Gregmal

Ok, asterisk. Guys who trade bonds that behave like stocks have gotten rich lol

The inflation cost issues are gonna swing back the other way at some point, and then margins across the board get a boost again. This is true for pretty much every company with any sort of structural market advantage.

Totally lol. 4% on your cash is everywhere I look. Which I guess makes sense. It’s like waiving pussy at a computer nerd who just left college and got his first job at Google. Little does he know, that in 5 years he ll realize it ain’t nothing special despite the fact that he was deprived of it for so much of his life.

I have almost entirely stopped following the majority of stuff I once did. Overtime I’ve also kinda found it productive to eliminate people or sources that check the box of “trying to sell you something”…a factor that almost always leads to dishonesty….which given the cesspool of WS lives off that, further reduces the stuff I find valuable. Have never had a Twitter and even when I stumble across a good account, I forget it within a few days or so. Agree with others, wabuffo is a total gift and literally the only account I make a point to check out here and there. Otherwise I pay others to sift through all the sewers for any relevant investment related stuff and even there, the yields are often low. If I had to make a list of folks who are worthwhile, not total career advancing attention whores, not trying to pump their book, not trying to sell me something, and really just don’t have an agenda period other than to genuinely discuss good investments, this place takes the cake for me. Weirdly enough I’ve found so much value speaking with individual people with skin in the game, who invest their own money even if they are not household names or openly promotional. There’s like a silent army of St Joe shareholders I speak to regularly and it’s awesome. Same with MSG. People who’d never post anywhere but reach out via email or DM. Random, normal folks just looking to chat stocks and knowledgeable enough to be valuable in an exchange of ideas. I’d encourage folks to make contacts like this especially at annual meetings and investor events. I guess I’m just a fan of normal people LOL. Otherwise, I used to really enjoy Nat Stewart on Seeking Alpha but I think he stopped writing. Dude just got the entire equation when it came to investing. Kuppy is such a good down to earth dude who gives no fucks about all the usual nonsense. BG2008 is like the most honest, non salesman fund guy I’ve talked to, so I enjoy the fund letters out of his shop, and as mentioned above, from someone who gives zero shits about the macro junk, I still find @wabuffoto be a treasure.

~8%

Almost exactly when he should have been using it! Otherwise, jokingly, I think it also helps to have a super cash fund where you can be 70% in cash, have 30% market exposure to stuff that returns 15-20% and then end up +30% on the whole enchilada every year. Both RBC and Axos are getting back to me on where to find this sort of financial product.

Nintendo

Yea I personally think the tax rate on income under $50k should be 0. Then cut some of the social welfare stuff. What benefit is there to making people earning so little worry about taxes?

I also recall hearing, I think here, in June or July…about how “the estimates” were way too high at 250 EPS. Then I thought, what kind of jabroni gives two hoots about what some pindick in a cubicle writing book reports thinks? Or predicates investment decisions on them? Now I’m thinking…what a prescient call about declining analyst forecast back in June/July…what was SPY trading at then? Looks like that whole approach paid off…not.

Dont even get me started. Every year I come back from my winter exodus to Florida and you start entering certain states and its glaring. A few miles of highway work shouldn't take half a decade. Meanwhile every 3-6 months I visit down South and new roads and buildings are up and running. Funded by 0% state income taxes as well.

Elon Musk showed everyone what productivity is at Twitter. Imagine what’s possible at the government level?

Think by summer we are easily below that and ultimately sub 5%(I won’t argue over tenths of a point) is fine as are 4-5% rates. That’s probably overall pretty good and healthy longer term. I just want consistency from the bear camp though. They’re so full of it. We ve already seen more than I care for in 2023. Energy prices are gonna be a problem they say. Energy falls..ignore it and move on the used car prices after previously abandoning that argument last time they cratered. Then ignore new car production and sales while simultaneously declaring it proof of a slowdown. Claim the consumer is tapped out. Then point to rabid consumer spending and demand hikes cuz the economy is too hot. While claiming all spending is simply cuz of credit cards. At least be consistent!

Change the case rests on monthly .2s, .4s, .6s….which have always bounced around and now do so more than ever.

Totally. It’s nuanced and divided much like the blue collar vs white collar dynamic in the labor market. At the same time, there’s the noise. Todays spending was another indicator of consumer strength. What do they do? Scream for more destructive hikes or blame credit cards endlessly. The South is too robust…wage price spiral! Ignore the deflation elsewhere. Oh but energy will be a problem! Energy falls…back to touting used car prices. The only way to win this game is just to ignore the noise and focus on individual fundamentals. The ironic part in all of this…like 90% of my friends and contacts who are vividly in the bear camp…didn’t even make money last year and got ripped in q1 so far. Sometime just sticking to your preferred knitting is best. The inflation/recession/economy too strong game is just a self serving shit show for the people selling it.

Is it odd to anyone else how oil prices keep getting whacked on reports indicating consumer strength?

Powell is basically the new Fauci. Like we get it bro, you enjoyed the spotlight, but the gig has run its course, move on. Please stop lingering around trying to scrape together more reasons to be relevant. Meanwhile the bear camp keeps doing its thing. One side of the mouth “OMG inflation is rearing its ugly head again, used car sales ticked up. Economy running too hot. Must. Raise. Rates. More!” Other side of the mouth? “Oh look, GM idling plants because of plummeting demand. I knew the economy was deteriorating!”

Nice. So now wage price spiral has devolved into “wage price spiral in specific markets”. Dem goalposts keep moving for Mr Powell annd co. Also easily explained by migration rather than some all else equal theory, and fully supported by economic growth in those regions. There really isn’t much of a reason for the pre COVID gaps between pay/prices in Atlanta or Miami vs coastal anymore.

Yea I guess. It’s unfortunate but reality.

@thepupil lol I’m doing it somewhat tongue in cheek, but now that we can agree the “market” is a world index, now I know what chart and PE I should be looking at to determine whether it’s a good time to buy individual stocks for the next couple quarters!

I chuckled at the Chinese response to the US in regards to aiding Russia. I guess the US is the only one who gets to takes sides and then meddle in it? If we are playing this stupid game then so will others. In other words, as long as the meddling continues, so will the war.

100%. It’s interesting that despite all the talking, and everyone really laying it on thick the past 6-12 months, TTM performance, depending upon what you look at, the markets still aren’t even really down all that much(said while still struggling to decipher what “the market” is in terms of an index or group of stocks…is it really just FANG???). Which is funny cuz I do chat with a lot of folks and see plenty of commentary from others and those mega bears all still claim to have profited handsomely and gotten rich but then when you point out a lot of this stuff, you always get some iteration of “oh I cashed in my options/shorts”, which then kind of brings about a look of like “oh, wait, but much of the things you have been peddling didn’t even really happen or haven’t happened to nearly the degree you said”….and then you get a “but the stock went down” type of response….and have your “eureka!” moment where it’s like “oh, now I see what game you’re playing”…

Thats exactly my point. What I said was that theyre still of like 90% from the ATHs. Thats definitely not what a top is, and if we're trying to be cute and pinpoint bottoms, thats typically how they form. Exactly and this is the same thing because every single year Ive paid attention to the markets we've had people suggesting this course of action. 3 or 4 years its temporarily been a good one, especially with the benefit of hind site. I mean even the bond thing...now you cant even just say "buy bonds" you have to redefine with the benefit of hind site, what worked. So 15+ years, 2,3,4 times you get these temporary blips where those things look wise, and the rest of the time theyre generally garbage. I still hear Peter Schiff calling for gold to go to $5000/oz in 2011. Whereas every one of those years you could have just paid attention to quality stuff, averaged out purchases and done better. The ironic thing about hoarding bonds and cash and gold is that the years they outperform, are the years youd be silly to allocate to them versus quality stocks. Unless of course, again, you're the 1/1000 who's got a crystal ball and buys at exactly the right time and sells at the right time and then reallocates at the right time. Ive played that game, and im not even half bad at it, but over time its just become so obvious that betting on 1/1000 is a fools game and when you consider how easy the alternative is...I mean why waste time with this stuff?

So if I may summarize, and correct me if I’m wrong; -the markets going higher from here is inconceivable barring something crazy. I guess the popular refrain is “the Fed cuts rates to 0 again”(which I don’t think anyone forecasts and is something I’d put 95% of my net worth on NOT happening in the next few years) -the best case scenario is the markets are 7-10% overvalued -the most likely scenario is that they’re 15-20% overvalued -a less likely, but still reasonably probable scenario is that the markets are 25% overvalued

I mean I simply ask the same question Ive asked before..whats the point in this obsession with "the market" and "the bottom"??? I wake up in the morning with a list of assets I own, and a list of things and scenarios in which I wish to own others. What exactly do we get out of "calling" the top/bottom or next recession? Well, money one would think. But thats if you nail the top and the bottom which is a suckers game. Otherwise, whats the point if we claim margins(which everybody already knew where pretty darn close to peak) will come down? We short stuff like AAPL or Costco on a macro and earnings deterioration story but then best shot we ever get at making money is some short term hysteria cuz someone said something and you get a bit of....pause....stock market volatility inspired decline? Followed by a swift recovery and then whoops wouldnt you know it, those earnings were awful and "I knew it" and....Apples at $150, and Costco $500 again....Im not totally mocking this to be denigrating as ive definitely gotten caught up in this sort of shit, including Apple...but at some point its just head scratching. Like what are we gonna sit around for the next year debating bottoms and IDK, who wins if SPY is flat for 2023? Of flat from today? Or up 10% or down 10%? Cuz thats still indicative of a bottom being in. If we get 3300 and then a bounce...is that validating that we were super duper smart know it alls not falling for last years "false bottom" a mere 4-5% higher? This is dumb.

Dude the crappiest of crap is off like 90% from highs but clearly bottomed with the SoftBank and Tiger liquidations is June. You guys have been talking about savings getting wiped out and then pointing to misleading metrics like upticks versus a year ago. You’ve claimed the consumer is tapped out for 3 straight quarters with the recession coming “any month now”. Corporate margins have contracted from huge one off benefits but still remain healthy. Look no further than homebuilders. I don’t think you’re wrong because a handful of crap tech bottomed in June, I think you are wrong because you’ve sat around regurgitating talking points like yield curves and “past recessions” and a whole lot of other backwards looking historical comps and meanwhile everything from Markel to Facebook, Uber to DR Horton, Prologis to Cleveland Cliffs has ripped face in classic bottom style and yet we continue to be obsessed with “never before in history” and crap like that. It’s the same thing we had in late 2021 when folks claimed the top wasn’t in cuz “the indexes”. Never before in history is true until it isn’t. That’s why markets are markets. Because they don’t always follow the exact playbook that everyone and their mother says they should. This is the problem with the perma bear position, you can be right and a few things and still not make money because at the end of the days there’s too much guesswork and making shit up involved. Claiming we re headed to 2800-3000 on deteriorating earnings and then sitting at 4000 with a quick visit to 3500 doesn’t warrant a victory lap but I guess if we want to keep saying “bear market rally” we can keep the gig going in perpetuity. Where is the cutoff?