s an increase of $89 billion between fiscal 2024 and last year. Adjusted for calendar factors, the Treasury Department said the change between the two years is actually $97 billion. December’s shortfall was higher by more than $34 billion compared to the previous year, driven by higher Social Security payments and interest costs. If the current pace continues, 2024 would end with a deficit of just more than $2 trillion. The deficit has continued to pile up despite the Biden administration’s assurances that the Inflation Reduction Act, in addition to reducing prices, would shave “hundreds of billions” off the deficit. While the rate of inflation has come down, Labor Department data Thursday showed the consumer price index increased another 0.3% in December, pushing the 12-month rate up to 3.4%, higher than the Wall Street consensus and above the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal. With interest rates elevated as the Fed fights inflation, financing costs for the government in 2023 totaled nearly $660 billion. Debt as a percentage of gross domestic product rose to 120% in the third quarter of 2023." MY COMMENT WTF is wrong with people......it is insanity to let this "stuff" continue to happen.
Gained 0.5% versus 0.08% for the S&P 500. Led by rebounds in Valero and Exxon with a very light gain in GIS. NVDA went down slightly and I took a hit in Deere. I'm up 1.83% ytd versus 0.34% for the S&P 500. Not a bad start, being up almost 2% 2 weeks into the year.
Sadly, one day I feel this is what will ultimately cripple us and cause unbelievable pain. The only hope I feel, is that we aren’t the only country like this so maybe it’s just the way of the times. Also, I have no hope of the average American citizen waking up and realizing it to where change can begin to be pushed for. America has slowly been dumbed down and the average American themselves today live massively in debt. Therefore, I don’t expect debt ridden people to ever realize how dangerous a nations debt can become.
Trouble in my mind is that economists have no idea what the tipping point actually is. How much debt as a % of gdp destroys the economy in an unrecoverable way? No one knows. It doesn't help that deficit hawks have been predicting disaster since the Reagan years and nothing has actually happened. Do I think deficits are bad? Yup. Disastrous? Potentially.
Some good posts this past week by everyone. I agree on the above about government spending. It has just become a natural habit for them. It makes you wonder how they budget their own lifestyles...probably the same. It takes a lot of promises, favors, and money to get elected and stay elected. As to the market, I am in the green so far this year to start out, but not impressively so. As most of us thought, the spooky articles and noise has been pretty constant. I read a great little quote this past week... "The stock market is not unpredictable because it is volatile; it is volatile because it is unpredictable." I found it interesting anyway. A good and recent example is to look no further than last year. There were a lot of wrong predictions and the financial media and pundits just kept pouring on. Well, it just didn't turn out that way. This year the predictions and extra fluff will continue, just like they always seem to in some form or another. Execute and operate your plan according to your own financial goals and well being. There will always be noise about something. Keep moving forward and do what works for you.
The media contradicts itself all the time. Today will read "stocks down due to inflation concerns." Tomorrow will say "Stocks rise as inflation concerns ease." No explanation for why we should be concerned about inflation one day but not the next. Do your own homework, learn all you can, execute your strategy, and accept responsibility for the results whether good or bad.
Got back today from my little road trip. This is a one time thing....so will not be a regular group. It went well. I did a studio session about a week and a half ago and I continue to sit in here and there with friends each week for 10-12 songs to try to keep some basic level of skill and to keep my ear. We got caught up in the winter storm coming back to Austin today...although we made it back with no issues other than an extra four hours of driving time.
While I was gone I was not able to access my account on Thursday and Friday. (I refuse to access my account from my phone, I also dont carry my Schwab token that is needed for access) So......I dont know how I did versus the SP500 on those two days...although both were positive for me. I also did not get a chance to post the weekly data for the various Indexes last week. I will pick up again at the end of this short week. I did just calculate where I am so far for 2024 in my account. I am as of today......MLK DAY....I am at +3.27% YTD for 2024.
Loogged into my account yesterday to see how I was doing just to find you are closed for trading. What's going on over there...lol. Not another holiday just two weeks afer Christmas surely? You guys need to learn how to put a shift in
Yep....Lori. We have now had two four day market weeks out of three. BUT....we are all so overworked....just ask the whiners on TickTok.
So true. The Bull Market Doesn’t Depend on Rate Cuts Don’t buy the narrative that Fed rate cut hopes are the only thing propping stocks up. https://www.fisherinvestments.com/e...ry/the-bull-market-doesnt-depend-on-rate-cuts (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Are cuts coming? With every emerging data point on inflation, jobs and more, pundits launch a white-knuckled debate over what it means for potential Fed rate cuts. It all fits a common narrative: That this bull market depends on Fed policy, with the rally since autumn riding on the notion cuts are approaching, with only the timing unclear. But, in our view, this thinking overrates cuts’ impact. Markets don’t hinge on (unpredictable) monetary policy. The economy is more resilient than most think—and that is bullish for stocks. Conventional wisdom holds “rate hikes bad, cuts good”—an apparent matter-of-fact investing truism hardly worth questioning. But just because it is repeated ad nauseum doesn’t make the truism, ummmm, true. Consider the last couple years of US rate hikes. (Exhibit 1) Stocks initially fell as they grappled with the Fed’s rapid rate U-turn from arguing inflation was “transitory” and didn’t require a shift in policy to hiking fast. Alongside other issues that roiled sentiment in 2022, this contributed to the bear market. But a new bull market began that October as stocks moved on. The recession rate hikes were supposed to induce failed to come. Exhibit 1: Stocks Rose Through Rate Hikes Source: FactSet, as of 1/12/2024. S&P 500 total return and fed-funds target rate (upper limit), 1/3/2022 – 1/11/2024. But now, as inflation irregularly but swiftly cools, rate cut expectations are gathering steam. (Exhibit 2) In mid-December, fed-funds futures trading started pricing in rate cuts at the Fed’s March 20 meeting—and a more rapid pace thereafter. Supposedly, according to the financial press, this is the reason behind stocks’ latest leg up. Some pundits go further, saying if the Fed doesn’t cut rates there will be recession. Exhibit 2: Markets Pricing in Earlier—and More—Rate Cuts Source: CME FedWatch Tool, as of 1/12/2024. But rate cuts aren’t necessary for growth—or the bull market. The bull market to date has been led by large growth firms, which generally don’t rely on bank lending for funding given the ample cash on their balance sheets. Rate cuts to re-steepen the yield curve and encourage loan growth are largely unnecessary to keep the growth-led rally going. (The yield curve shows the difference between short and long rates, and since banks borrow short and lend long—profiting from the difference—a steeper yield curve encourages lending.) Now, rate cuts could boost credit-sensitive value stocks, and we are watching for this as a potential sign of an impending leadership shift. Commercial and industrial loans have fallen slightly year-over-year since October, down -1.0% y/y at 2023’s end. If this picks up, possibly amid rate-cut enthusiasm, then value stocks could benefit. But business lending’s nascent dip probably isn’t significant for large growth stocks in Tech and Tech-like industries in other sectors. We don’t think rate cuts are critical for the economy, either. National average savings deposit rates, representing a good chunk of banks’ funding costs, remain well below the effective fed-funds rate (0.46% vs. 5.33%)—and long rates (3.98%).[ii] This disconnect is why yield curve inversion since 2022 hasn’t caused deep credit contraction as many feared. In previous cycles, deposit rates were more closely linked to overnight fed-funds rates. Though banks’ funding costs are creeping higher as they compete for customers seeking more attractive rates, rising rates haven’t flowed through to depositors broadly, as banks remain awash with deposits overall. Rate cuts may help relieve the modest funding pressure banks face, but it isn’t as if the economy is starved of credit. So while cuts—and a steeper yield curve—may stir animal spirits, particularly among businesses that have retrenched thinking recession is around the corner, we doubt the economy and markets hinge on them like pundits imagine. History also shows rate cuts aren’t the automatic bull fuel many believe. Just like rate hikes aren’t automatically bearish, there are other fundamental factors that drive stocks. Note the last three rate cut cycles (2000 – 2003, 2007 – 2008 and 2019 – 2020) coincided with falling stocks. Prior to that, cuts in the mid-1990s came alongside rising stocks. Before that, the Fed started cutting in mid-1989 and kept doing so through 1992. During this span, stocks initially rose, flipped into a bear market and started a new bull market. And prior to that, a rate cut cycle in the mid-1980s came amid overall rising stocks again. Do you see any pattern? We don’t—just like hikes. Why? The Fed isn’t all powerful. Nothing it does has the ability to override economic cycles and how they relate to expectations. Those factors—to which the Fed may contribute at the margin—drive markets most of all. The main takeaway we see from current rate cut obsession: All the focus on the Fed as the main factor driving stocks’ rally undersells the economy’s fundamentals—sentiment is still skeptical. But if rate hikes never drove recession to begin with, we fail to see why a lack of rate cuts will now. The economy is already proving it can handle this level of rates just fine. When fear of a false factor—rate cut uncertainty—is prevalent, it shows reality is better than appreciated. Rather than fret what central banks will or won’t do as headlines blare about this or that consequence, investors should take the pervasive handwringing as bullish. After all, to paraphrase Sir John Templeton’s famous quote, bull markets grow on skepticism." MY COMMENT Rate cuts......BS. this is simply short term TRADER talk and wishful thinking. they are the ones that benefit most from cuts. ALL this rate cut BS is coming from the big banks and the other traders. It is ABSOLUTELY .....NOT.....necessary for stocks to do well. what that takes is good fundamental earnings and other company data. This rate garbage is way out of control. In my lifetime I have NEVER seen this sort of BS that rate cuts are necessary for the stock market to do well. It is basically a bunch of SPOILED BRATS that want their low rates and they are going to whine, cry, and stomp their feet to try to get one. In the meantime.....well the rest of us....are making money in the markets as usual.
If the so called experts know this.....why are "they" setting the bar so low. I call BS. Earnings will beat expectations only because the bar is low https://finance.yahoo.com/news/morgan-stanley-wilson-says-us-091214214.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Bloomberg) — Earnings estimates have been slashed so much over the past three months that Wall Street strategists now expect most companies will easily beat analyst forecasts this season. There’s however little reason to cheer, as Morgan Stanley strategists noted that a 7% cut to fourth-quarter profit estimates means US companies are poised to report almost no growth compared to the year before. That’s “creating a lowered bar and a higher probability” of yet another mid-single-digit earnings-per-share beat rate, Michael Wilson said. Investors are closely monitoring the early stages of the earnings season to assess how companies have dealt with high interest rates and to gauge the health of US consumers. About 8% of S&P 500 companies have reported so far, with the majority of these firms surprising positively, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. HSBC Holdings Plc also sees another quarter of earnings beats after the bar was lowered. Strategist Nicole Inui said consensus expects all sectors excluding technology to report a deceleration in earnings growth versus the prior quarter and expectations eroded the most for commodities, health care, and financials. Wilson — who was bearish last year even as stocks rallied — warned that despite strong beat rates, price reaction have been “more muted” over the past several quarters. Health care, technology and communication services are among the sectors that will see the highest earnings growth in 2024, said Wilson, who was picked as the best portfolio strategist in an Institutional Investor survey last year. Overall for 2024, analysts expect S&P 500 earnings to climb nearly 11%, according to data compiled by BI. But those rosy estimates may come down when the much-anticipated rate cuts start. Typically, the Federal Reserve cuts rates when the economy is heading for a recession — something that analysts’ optimistic projections don’t seem to be accounting for." MY COMMENT What a bunch of morons. These so called experts lower earnings expectations....and than.....use that as an excuse when the earnings are a BIG SURPRISE to the positive side. We are starting out very nicely....with only 8% of reports in so far.....the majority of reports are......"surprisingly".....positive. If they had any ability to predict earnings they would not be......surprised. In other words......they dont have a clue. Of course we all know that.
