Has no affect on the markets

We are having our 2023 Advisor Conference this week

Outlook is a bit murkey. Head of US strategy says mild recession at worst and 2 rate cuts near the end of the year. Head of US equity said 4100 on the S&P year end number. Expecting a weak first quarter. Expecting tech to underperform.

If you can find something safe with a 4-5% yield that might be your best bet for this year. Always some stocks that will do well though!

OIH at $330. I’ve seen it this high before, and watched it go down to 290. Maybe even 270. And then all the way back up.

Are people trading these energy stocks, or just holding them? I always fail at timing the market, but I wonder if taking profits might be a good idea here?

The entire world market appears to be coming across as a pump and dump scheme at the moment

please excuse my ignorance ,

but wow what a shit show !

Im balls deep having a play , but wow the market is a wild beast !

I prefer producers to services because of the better growth and yields but OIH should be a good hold over time.

Don't try and time the market but rather buy a partial position you believe in and add to it on dips. I have been doing this for 2+ decades and I have never been able to "time the market" stocks other than to wait with cash if the market in in a tailspin.

I have been doing the same, and if a position becomes to large from averaging down, I lop off the top costs basis as the shares rise again

China “technology” names still rallying big

China regulatory crackdown has loosened up, like Covid restrictions. For now. For traders, not holders.

Oil I am sure will continue to be a good play.

As for tech, people tightening their wallets and not spending as much on unnecessary things leading to bad earnings seems likely but how much lower can these already crushed stocks get. Could it be that that is already priced in?

I have been been accumulating metals and minors back half of last year after I sold them all off last March of 2022. GLD is trying to break out now. Miners GDX etf NEM GOLD will likely follow along with SLV.

I was looking at a safer set up to go more aggressively but may not get it. Next couple of weeks will tell the story.

All FYI.

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In one of those “stay invested” trades don’t time the markets, and coming off of my late December packed cruise on RCL, along with massive bookings for 2023/24…

I’ve ridden up a nice 29% gain since Jan 1st

Pre Covid was $130. Looking to get back to $90. At $63 today

Not for the dividend, FCF, strong balance sheet model

Gold definitely looks good for a trade.

China is definitely a trade.

Rebalancing is always good. People that didn't want to trim their tech were burned hard in 2022.

This is all too real.

Self regulating inflation fighting mechanism. That's why it's falling faster than expected. It's like a force multiplier. Tech will lead the pack once again. I don't know when, but I'm thinking in the second half of the year all of the beaten down tech names will rally big. Don't wait for a Fed pivot, if CPI, PPI show a nice size move down in inflation that would be the signal. The only advantage we have is speed, it takes hedgies and institutional investors a few days to a week to start allocating.

Double

Give us your top 10 holdings as reported on the 13f

Some specifics.

People that didn’t overweight Energy the past 18 months got burned HARD

Are you a “fiduciary”?

Check out Exploits Discovery (NFLDF) and let me know what you think. My father in law has done quite well with gold stocks over the years, and subscribes to many gold newsletters. This is his latest fascination.

Typical chart speak.

Fundamental bottoms up long term analysis far outweighs everything else because you “can’t time the markets”.

While I might look at whether or not the chart breaks through the 200 day average to the upside or downside, how many people even have a clue how to interpret it?

If you aren’t a “trader” then ignore all that BS and focus on the fundamentals.

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Stocks are already UP over 4.64% YTD, we aren’t even 2 weeks in, and compared to the 4% short term cash supposed no risk return doesn’t look so good to investors.

Markets want to rally against herd pessimism.

Inflation falling like a rock. Bond market right. Fed wrong again

You have to assess multiple NON biased opinions/filters versus some one sided broker/dealer retail guy that just follows the herd.

Follow the fundamentals.

It’s on YOU. It’s not easy

To be clear metals and miners are a clear trade for me. Looking at gold to get over $2000 slight pullback and go higher for one more run TBD in the next couple of years. Silver will be better for upside $30 plus target but will be choppy as F “if” it gets there. Copper up also. Will sell later, but likely a couple of years and not months. Larger miners pay dividends along the way.

I do a service which on the side mentions and follows metals and miners and they guided to sell off last March, which was correct, and tranche in back half of last year GLD SIVR GDX SILJ GOLD NEM for the next run.

The best metals followers sell off at highs and accumulate at lows and add miners to leverage the commodities upside. Many many permabulls in metals - avoid.

Copper COPX, which iceman44 mentioned looked good also. I added. I own all the above stocks. I bought a lot of SLVO covered call RTN back half of last year and it pays huge income payouts each month but will keep an eye on Credit Suisse, which is a blah bank, who runs it. If they have problems the ETN could have trouble on redemptions.

TheFamilyArcade dunno about that one. There are so many small time thinly traded miners out there. And when they hit, they hit hard - and drop hard also. With your Father I would ask if he got a heads up for his services about the March 2022 peak, has he sold the tops and accumulated back in on the lows before? Pops may be right over the next few years but will he sell high if it works out? I would ask him about silver prices also. May be time to listen to your Pops. As I said the best folks to get info from though are ones who not just know when it’s time to buy but sell off also, especially for commodities. Wash rinse repeat. IMO.

Have a good weekend all!

I like it Pinny, I’ve done well with IVPAF and FCX.

Another miner I’m looking at is G2 Goldfields. GUYGF. Check it out

Barrick GOLD is in the same area of Guyana and along with the XOM massive Oil discovery, which should benefit HES as well for years to come, a lot of $$$ is flowing in developing basic infrastructure

Physical gold is hard to "trade" due to the huge fees that have increased in the last year or so. Have to really pick it up at the bottom, now the miners on the other hand are cyclical as gold swings between 1650 and 2000. More trading opportunities there. Central banks are starting to hoard gold, probably because of the potential problems with us debt so for now it's pretty strong. Silver can swing fast, but that is up/down with about the same momentum. Very hard to play silver unless something changes on the industrial demand side.

FCX is my best holding right now - up 21.5% as of yesterday.

Huh??

Phyical gold ETFs are best for most people. We have clients that hold physical, what a pain and the storage fees are high.

So hard to know how fast inflation will subside. If history is any measure its not easy to break the cycle though. That said I don't think the fed will hold on to a 2% target.

If you factor in the current data on housing/rents as opposed to backwards looking Inflation numbers that just came out it’s negative

And once again, the bond market is almost always right versus the Fed.

Thus, markets are starting to sense the reality that the Fed terminal rate won’t go as high as some predicted.

Now it comes down to the “E” in earnings.

The current equal weight S&P 500 p/e is 15.

In a recessionary period according to Prof Siegel, a 20 multiple is average. Thus, IF you write down the E for earnings to $200 per share from a current $235….

We get to $200 x 20 = 4,000. Where we are now.

It’s looking more and more that we won’t get that deep recession/sell off.

Banks are reporting that the consumer is still strong and resilient despite adding to write off reserves

On any dips back down to the 3,500-3,600 area I will be looking for opportunities again to buy buy buy

When you look at the “E” where is that growth occurring? Energy for one.

Massive FCF, Divs and debt pay down.

Value over growth for 1st quarter

Markets super toppy. Look for blow off top then sell off in a matter of weeks.

Based on what? Bad earnings, some other measure, or just “the sky is falling”?

Technicals

Inflation is going to roll over until July just because of the base effects. We could have .5% inflation a month for the next 6 months and the year over year would still only read 4% at that point because of how high last spring was. It's going to be 2% reading for June possibly if the next 6 months are like the last 6 months.

Whether the market goes up or down from here, I don't know. But the price to sales ratio would indicate that we're still off in way overvalued land. Here's the historical and current chart of that below. So you either have to believe that stocks are going to act like 2021 and ignore historical fundamentals with 4% rates or higher, or you think that the market pricing has to mean revert at the very least. The current profit margins are way higher than historical averages and will have to mean revert at the least, so you'd need sales to climb a significant amount (or price to decline) in order to get price to sales under 2.

The fed is manipulating the long end of the curve to be super inverted. It's kind of under the radar, but their holdings of short term treasuries are shrinking, but their long term are growing. Yeah, growing, lol. So they're QT on the short end only, while still buying the long end to hold down rates.

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Yeah, it's earnings season and the numbers are ho-hum so it could certainly happen. 2023 could still be a bull year. If inflation wanes and the FED taps the brakes watch out...she's gonna blow.

A lot of times Earnings matter until they don’t and don’t matter until they do.

I would put Walter Deemer as one of the better analysts out there. Look want he saw last week.

https://walterdeemer.com/bam.htm

From last year I am still looking at a “surprising” grind higher with a slight pit stop mid March due to tax pull, then a bit higher into May, typical summer doldrums which will make the bears feel smart and then take off again back half of year. I know this goes against a lot of the Experts and worse “economists”. Because Economists are always right. Right?

Relooking at stuff no one cares about, yes, as expected lot of fiscal has been added to the economy in the first two weeks alone, thanks to bump of the 8.7% cola increase and oddly “higher rates”. $120 B deficit so far this month alone. Friday the 12th last week Federal pensions paid out $35,800 Billion. Don’t worry, Govt. pension folks get a raise with cola like SS recipients, so “more money” added to the economy. Higher rates on Govt debt and MMA’s once again - more money added to the economy and will continue all year.

https://fsapps.fiscal.treasury.gov/dts/files/22011200.pdf

Also Tax pull this March/April will be significantly lower than last years badly timed largest pull ever. Anyone have large capital gains last year? Anyone?

Will see how this plays out. One may want to get long if we get the 3800’s because pullbacks “could be shallow” and this year could “surprise”.

And I don’t follow the headlines or watch financial stuff on TV. Just boring wave set ups, fiscal deficits and surplus, probability and possibilities, goal posts and where we are at on the field and stuff which is never in the headlines. And pivot because the markets change fast. Damn trader Bots!

Remember the word “grind” if we go higher over the next 3 months like MTV style.

Just my bar napkin view of the markets with a little fun in between.

I forgot, one caveat, I've already mentioned this before, the drama with the debt ceiling, it will happen, it will go down to the last second or worse and the stockmarket will react. So if there is ever been a guarantee of a down flush it's this one. So we can't go all in just yet till this issue passes. But it's being telegraphed already that it will happen.

Always enjoy (well, sometimes) seeing the annual Callan periodic table of investment returns…

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Solution: 1 TRILLION dollar coin.
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The debt ceiling fight happens about once a year. It really has no effect on the stock market because we all know how it ends.

As a private contractor working in government spaces I cannot begin to tell you how much cost and worry this causes.

It is market noise and nothing more.

That said if there is a "crisis" and the markets drop it's a good buying opportunity.

It's been about a month and... had I dropped $250,000 into stocks as discussed above it would be worth $378,955 as of 1/18/2023 at 1050 EST. Thats a 151% return on investment at an annualized rate of return of 1,118%. I dropped around $1,000 into OPEN but other than that I have maybe $300 between the others with this exercise done in monopoly money.

*Monopoly Money
NLST: 40,650 shares paid 1.23 a share for $50,000 total now 1.70 a share for $69,150 total
CVNA: 11,389 shares paid 4.39 a share for $50,000 total now 7.38 a share for $84,050 total
OPEN: 42,016 shares paid 1.19 a share for $50,000 total now 1.79 a share for $75,208 total
AFRM: 5,279 shares paid 9.47 a share for $50,000 total now 13.94 a share for $73,589 total
COIN: 1422 shares paid 35.15 a share for $50,000 total now 54.15 a share for $77,001 total

Please note that I lowered the number of COIN shares originally bought from 11037 to 1422 as I left a digit off their original cost and lowered the number of NLST shares by 4000 due to a typo. The initial $250,000 investment is unchanged.

Sold my OIH to buy HAL, which represents about 12% of OIH, while SLB is approx 19%. As a relative valuation play heading into earnings next week. Baker Hughes and SLB not as much short term growth as HAL.

Apple nice 10% bounce off of $125 lows, and should be good heading into earnings. If they were going to miss they would have announced early like they did in early Jan of 2019 due to similar China issues. It's been a supply issue, not a demand issue.

Fed chair Bullard, one of the most hawkish members of the Fed, came out today and said the chances of a "soft landing" are growing. Brainard tomorrow with comments before quiet period heading into Feb 1.

Inflation "dropping like a rock". It's having it's 1982 "Volcker moment" as 34% of the weighted CPI is in "deflation", the same as Oct. of 1982

The Bond market agrees, 2 yr. back down to 4.1% and the Vix is below 20.

Less than 3% annualized inflation for the next 6 months

In the 1st 11 days of 2023 the S&P 500 has already yielded 4%. The "cash" yield of 4% will take another 350+ days .

Next dip opportunity might not come until the job market finally breaks or the Consumer gives out of gas, next month? 6 months?

There was a bounce trade in there for sure (I don't trade). Question is do the gains hold or do we retest lows? Too soon to say in my opinion.

Picking away at names you like in this market on weakness is all good though.

With my real world money I am down $674 across those stocks. Looking at what I have in them I have about $1000 each in CVNA and OPEN and a few hundred in the others. I still like them, but too many people only talk about their wins so here is the Kimono up.

NLST - 2.38 -30% -$7.20
CVNA - 35.78 -78% -$790
OPEN- 1.17 +45% +$450
AFRM- 88.69 -84% -150.19
COIN- 141.63 -63% -177.97

Across all of my individual stocks I am up about 6% YTD, but still down about 8% YOY.

Let's bet on this....I say it will register hugely in the market if it goes down to the wire.

In December I picked up two smaller oil stocks. In one month EC has jumped 27% and EQNR has dropped -15%. Not sure how long I'm going to stay in them, I have a good net gain.

Th debt ceiling is just political theater, but if a group actually follows through and stops the raise and holds firm - look out.

Is this probable - no. Possible - sure.

Goldman Sachs has estimated that retail investors have churned and sold all of their SaP 500 and Nasdaq 100 stock purchases they made in 2019-21. I am sure they did well. Or not?! This looks like Retail will likely be sitting on the sidelines too much or be late if we get a bull run this year and that’s just the way the Institutions want it to be IMO.

If you made money in 2020-21 and didn’t give it all back and worse more in 2022 pat yourself on the back.

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isn't that always the case

Yes Bmore. Realize what we are up against.

There are some ok places for retail to get comfortable in with good short term yields right now. Well not that good but good based on what they were the last 12 years. Keeping huge amounts in safer yielding places may be a trap if the market makes a shocking run this year.

Just a guess of what “could” happen.

Ok you gurus. When the hell will bonds recover?

How many years will it take to recover -15% in Bonds?

Take a look at the past 10 yr returns. !

That said, Bond inflows into HYG, TLT etc are at a record pace thus far in 2023. Why on the longer end of the curve?

Rates will drop in 2023. Already happening. Bonds should recover some of the losses last year. Then what?

Articles are being written in numbers re the death of the 60/40 model.

After this next rate drop, minuscule as it might be, I’d find another option for the 40%. There are a few good ones

Typical advisors like Vanguard, and many others, had a shit year. One of the worst in history in “real returns” factoring in inflation, worst since the Great Depression

Just hold them until maturity to get your principal back. I think bond funds like BND hold their individual bonds to maturity, so they always recover in time. The NAV will go down as rates go up, but it will come back up as the bonds age and they buy newer bonds at higher rates.

Look at BND past 10 yrs. Good luck.

And just not accurate. BND tries to manage Bond duration.

Bad idea longer term. Figure out options

Vanguard tells their clients, “hey don’t worry over the next 25 yrs it will all work out”.

My daughter is a CFP that worked there for 5 years and now works for me in Austin. Her friends and peers still there? Yeah people don’t want to hear the 25 yr story after 2022

Actually, I’ll let the “gurus” figure it on out from here. GL

What the heck are you doing holding carvana - hoping for a buyout? That stock is a dead man walking...