[mmasters]

I'm mostly out except for some long term money in Amazon and Facebook. Figure with all the people stuck at home, possibly even for a couple years, it couldn't be a better situation for these 2 businesses.

[Plantagenet]

I'm mostly out except for some long term money in Amazon and Facebook. Figure with all the people stuck at home, possibly even for a couple years, it couldn't be a better situation for these 2 businesses.

I got back in the market during the big selloff in March.

So far so good.

I also put some money in Amazon and facebook, but I did it through a FANG ETF. Actually all the FANG stocks are doing very very well.

However, they are down about 10+% in the current sell-off.

Cheers!

[vtsnowedin]

"Volatility, profit taking, minor correction ,or easing somewhat from recent highs", Whatever you want to call it I expect a lot of ups and downs for the rest of the year. Perhaps I can make a few small buys on the lows but I don't plan on selling anything before next summer if then.

[Plantagenet]

I'm looking out at next winter for signs of trouble.

The Covid virus is mutating all the time and if we get a more deadly variant and another big China virus outbreak in China.....or in Europe or the US........and if you have the China virus infecting people at the same time the flu virus is giving people flu......then I could see the market doing another nose-dive.

Not to mention the election risk. Biden's economic plans call for huge tax increases and massive re-organisations of the health care system, limiting fracking and fossil fuel extraction in the US, passing the Green new deal etc.....all things that could hurt the economy. And if the Ds do these things and then try to pack to Supreme Court or make Washington DC a state or give citizenship to 22 million illegal aliens or any number of things they are talking about doing, then Mr. Market is going to be very very unhappy.

Cheers!

[Outcast_Searcher]

I'm looking out at next winter for signs of trouble.

The Covid virus is mutating all the time and if we get a more deadly variant and another big China virus outbreak in China.....or in Europe or the US........and if you have the China virus infecting people at the same time the flu virus is giving people flu......then I could see the market doing another nose-dive.

Not to mention the election risk. Biden's economic plans call for huge tax increases and massive re-organisations of the health care system, limiting fracking and fossil fuel extraction in the US, passing the Green new deal etc.....all things that could hurt the economy. And if the Ds do these things and then try to pack to Supreme Court or make Washington DC a state or give citizenship to 22 million illegal aliens or any number of things they are talking about doing, then Mr. Market is going to be very very unhappy.

Cheers!

Yup. And really, big picture re investments, the wildly varying outcomes of various scenarios you mention above, re investing in the short term, aren't all that unusual, when trying to invest aggressively in the short term ANY time.

Being in the stock market (in a diversified way) is great for the LONG term, re overall performance. HOWEVER, to stick with it through thick and thin, investors have to put up with a LOT of volatility. Essentially, they're getting paid fairly well over the long run, to grit their teeth (or ignore it) and just stick with it.

It's a very interesting, fairly counter-intuitive reality, but I think a good 90 years of data proves it, providing one is willing to stick with it for at least 3 decades.

When helping my sister with the "problem" in the 90's that her active stock funds were causing she and her husband to pay a LOT of taxes because of high returns, was when I happened upon stock index funds, when trying to find a tax efficient solution (I'd never worried about that "problem" before). Index funds were much less popular then and weren't all over the news. They don't spend tons of money marketing, after all, unlike active funds.

...

And even though I KNOW this intellectually, like almost everyone else, I don't want to just decide on a basic asset allocation, dump it various places and ignore it. So my discipline is I do that (the "right" thing, per math and data and experts like Buffett and Bogle) with about 90% of my investments, and only "play" actively with about 10%. At least that way if I screw up badly, I don't mess up my retirement, and it gives me an interesting hobby to swear at.

Overall, the active investment is a LOT more work, and over time, the overall returns are about the same as if I just had it all in index funds and used that time elsewhere, after 3 decades of good and bad results playing the active game.

I think most people won't admit to themselves that over time, for every time they get great results with FB or some other FAANG stock (for example), they do poorly in some other stock due to unlucky or unknown factor X.

Oh, also, as the overall predictions on this site re timing and specifics show, it's REALLY, REALLY hard to predict the future accurately at ALL consistently, which would be needed to really trounce (or even meaningfully beat) the stock market over time.

[Newfie]

I just came across this guy Rickards. A good bug with some interesting ideas.

https://dailyreckoning.com/rickards-the ... beginning/

[Plantagenet]

Possible buying opportunity coming in the stock market.

Nancy Pelosi just set a 48 hour deadline for a deal on another stimulus package or she's walking away from the negotiations......and its impossible to make a deal with Nancy since Nancy refuses to accept all proposed deals.

That means that sometime next week Nancy will close the door on future stimulus packages .... and then Mr. Market will realize there is no chance of a stimulus package.....

And since part of the optimism in the stock market is hope for another stimulus, this will tend to crash the market.

AND, don't be surprised if the Ds may have some other nasty little tricks to play, since it would help Biden and the Ds if they could crash the market before election day.

So I'm looking for some kind of nasty little downturn in the stock market before the election..........and if its a big enough drop in the market I'll consider buying on the dip.


You've got 48 hours to agree to my terms or I'll crash the stock market.......

Cheers!

[vtsnowedin]

Well my next month's buy will be a tiny sliver of UPS which delivers most of the things we order on line. The chances of them not making a solid profit year after year for the next decade seem pretty slim.

[Plantagenet]

Well my next month's buy will be a tiny sliver of UPS which delivers most of the things we order on line. The chances of them not making a solid profit year after year for the next decade seem pretty slim.

UPS is a pretty safe bet.

If there is a pre-election sell-off it might be a good time to buy more.

Personally, I've mostly moved away from individual stocks and have been mainly buying ETFs.

Cheers!

[vtsnowedin]

UPS is a pretty safe bet.

If there is a pre-election sell-off it might be a good time to buy more.

Personally, I've mostly moved away from individual stocks and have been mainly buying ETFs.

Cheers!

Well I get retirement checks from the State retirement system which has several billion invested under management. I'll let that be the buyers of funds and bonds for me.
This little account is just some of my beer money I'm using as a hobby and I like doing my own research and buying decisions.
I do expect quite a market correction if Biden wins and starts going after corporate profits and breaking up the high tech monopolies. With that in mind I'm staying away from the big five for now waiting for the new reality to set in and drop their P/E ratios back out of the sky.
I read yesterday that if you take the big five out, the rest of the S&P 500 has only recovered five percent from this years low. That tells me that in a correction those big five have the most to lose and could each easily go down by half very quickly as their price today is supported by lots of foolish investors not paying attention to real market conditions and profit margins.

[REAL Green]

The "great game" of financial warfare ahead:

“CIO: "US And China Are Engaged In Full-Blown Financial War... And China Will Fake Prosperity & Growth To Attract Foreign Capital"
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/cio-u ... ity-growth

"China is highly indebted and leveraged, so Xi is attempting to open up because he needs to attract foreign capital,” added the same Asian CIO. “He’s playing a confidence game, and it is vital for his survival that he win it,” he said. “In less than 20yrs China has come to represent 70% of Asia’s capital markets.” With such dominance, any investment decision in the region has become a call on whether you want to be long China. “Xi is looking to attract $5trln of foreign capital to plug holes, levering it 10x-15x through the state banking system.”… "The bullish China case is that Xi gets his $5trln, levers it, and uses excess capital to secure dominance in the industries of the future," explained the CIO, referencing artificial intelligence, biotech, microchips. “Along that road, Xi will leverage all the industries that China already dominates to secure advantage.” Solar, batteries, LCD panel production. "And while the US may draw away, the Germans and French are ultimately commercial and if China can produce the best products, and consume European luxury exports, Beijing may just win." "The bear US case is a derivative of China’s bull case,” he explained. "The US net international investment position is -$13trln.” To maintain its economic dominance, it needs to continue to attract enormous capital inflows. "What allowed the US to sustain this imbalance is global confidence in its legal/political systems alongside an incentive structure that rewards entrepreneurship, but if the nation swings between Trumpism and Sanderism in the decade ahead, that confidence is undermined. And investors will seek to diversify away from America." "The bear case for China is that Xi is clearly an authoritarian,” said the Asian CIO. "He imposes so much control over Chinese companies – which he already has – that the rest of the world refuses to use Chinese IOT (internet-of-things) technology.” Fear that Beijing will ultimately have access to all our data is seen as unacceptable. "This then kills so many of China’s talented entrepreneurs." Leaving them unable to expand beyond their domestic market. "They can only be as big as the economy is successful – and so China fails to attract the $5trln."… In times of war, rules shift to meet national needs. In a world where capital is desperate for evidence of growth, fabricating the latter to attract the former is a rational strategy. Failing to attract capital is unacceptable for a nation with an inflating property bubble which simultaneously supports tax revenue, employment and domestic consumption. US pressure to re-engineer global supply chains could not come at a worse time for the Beijing Acrobats, their plates spinning, slowing. And this amplifies the pressure to maintain an appearance of prosperity so that the foreign capital continues to flow in. “We have always had to be somewhat skeptical of economic statistics and corporate figures coming out of China, but in a time of financial war we may see distortions on a scale never before seen,” he said. "For the time being, western money is flowing in even as capital controls are tightening for locals. Foreign pensions, endowments, they’re seeking greater diversification for their portfolios.” And if this doesn’t work, the Chinese may choose to become more assertive regionally, and coopt the sources of capital surplus that fund US deficits – HK, Taiwan, Korea, Japan. Under Biden both the Saudis and Russians will surely be more allied to Beijing. "But the foundation for investing so much money in China is unstable,” said the CIO. “One must invest very carefully in China and be skeptical of all the numbers that are presented."

[Ibon]

And China Will Fake Prosperity & Growth

They learned well.

[Plantagenet]

I read yesterday that if you take the big five out, the rest of the S&P 500 has only recovered five percent from this years low. That tells me that in a correction those big five have the most to lose and could each easily go down by half very quickly as their price today is supported by lots of foolish investors not paying attention to real market conditions and profit margins.

Yes, its true that the big five (or FANMG stocks) account for much the growth in the market, but they also account for much of the earning's growth. The rest of the S & P isn't doing well when the economy is locked down. Given the FANMG stocks have a spectacular record of steady earning's growth, and given that they have actually benefitted from the new "work-from-home" world created by the Wuhan Virus and the lockdowns, its not surprising that they continue to go up.

In addition to the big FANMG stocks, other smaller work-at-home stocks are also doing very well in the new COVID world. For instance ZOOM communications has been doing very very well because suddenly everyone is on ZOOM.

Cheers!

[vtsnowedin]

The market took a dive today perhaps realizing that Biden is going to win. I shared in the pain but as a my choices are based on five year returns I see no need to panic or sell anything I now own.

[Plantagenet]

Hopefully we’ll see a more significant sell off here. I’m hoping for a -10 percent drop or more

[Newfie]

FANMG?

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fa ... b-amzn.asp

Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet.
What Are FANG Stocks?
In finance, the acronym "FANG" refers to the stocks of four prominent American technology companies: Facebook (F), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX), and Alphabet (GOOG). In 2017, the company Apple (AAPL) was also added, causing the acronym to be rewritten as "FAANG."


FANG stocks are famous for the impressive growth they have shown in recent years, with each member more than doubling over the past five years.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
The term "FANG" refers to the stocks of four popular American technology companies: Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet.
Each of the FANG companies has shown extraordinary growth in recent years, reflected in both their revenues and their net profits.
Although their business models vary, they each share the use of advanced technologies to acquire and retain users.

[mmasters]

I decided to sell out completely.

No stimulus, a second wave and Biden winning the election.

Triple bad news coming...

[Plantagenet]

FANMG?

Some stock analysts think the group of big tech FANG stocks should be expanded to also include microsoft, hence FANMG. Other commentators think NVDA should be included in the FANG stocks and they refer to their version of the expanded group as the FANNG stocks.

Cheers!

[Plantagenet]

I decided to sell out completely.

No stimulus, a second wave and Biden winning the election.

Triple bad news coming...

NO doubt more bad news is coming.....

I was following the Wuhan virus when it was still in China and I sold out completely in February and then bought back in at the lows in March. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event....I caught the timing just right.

I don't think I can time it like that again twice in one year, so I'm going to hold pat.

I think there will be more stimulus.....Pelosi isn't going to agree to anything that will TRump before the election, but as soon as Biden wins Pelosi will either flip flop and agree to more stimulus during the lame duck, or there will be a HUGE stimulus bill coming from the Ds in January when Biden takes over.

AND IMHO The second wave isn't as scary as the first because we've been doing this for 6 months now and we've got hopes of a vaccine before the end of the year.

---------------------

Good luck to you, MMast

Cheers!

[vtsnowedin]

It is interesting to watch some of the goings on. For example I bought a bit of two of the companies stock that have vaccines under development and testing. Over the last few days if one of them announces the are making (what is really just predicable) progress their stock jumps up a percent or two and the other goes down by about as much. The next day or so the other will report on their progress and the process is reversed. It appears quite a few traders are trying to bet on the big winner not realizing that with seven billion to vaccinate they will all probably do quite well and today's race to the finish tells us nothing about the final profit margin.
On another front I see a a lot of these Pharma stocks get hammered every morning then coming back and even posting a gain by closing bell. Day traders placing wrong bets I suppose.