A mild loss for me today....as the low energy market continues. I was in the red with five of nine stocks down today. The down holdings......MSFT, COST, AAPL, NVDA, and SMCI. I guess it could have been worse. I also lost out to the SP500 by 0.34% today. After the attempt to generate some good gains fizzled this morning.....it was just a nothing day today. At least the losses were mild and not indicative of anything in particular.
The markets continue to drift around today as they have for the past 2-3 weeks. A period of NO market energy. I guess this is to be expected since we are right on the cusp of earnings and interest rates for the Ten Year are at year and a half highs right now. The FED is opaque on rate cuts. Investors are not excited at the moment. We are simply stuck in a mild, churning market right now as we consolidate the prior gains. I would guess that the short term bias is for more weakness over the next 1-2 weeks till we hit the guts of earnings.
I was in a great location as well to view it. Things such as this, make me think about just how small and insignificant we are in this very large place. I get that same feeling when I go out on a clear night and see the vast amount of stars and planets. I get some great views far away from the light pollution of any cities or towns at night. Everybody owes it to themselves to find a place to do this once in a while. It is good for your soul…I think.
YEP Tom....and that eclipse seems to have extended to today. Seems like we are doing a repeat of yesterday in the markets today.....at least in what I hold.
I like this little article. The US Economy Is Off to a Fine Start Manufacturing recovers while consumer spending chugs along. https://www.fisherinvestments.com/e...mentary/the-us-economy-is-off-to-a-fine-start (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "For months, headlines have highlighted the apparent disconnect between America’s resilient economy and skeptical sentiment towards it. Even as recession fears faded and GDP accelerated in last year’s second half, there remains the perception that the expansion is on shaky ground. Yet there is a wealth of data showing otherwise. The latest on consumer spending and manufacturing provide further evidence economic activity is better than many appreciate and show why brightening sentiment likely continues. Good Friday’s release of February’s personal consumption expenditures (PCE) showed solid growth in US consumer spending adjusted for inflation, which constitutes 69% of GDP. As Exhibit 1 shows, after January’s -0.2% m/m dip in real PCE, February’s 0.4% rebound hit a new high, continuing its march upward in line with its long-term trend that picked up where it left off post-pandemic. Exhibit 1: Inflation-Adjusted Consumer Spending Is Trending Higher Source: FactSet, as of 4/8/2024. Under the hood, services’ 0.6% m/m rise did the heavy lifting, accelerating from January’s 0.3% and the fastest rate since July 2021, while goods spending inched only 0.1% higher after leading January’s decline.[ii] While growth in services consumption—two-thirds of PCE—has been relatively steady given its mostly non-discretionary makeup (think rent, utilities, healthcare and insurance), goods growth has been rockier. Particularly for durable goods (38% of total goods and 13% of PCE), since they tend toward discretionary items like recreational equipment and home electronics versus non-durable goods, essentially food, clothing, gas and medicine.[iii] But is the rockier road lately a sign of troubled demand, or is there something else afoot? Durable goods have experienced bigger than usual swings near yearend and into the new year since the pandemic. December to February’s sequence was 1.6% m/m, -2.7% and 1.2%, respectively.[iv] The year prior’s inverted the signs with a huge 5.0% m/m gain in January and small dips before and after. To us, this suggests seasonal adjustments that ordinarily smooth out regular calendar-year spending habits still incorporate some skew from lockdowns and reopenings, heightening monthly volatility surrounding the holiday period instead of dampening it. This, on top of the Census Bureau’s well-documented struggles with early-year seasonal adjustments, is something for investors to be aware of and emphasizes why it pays to dig below the headline numbers to see what is actually going on and where the trends point. On that note, while goods consumption—again, on an inflation-adjusted basis—has crept slowly higher over the last year, it remains slightly below 2021’s peak, when lockdown spending on stuff surged at services’ expense. But being roughly on par with 2021’s peak goods buying is no small feat, in our view. It shows demand for tangible items has recovered on its own to pandemic-boosted consumption levels three years ago. Bigger picture, we think ongoing PCE growth overall shows households—the backbone of the economy—are doing a-ok despite the constant drumbeat of concerns about consumer debt and weak savings. PCE isn’t an economic swing factor—that honor goes to business investment—but it still shows reality beating expectations across a big swath of the US economy. While consumer spending enjoyed a steady ascent over the last couple of years, manufacturing had tougher sledding. But this tide is turning, with the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) topping 50 for the first time since October 2022, the latest indication of green shoots this spring. The March ISM Manufacturing PMI release showed it rising 2.5 points to 50.3, as the green line in Exhibit 2 depicts. Exhibit 2: Manufacturing PMI Turns Up, but Output Trends Flat Source: FactSet, as of 4/8/2024. ISM Manufacturing PMI, January 2014 – March 2024, and industrial production – manufacturing output, January 2014 – February 2024. Peeking above 50 means the majority of businesses surveyed say their activity is expanding, which is encouraging, though this isn’t exactly an earthshattering development. S&P Global’s manufacturing PMI gauge already pointed that way, as did ISM’s own inventory gauge earlier. This probably isn’t a huge factor for total economic growth, though. Manufacturing’s economic heft is small, 16% of GDP versus services production’s 72% share.[v] The 16-month downturn below 50 didn’t prevent economic expansion—given services’ and PCE’s ongoing advances (see Exhibit 1 again on the latter). We aren’t arguing a massive manufacturing boom is at hand. PMIs measure only growth’s breadth—not its magnitude—so they can’t say how strong or weak output really is. As Exhibit 2’s yellow line shows, manufacturing output remains below its September 2018 peak, at least through February, the latest release. But there is mounting evidence the sector is moving on from its soft patch. Manufacturing output ticked up 0.1% m/m in February—and February durable goods and factory orders’ rises point positively for future production. From a GDP standpoint, a manufacturing recovery amounts to a small headwind flipping to a mild tailwind. But it casts some light on the market’s recent behavior, as nascent signs of manufacturing growth hint at the economy’s broadening expansion. That is also consistent with widening market breadth. Now, we have long argued breadth wasn’t as narrow as portrayed. But it has indeed widened lately, with more than a third of S&P 500 stocks beating the index over the last 12 months versus less than a quarter in late 2023 and earlier this year. And with more stocks participating in the bull market, particularly in value-oriented categories like Energy and Industrials, we think they are probably pricing in a cyclical upswing that pulls along more economically sensitive sectors. We think this also points to a potential leadership shift from growth to value as financial and economic conditions become more favorable for cyclical companies. It probably won’t be an immediate thing, but rather a gradual, uneven transition that ebbs and flows. Some of this might be from rate cuts, though we think this factor is overrated and misperceived, since high rates haven’t hampered growth to begin with—because credit remains accessible. But rate cuts could help make credit more accessible than it already is and improve sentiment toward value-heavy categories. Couple that with business investment gradually shifting from retrenchment—after nearly two years of businesses cutting back in anticipation of a recession that never came—to a more offensive stance, and we see the opportunity for sentiment to warm further, reflecting the brightening outlook. For example, investment in “intellectual property products” (i.e., software, R&D and digital media) has far outstripped capital expenditures for new plants and equipment this cycle. But with capital goods orders (excluding aircraft and defense) picking up this year, that may begin to change. For investors, we think this points to continued growth, which more can start to appreciate. One way to see this: the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow, which compiles incoming data—like consumer spending and manufacturing PMIs—and uses that to estimate current quarter GDP. Putting it all together, GDPNow is tracking at 2.5% annualized for Q1 GDP, um, now.[vi] Now, that would be slower than Q4’s 3.4% annualized growth (and Q3’s 4.9%), but it is probably skewed by aforementioned seasonal adjustments hitting January’s data.[vii] We will watch how it changes. But even slower growth is still fine for stocks because the longer it continues, the more it can convert naysayers, fueling the bull market. Although sentiment has warmed lately, we don’t think it has caught up to reality yet—which we see in the misplaced focus on manufacturing and ongoing obsession with rate cuts. The wall of worry ahead still seems sizeable, leaving plenty of room for positive surprise despite budding optimism." MY COMMENT The US economy is doing just fine. What is not fine is all the jaw-boning of the economy to the negative side that we see constantly every day all day long. Another big drag on the economy is the constantly negative FED commentary that we see weekly. The totally varied opinions that we hear from various FED members weekly simply give an impression that they dont know what they are doing. Of course they dont.....but proving that to investors by opening your mouth is not a good thing. Bottom line.....the FED, the media, and others are making people and especially investors constantly stressed and nervous.
It is a dull and drifting market today. For some people I am sure it is a very nervous market. I feel that there is a lot of investor nervousness and stress right now. It is like everyone is waiting for the next axe to fall. There is little to no current investing news.......yet every day we see the screaming headlines. People and animals are not made....mentally or physically....to be under constant stress. Unfortunately that is the current state of the markets and the information that is shoved at investors all day long, every day. As a long term investor is is not necessary for people to live in that world. That is a big benefit of being long term....you can turn off all the noise. Do not hesitate to isolate yourself from all the constant social and other media if you are feeling the stress of investing lately. Your portfolio can take care of itself.
Today......I got nothin. There are no articles that are interesting or meaningful. The markets are dull and drifting. Everything is lingering and waiting for the economic data and earnings that start after today. We are in a little time period of market weakness right now. This is not abnormal....every year no matter how good is going to have corrections and down times when the markets are just drifting. We are NOT anywhere near a correction right now.....but we are definately drifting with no energy in the markets. SO......time to sit and not worry about it.....that is all you can do. Lets hope that as earnings come in they give a boost to the markets.
Poor NVDA today.....it took a sudden hit over the last 10 minutes. No doubt some news item triggered something. In the last eight minutes it is down by and additional $30 more than it was already down.
This is one of the few items of positive news that I see today. Google unveils custom Arm-based chips, following similar efforts at rivals Amazon and Microsoft https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/09/goo...sed-chips-for-energy-efficient-computing.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points Google is trying to make cloud computing more affordable with a custom-built Arm-based server chip, following similar efforts at rivals Alibaba, Amazon and Microsoft. At its Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, the company said the new processor will become available later in 2024. The company plans to run YouTube ad workloads on the Axion Arm chips once they’re available, and customers such as Snap are interested. Google is trying to make cloud computing more affordable with a custom-built Arm -based server chip. At its Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, the company said the new processor will become available later in 2024. With the new Arm-based chip, Google is playing catch-up with rivals such as Amazon and Microsoft, which have been employing a similar strategy for years. The tech giants compete fiercely in the growing market for cloud infrastructure, where organizations rent out resources in faraway data centers and pay based on usage. Google parent Alphabet still derives three-quarters of revenue from advertising, but cloud is growing faster and now represents almost 11% of company revenue. The segment, which contains corporate productivity applications, is also profitable. Google held 7.5% of the cloud infrastructure market in 2022, while Amazon and Microsoft together controlled around 62%, according to Gartner estimates. Market leader Amazon Web Services introduced its Graviton Arm chip in 2018. “Almost all their services are already ported and optimized on the Arm ecosystem,” Chirag Dekate, an analyst at technology industry researcher Gartner, told CNBC in an interview. Graviton has picked up business from Datadog, Elastic, Snowflake and Sprinklr, among others. Alibaba announced Arm processors in 2021, and Microsoft did the same in November. Arm isn’t completely new to Google, which started selling access to virtual machines, or VMs, that use Oracle-backed startup Ampere’s Arm-based chips earlier this year. Porting applications to Arm machines has made sense for organizations seeking to reduce spending on cloud computing because of economic worries. When Arm Holdings filed to go public last year, it pointed to Amazon’s claim that Graviton could give up to 40% better price performance than comparable server instances, such as the common “x86” model used by AMD and Intel processors. Google has used Arm-based server computers for internal purposes to run YouTube advertising, the BigTable and Spanner databases, and the BigQuery data analytics tool. The company will gradually move them over to the cloud-based Arm instances, which are named Axion, when they become available, a spokesperson said. Datadog and Elastic plan to adopt Axion, along with OpenX and Snap, the spokesperson said. Broader use of chips drawing on Arm’s architecture might lead to lower carbon emissions for certain workloads. Virtual slices of physical servers containing the Axion chips deliver 60% more energy efficiency than comparable VMs based on the x86 model, Google cloud chief Thomas Kurian wrote in a blog post. Arm chips, which are popular in smartphones, offer a shorter set of instructions than x86 chips, which are commonly found in PCs. The chips can also speed up applications. Axion offers 30% better performance than the fastest general-purpose Arm-based virtual machines in the cloud and 50% better performance than comparable VMs based on x86, Google said. “I think it completes their portfolio,” Dekate said." MY COMMENT I am just glad to finally see GOOGLE playing the chip and AI game.
I consider the recent run up in gold as an indication of investor nervousness. I consider this information the same way. When you take into account the average COSTCO member and their probable demographics I find this information amazing. Regular, everyday, people are buying gold right now. An indicator of the GENERAL UNEASE that people are feeling. Costco selling as much as $200 million in gold bars monthly, Wells Fargo estimates https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/09/cos...-gold-bars-a-month-wells-fargo-estimates.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Gold has turned into money for Costco, where yellow-metal sales begun last year have turned into a cash cow for the big-box retailer. In fact, sales are so brisk that analysts at Wells Fargo expect revenue “may now be running at” $100 million to $200 million a month, a rapid acceleration since bullion hit the warehouse club late in the summer of 2023. “Our work suggests there has been significant interest given COST’s aggressive pricing and high level of customer trust,” Edward Kelly, an equity analyst at the bank, said in a note to clients Tuesday. “The accelerating frequency of Reddit posts, quick on-line sell-outs of product, and COST’s robust monthly eComm sales suggests a sharp uptick in momentum since the launch.” If Kelly’s assessment is correct, that would represent quite a move for a product that only debuted last August and generated about $100 million in sales in Costco’s fiscal first quarter that ended in late November 2023. Costco is selling one-ounce bars made of nearly pure 24-karat gold. While the price is not disclosed online to nonmembers, it’s estimated that the product generally sells for about 2% above the spot price, which as of Tuesday morning was around $2,357 an ounce. That would put the price at Costco just over $2,400. Gold has been on a tear this year, with spot prices rising more than 13% in 2024, pushed higher by a persistent bout of inflation that started in 2022 and investor fear over the state of the deteriorating U.S. fiscal situation. The government is on pace for a $2 trillion deficit this year, adding to a total debt load that has surpassed $34.6 trillion. So, selling gold bars has been easy for a store priding itself on its variety of consumer choices. There are a few catches: Sales are limited to five per customer (up from two previously) and while the benefits to Costco’s top line are clear, it’s a little different story for bottom-line profit. That’s because in addition to the low premium the store gets for gold bars, it further offers 2% cash back for executive members and another 2% for those who use their Citigroup credit cards. The sales are adding about 3% to general merchandise sales but not contributing much to profit, Kelly said. “Pricing at that level and shipping costs suggests it’s a very low profit business at best,” the analyst wrote. As an investment, though, it makes a lot of sense in these times. While gold is seen as a natural inflation hedge, there are other factors at play, including geopolitical unrest in the Mideast and Eastern Europe that has created uncertainty about financial stability. Central banks have been large buyers of gold, especially in Asia, and the run-up in prices this year suggest that while purchases are down in the early part of 2024, they are likely to pick up later, according to DataTrek Research. “The move suggests that many foreign governments feel the need to hedge geopolitical outcomes that might be negative catalysts for other risk assets like stocks,” DataTrek co-founder Nicholas Colas said in a recent market note. “The only good news is that this reinforces the idea of gold as a reasonable hedge for diversified portfolios.” Costco officials did not immediate return a request for comment." MY COMMENT As usual....a genius move for COST. I love it as a shareholder. I am looking forward to the day when COST is one of the largest retail sellers of gold in the world. This company really knows how to market and make money. PLUS.....the free publicity that articles like this generate is.....priceless.
I do buy one or two OZ of gold most years. I dont buy at Costco however. I dont want gold in the form of gold bars. The ONLY gold that I buy is USA currency, 100% gold content....Gold Buffalo Coins. I am not a fan of gold or silver in bar from, I prefer USA issued gold or silver coins....especially those that are 100% gold or silver with no other metal mixed in.
Market feels kinda bearish for the past month now. Actually ever since I sold my large chunk of NVDA it seems like all the exciting AI related stocks have decided to take a nap. Of course for a long term investor this shouldn’t matter. I don’t necessarily blame it on anything other than a pause in buying. Stocks have soared for the past 16-18 months and they probably need a break. I’m glad I sold some of my stocks when I did last month since I’m gonna need that money to fund part of our construction work here in Ohio. I knew going into investing my money in stocks that I will need part of it in the coming years and this year it is happening. So if everything works out well for the markets in the coming months, then I have made impeccable timing with pulling out some capital to subsidize our construction work, all along keeping a large chunk of money in our portfolio and taking some profits and putting them into good use.
Are you still doing your NVDA momentum trade Zukodany? How did it work out if you are done now? Where do I buy my coins? Here.......https://www.goldeneaglecoin.com/
Not bad to sell some holdings for your construction Zukodany. Simply moving the money from one asset to another.....especially with it being a business asset.
WELL.....a small/medium loss for me today. It is hard for me to not be in the red when it is a down day for NVDA. I did have five of nine stocks in the green. The red stocks were.....NVDA, SMCI, HD, and PLTR. At least the markets came back at the end of the day. No doubt positioning for the economic release tomorrow.....and....oversold conditions in the markets generating some buyers.
No I sold it post #19305 is when I sold my NVDA (March 18th) so that “momentum” trade was short lived. To the tune of 5-6% gains AFTER an additional 80%+ gains since I started that position a couple of years back (in other words, I was up 80%, then added more to it a couple of weeks before selling at an additional 5%) I since then bought $10k more worth of pltr and also cleared out my LLY which seems to be struggling since as well.
Here is a little preview of the CPE and expectations for tomorrow morning. Meaningless when the real thing will be out soon......except for the expectations part. A crucial report Wednesday is expected to show little progress against inflation https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/09/a-c...o-show-little-progress-against-inflation.html At this point it really does not matter what the report is. All that counts is that it is better than.....or at worst.....meets expectations. That will be good enough for the markets.
If I had to guess what will happen tomorrow for investors.....my feeling is that it will be a very nice GREEN day.
