tede02

Visited Hilton Head Island in South Carolina in August. Was my first time there. Very nice area.

Well, it looks like the yield party is coming to an end. It has been fun. Glad I locked in some treasuries and CDs north of 5% at a range of maturities. Most will come due over the next 3 years. Bond funds may still offer some opportunities. Total return is working again. Some of the funds I've looked yield over 5% and when you look at the underlying holdings, they average 90-95 of par.

My wife is in a situation presently where she took a "lead" position within the healthcare group she's employed. It pays a little extra but has significantly increased the stress/headaches of her job. I've been trying to convince her to walk away from it even if they offered to double or triple her lead pay. It has drained her mental and emotional energy. Just isn't worth it.

I guess I could have just shortened up my inital post to, "I wonder if the bond vigilantes are going to return soon?" For now, you definitely could be right. But the fiscal situation here is so unsustainable especially with Medicare and Social Security BOTH headed for fiscal crisis within 5-10 years. It seems a market shock may be the only thing that will force some kind of reform. If long rates popped up to 6, 7 or 8%, that would be pretty wild.

Guys, guys, guys, lets not go down the politics rabbit hole. All I'm getting at is if the Democrats were to prevail in November, I think it's likely they wouldn't renew the current tax law which expires at the end of 2025 (they would try to raise revenue). Very hard to see the Republicans letting the tax bill expire. And hard to imagine either party cutting spending in any meaningful way. (Not commenting on the merits of any of this.) I'm just thinking about a situation similar to what occured in the UK in 2022 when Truss proposed tax cuts against an already sizeable deficit and the market wagged its finger as in, "not going to happen." It seems like we just keep marching in that direction.

Think peak yields are in the rear-view mirror? One thing I think about is long yields increasing if Trump wins in November. I think there is no chance for fiscal restraint unless the markets force it. Would be interesting to see the turbulence if the 10-year shot past 5%. All the randomness and unpredictable events of the world never cease to amuse me.

The gradual downward trend in inflation continues. Gets me thinking about nominal treasuries vs. TIPS. 4.5% may be a very good rate looking back in a year. But I also worry about long yields spiking up as the current tax law is set to expire at the end of 2025. The budget deficit is huge and the debt is growing a lot. If the current tax regime is left in-place (assuming no spending reductions), market backlash is a real possibility. Long-story short, I'm sticking with 2-3 year maturies as some of my buys in recent years mature.

Yeah, I always think about this and the Cornwall Capital guys. I missed an opportunity in November 2022 when Facebook was bombed out. I knew it was cheap. Had a limit order on leaps placed near the bottom that never hit. Wasn't tryting to go all in or anything but it would have been a multi-bagger in short order. That one still smarts! Did good on the equity directly but sold too early!

Although panic periods can make great companies attractively priced, one of my observations is it's the low quality, more cyclical stuff that gets fire-saled during these situations. Financials, some retail, small-cap generally, lower volume generally, etc. will have these massive draw-downs which provides some huge upside potential. But it's obviously never easy when the future looks really dark.

Mnuchin is definitely a smart guy but I'm not seeing him as a successful politician! LOL.

This grabbed my attention: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/10/nycb-is-paying-the-nations-highest-interest-rate-apy.html#:~:text=NYCB raised the annual percentage,rates for his website DepositAccounts. Paying 5.55% on their high-yield savings product under the Flagstar-My Banking Direct brand . Obviously trying to attract deposits. I opened an account. It's a little clunky compared to Ally or Capital One's platform, but it's paying a much, much higher rate. Withdrawals are limited to $50k per day.

@thepupil You've got more guts than me. I've grabbed a little bit of 10-year notes and some 5-10 TIPS when yields have popped. But keeping it small dollar. I grabbed some 2-year today at over 5% YTM.

I bought a few ITM LEAPS on NYCB to ride Mnuchin's coat-tails. Just enough to keep me paying attention.

It doesn't look like price pressures on housing is going to ease in the immediate future but this caught my eye last week. Multi family construction has jumped to the highest level in 50 years and single family, though not at highs, is trending in the right direction. Probably takes a few years for this new supply to effect supply/demand balance. I also don't understand why the Fed board is talking up rate cuts. Financial conditions have eased substantially this year. The markets are wide open again with fresh IPOs and tightening spreads. It's kind of crazy. Feels a bit like 2021 again. If I were a member of the FOMC, I'd be really concerned that inflation will pick up materially if they cut rates. It also seems like the markets are really vulnerable to the Fed coming out and saying they aren't going to cut this year. One thing that does make me chuckle a little is despite all the gloom and doom in commercial real estate, the sector has been fortunate that the rest of the financial markets have been booming. Distressed sales seem to still be the exception rather than the norm. I'm sure it would be a very different situation if the economy was in recession, markets were down, etc. Who knows what happens in 2025 but it seems like CRE has been gifted a very favorable backdrop to muddle through for now.

LMAO. These guys can't get their story straight. In the 2021 UAPTF report, they reported that 144 out of 145 cases reviewed could not be identified even though 80 of them were picked up by multiple sensors. The new report says virtually everything they look at can be identified. It's a total joke. One of the Florida congressman (Moskowitz) said something that keeps me interested. Every time they (members of congress) ask the pentagon for answers or try to set-up hearings, they get HUGE push-back. The obvious question is why? If there's nothing there, why is there a vicious resistance at every turn? It doesn't make any sense. There's so much dis-info out there, it's difficult to sort through but I remain very curious about what lies behind all the obfuscation.

Someone has probably already mentioned this but isn't buying BTC within an ETF contradicting one of its supposed main tenants (decentralization, no custodians, etc.). I see BTC and gold to some extent as interesting from a psychological perspective. It's kind of a big experiment. Good for those guys that have made some big money on it. I do worry about some people I know (including family) that believe crypto is their ticket to riches or an early retirement. Maybe it works or maybe they take a huge loss. I will continue to observe with amusement.

I really enjoyed this. Covered a lot of subjects. The story about crossing swords with Icahn in the 90s was surprising. If Ackman's side of the story is true, that was a really B.S. play by Icahn, just blatantly breaching a contract and trying to outlast him in the courts. I don't understand why people would want to do business like that. Also was interesting to hear Ackman mention that Elliot tried to push his public vehicle into liquidation for their own profit when things were going bad with Valeant and Herbalife. That is pretty brutal.

I was excited about this but I'm having a tough time finding local credit unions with the promotional rates. For any New York state residents, there is a CU offering 12 months at 0%. Not sure what the closing fees are. Sidney Federal Credit Union.

Using HELOC financing to buy promotional CDs or Treasurys looks interesting. I think there is a narrow window to take advantage of this risk free (I expect the Fed to cut rates over the next year). There are some credit unions offering 6-12 months of 0% on HELOCs. Likewise, 12-14 months CDs are plentiful at 5.5%. There are some credit unions offering specials over 6% (more restrictions generally). You do need to look carefully at the fine print on the promotional HELOCs because there can be significant fees. But, if a guy could get $200k at 0% and reinvest at 5.50%, that is interesting, even if you have $2k of closing costs. Curious if anyone has done this.

Added to TTNDY.

I would second that. Harris Associates is technically the name of the asset manager that runs the Oakmark Funds. The entire firm is owned by Natixis. I've been a long-time shareholder of multiple Oakmark Funds and have had some interaction with people internally. My perception has always been positive.

AGG is now up over 6% YTD. Amazing considering where things were at the end of October. I also find it amusing that there were a lot of prominent money managers saying, "We're in a new era of higher inflation, higher interest rates, etc." It reminds me of the 2011-2012 timeframe when a lot of the same type of people were saying the Fed's QE policies were going to cause massive inflation. That turned out to be dead wrong. The inflation and rate story presently still has a ways to go, but I won't be surprised if we see a repeat in the sense that these guys that have been saying high rates are here to stay turn out to be completly wrong.

Buying GGG in February of 2009. I could see it was fundamentally a great business. Got lucky on the timing. Has been a 10-bagger. But the best part about it is I bought a bunch of it for some of my close family members and a few of my early clients at the same time. Most of them still hold it. My dad kicks himself in the ass for selling half of his position along the way up. I had to sell my shares in 2020 to get a real estate deal done which sucks because I missed the most recent leg up. Started to rebuild a position during the market chopiness this year.

Man, what a ride with rates this year (and equities I suppose)! Right now I'm feeling pretty good about shifiting a lot of cash to term debt over the last 4 months. I just missed the coveted 5% treasury note the day Ackman publicly said he was taking his rate bet off and long rates dropped back in the 4s. I bought a nice chunk of TIPS. Wish I had some more medium term nominals but you can't have it all I guess. I follow the main inflation reports, (CPI, PCE, PPI, etc.) and the downward trend is quite strong. All that said, if I were the Fed, I personally would have preferred to maintain more hawkish rhetoric at least for a while. They pencil in 3 rate cuts for 2024 and now you have equities back to their highs and long rates plunging. This fights against what they're trying to do unless they do really want market expectations to start easing conditions.