All this false hope stock market is laughable.
Vaccine, market is up on talks and promise of vaccine? Trials or not, nothing is set in a vaccine till the sample is proven a certain % effective. Still a year from that.
So plenty of time for it to tank again on bad news. But hey, im up today!

Alan Greenspan used to go to great pains to speak in a manner that would not rattle or influence the markets. Even Helicopter Ben was not this brazen. But Powell is stepping right out there.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/17/economy/fed-powell-us-economy-60-minutes/index.html

" Even so, you don't want to bet against America's economy, said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on CBS' News '60 Minutes' Sunday night."

" It may well be that the Fed has to do more. It may be that Congress has to do more," Powell said during the interview. "And the reason we've got to do more is to avoid longer run damage to the economy."

Sure is.

Wow a weeks worth of losses wiped away at the opening bell this morning. I’m thinking about setting up a lab in my garage and then announcing that I am working on something that might be a vaccine, but in the fine print I will mention that it might just be a formula for a new micro beer.. then I will watch the money pour in!

Make sure to also mention nanoscale crypto currency algorithms somewhere in there.

The govt. has turned the entire market into Tesla stock...........It’s truly laughable. Fundamentals don’t matter, this is just a momentum trade.

Yup. Don’t believe the hype. Didn’t we just see this movie two weeks ago?

Who’s brave enough to short this? I’m just going to stay short (under-invested).

If I ever had any doubt that the market is rigged, I doubt no more.

P/E ratios don't count

None of the numbers count.

Right now the only number that counts is 2020.

Home Depot has recovered ALL of it losses and about to set a new high.

Screen Shot 2020-05-18 at 8.45.23 PM (resized).png

Have you driven by a Home Depot lately? Tuesday at 11AM looks like a Saturday morning in the parking lot these days. They aren’t hurting.

There were cracks in the roaring economy before the pandemic and then the pandemic hit. I could never picture in my head when my algebra teacher taught that a negative times a negative equals a positive. Now I get it.

In all seriousness, I totally agree. It's not about whining that you missed something. It truly isn't. It's just that all the research in the world means nothing, all of your efforts at finding price discovery means nothing (you know, all those tenets of free-market capitalism), because just like that an un-Godly sum of Fed cash infusion and federal government cash infusion upsets the whole thing. And then to add insult to injury, you hear about school funding taking a hit next year. So, cuts for schools, hand outs for billionaires. Lovely.

Biggest percent movers today were:

Spirit airlines up 24%
Avis up 24%
Trip advisor up 21%
Eldorado resorts up 20%
Moderna up 20%
Hertz up 19%
Six Flags up 19%
Norwegian Cruises up 18%

The Market is so far removed from reality panic that normally is reserved for downturns is now the norm among Investors for the up.
Claims they don't understand it are hollow. Massive unemployment will level out to moderate permanent unemployment, a gain.
Fire sales on desirable property becoming the norm, snapped up with borrowed cash, another gain.
A lot of cash on the sidelines, stubborn lot burned in 2008 with a long memory. The next phase of re-building the pyramid won't work without joe six-packs money and they aren't budging.
Negative interest rates publicly floated if implemented will force them back into equities.

I grabbed 100 shares of BA at $119.75 on Friday in my retirement account, it closed at 135.44 today

I did not follow the market for a long time after about 2012. Correct me if I am wrong, but all of this time as the market ramped up, I don't think Joe Six Pack ever got back in after 2008. So, there were no fish for the big boys to sell to.

I'll leave Wall Street and there govt. alone to fight this one out.

The million dollar questions: What happens if no vaccine comes along? Will The Fed still have money burning a hole in its pocket?

What happens if there is a changing of the guard in November?
=============================================

Is the new playbook going to be a (1) money pump on Friday? Followed by (2) weekend interviews with (3) Monday headlines talking about the interviews that took place on the weekend?

I wonder how many Wall Street insiders were front running this action?

Why would HD be worse off now than they were 4 or 5 months ago? People stuck at home are spending a fortune upgrading their homes and fixing up their yards and landscaping. Home Depot's costs are up quite a bit from dealing with the pandemic, but their sales have soared.

I'd maybe argue that a year from now will be worse. Once everybody has finished remodeling, they won't need to do it again anytime soon.

I don't even know where I stand now. I have some longs. I have some shorts. I've sold both puts and calls. I think I'd do best if the market just drifted in this range or maybe 5% or so lower for a few months. My brokerage account is still overweight long. It has some positions I'd like to get out of soon that are just 5-10% below my costs. I sold out of some of my dividend payers like MMM, CVS, and KHC. Sold KHC at a small loss on Thursday after holding it for about 15 months only to watch it rise 10% in 3 days since. Lots of cash being freed up for higher quality investments.

Three of my IRAs are now up for the year and 100% cash. In all of those, I've sold puts for the next few months laddered down 5-20%. That will force me to buy back in gradually at lower levels, or collect premiums if the market doesn't drop.

Doesn’t seem sustainable. How many of you all are planning on taking vacations this summer? Getting on planes, renting cars and staying in hotels? Answer the question this way: you have to book and pay now, and refund potential is unclear.

Exactly.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/airlines-are-on-the-brink-of-bankruptcy-what-happens-to-your-voucher-travel-miles-and-airline-credit-card-if-they-go-belly-up-2020-05-13

My question with HD is would the stock have recovered this much if there was no stimulus package? HD's sales were good but earnings took a hit because of Covid-19 expenses.

But what really gets me is that HD has a P/E ratio of 23. And then I start looking around and all I see is P/E ratio expansion. Two of the stocks I looked at had no P/E at all. Those two were Boeing and Ford. All the others are sporting P/E ratios in the mid teens.

Look at these charts.

Home Depot: Is this kind of action sustainable? My thoughts are only if interest rates remain at zero. Definitely, I missed the boat.

Screen Shot 2020-05-19 at 8.50.53 AM (resized).png

Autozone. I missed the boat here, as well.

Screen Shot 2020-05-19 at 8.54.17 AM (resized).png

But then you have something like Cisco. One of yesterday's high flyers.

Screen Shot 2020-05-19 at 8.55.17 AM (resized).png

I look at these charts and wonder how long can this continue? I guess the answer is that it will last as long as interest rates are at zero.

Sold my Carlyle Group for a quick 9% gain today. I am liking what I am seeing with my bets on Las Vegas Sands, Century Casinos, and Raytheon Technologies. My other trades (airlines/Boeing) have recovered a good portion of the losses where I was a little early on those, but other bets (Starbucks, McDonalds, and Costco) are looking like they will turn out well as well Anybody else liking their trades?

I missed buying in before Monday but bought some beaten down stocks yesterday and this morning - DIS, EPD, JPM and ESNT. Will add some more over time. I am looking for 20% gains on these for 2021. I feel you need to be in early on these before any good news comes along.

Looking at numbers and percentages even if you see the beaten down stocks going up don’t feel you missed the boat with how low they are. Like I would be more comfortable buying EPD after a 5% increase then Apple at 5% increase at this point. During dips I feel these stocks are closer to their floors now then others and won’t go down as much.

I am 48 and could care less about dividends, but some of these beaten down stocks can pay a good dividend also. Yay!

Now some of these stocks could go all to shit and go bankrupt and that is the downside. Risk/reward. I am not “all in” on any of these but adding them as a speculative 12-18 month picks to supplement my long term keeper backbones in tech like Apple, NVDA, OKTA, ETF’s like VGT, IGV and my personal “not SaP 500 index” - QQQ.

Definitely a pickers market out there now over a “diversified” Index 500 market. Don’t look at how the DOW did each day to decide how the whole market did. I have good days when the Dow is down a bit.

Just my rambling thoughts. Good luck out there

I hope you do well.

I’ve been a heavy buyer since March. At that time, there was a real opportunity to create generational wealth. I don’t think we’ll see those types of deals again, but I wouldn’t be upset if we did.

I would not call DIS beaten down at this point

As the stock market barrels on, people's rents are coming due.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/success/rent-housing-crisis-coronavirus-covid-19/index.html

"The couple have about 30 tenants, and "half of them are either laid off or furloughed or in some state of employment limbo," he said. "How long can it last? I have no idea what to expect."


"If rental income isn't coming in for landlords, Schuetz explained, they can't pay their mortgages. But it's not just that. They also won't be able to afford the property taxes that fund local governments, including things like public health programs."

The coronavirus has "just drawn attention to problems that existed already," Schuetz said. "But hopefully this will also make middle-income voters a little more conscious that we all suffer when we have people who are unhoused or unstably housed."

I have a friend that is a comptroller for a company that owns a lot of apt. complexes. I have heard all the horror stories. Eviction was difficult before, now it's a nightmare.

Sounds like the mortgage companies will be taking a lot of homes and rental properties from the owners eventually. We all know the government taxation departments are not going to miss out on their shares. HOAs, when applicable, will also get their shares.

This is fun to watch! Come on Nasdaq 10,000!.. As soon as people realize that they bought a bogus narrative about how everything is priced in and we will be back to normal in 60 days. All the while the big guys are dumping their equities on Joe public at inflated prices and will have fully shorted the market by the time some “news” comes out that dumps the market again

When this thing drops, it is going to spectacular!

I like this part the best:

" Escudero is part of a group of housing activists called The Reclaimers, who this spring identified roughly 200 empty houses that had been purchased by the California government for a highway project that had been recently canceled. The Reclaimers took over 13 homes — without a lease and without permission from the state — giving each one to a family in need of a place where they could live and safely social distance."

" Caltrans, the California agency that owns the homes, sent a letter to The Reclaimers that was seen by CNN that said it "does not consent" to the group's occupancy of the properties and has asked them to leave. But Caltrans added it, along with local lawmakers, is willing to help them find a place to live."

Well, actually, this part: " But Caltrans added it, along with local lawmakers, is willing to help them find a place to live."

There is no way these poor people would be getting an offer for help had they had not been squatting. Sometimes it takes balls and poking people in the eye to get anything.

I don't agree with squatting and I respect property rights, however, I have never had to live with all of my belongings in a shopping cart, so in desperation, I'm not sure what I would do.
===========================

IMO, the American Dream needs to be attainable for most of the people. As the middle class continues to erode and the have-nones continue to increase, I think we could see a socialist uprising in this country.

I am 68 years old. For The Office of the President, we are watching a gerontocracy in action. In 2024, I think a new, younger guard will be coming in, much younger, with younger ideas. Many of the old timers who have not died off will probably wish they were already dead.

Adverse possession is a real phenomenon. It’s taught in every 1L Property Law class to this day.

Don’t fight the Fed! Until the Fed is totally fucked. And that’s getting close.

But by that time the folks who made a boatload over the last 90 days will be long gone.

RIP Social Security when this is all over. Will they move the retirement date to 65? 70? 75?

There are no sports to gamble on, so people are gambling on the markets.

Speaking of grambling. The Caesars Entertainment Group unvailed some guidelines for there casino's trying to get approval from state.
It just looks horribly no more fun anymore. The one that bothers me the most is the 21 tables. It will now be only 3 players and a dealer. That means the odds of winning just went down. Statistically 6 player games pay out more. With 3, vegas just made 30% more at the Black Jack Tables.
Im out, ill go back to vegas in 5 years hopefully.

https://www.nasi.org/learn/socialsecurity/retirement-age

" Social Security's full-benefit retirement age is increasing gradually because of legislation passed by Congress in 1983. Traditionally, the full benefit age was 65, and early retirement benefits were first available at age 62, with a permanent reduction to 80 percent of the full benefit amount. Currently, the full benefit age is 66 years and 2 months for people born in 1955, and it will gradually rise to 67 for those born in 1960 or later. Early retirement benefits will continue to be available at age 62, but they will be reduced more. When the full-benefit age reaches 67, benefits taken at age 62 will be reduced to 70 percent of the full benefit and benefits first taken at age 65 will be reduced to 86.7 percent of the full benefit.

" There is a financial bonus for delayed retirement. An individual reaching the full-benefit age in 2017 (66 years and 2 months old) receives a monthly benefit that is 8 percent higher for each year he or she delays collecting benefits until the latest claiming age of 70, at which point benefits are 132% of what they would have been at the normal retirement age. (When the full benefit age reaches 67, benefits claimed at age 70 will be 24 percent higher because of that delay.) The maximum retirement benefit in 2017 for someone who waits until age 70 to collect benefits is $3,538 a month.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With the above being said, there are more than a few who would like for social security to disappear. I would imagine these are the same types who will ship your job overseas in a heartbeat.

What are your guys' thoughts on the longevity of Facebook? (5-10 years)

It makes sense to raise the SS retirement age by a few years to account for people living longer than they did 40-50-60 years ago. I just hope SS doesn’t change dramatically before I start taking my benefits at 70 (in 14 years).

U.S. life expectancy has been in decline that last few years. If the federal government and federal reserve can pull trillions out of its ass in the course of a couple of weeks to save Richie Rich, surely there should be enough money for SS and medicare.

Depends on the kind of job you have. If you have a sit-down job where you are keyboarding all day long, you can go a long time--if your mind holds up. But there are some back breaking jobs out there that make it a struggle to make it to 60 years old. Assembly line work can be a man eater; I speak from experience.

Full SS retirement is now 67. How many more years do you think it should be raised when you say "a few years" ?

( I am cognizant that the SS program is slated to run out of money at sometime in the future. And that SS is almost like a Ponzi scheme).

Just because we live longer does not imply that the body is still in working function when 67 rolls around. Besides, the old timers need to step aside and make room for the young pups starting out. And a lot of companies don't want you around that long anyway; If you have the misfortune of having to find a job when you are over 50, I can assure that age discrimination is alive and well. At age 60, you will be lucky if you can buy a job.

Mandatory retirement for an airline pilot is 65.

Air traffic controllers are mandatory retirement at age 56.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Retirement ages from around the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_age

Yeah, the gorilla in the room that no one has yet acknowledged is that we are shedding an inordinate number of SS recipients off the system with this virus. That’s going to provide some depletion relief in a really unfortunate way. It’ll be interesting to see what the net effect of this is in another year. The number of recipients will be lessened (possibly significantly) and life expectancy is going to also take a hit.

I brought up Century Casinos a few weeks ago. Up 18.7% today. Highly speculative stock with operations in the US, Canada, and Poland. Missed earnings but revenues are growing and they have bought a few smaller properties. Just signed a deal with Bet365 and bringing in sports betting to Colorado.

We could see some nursing homes close due to lack of patients in the intermediate term.

Heard cruise bookings are through the roof, how are they trending of late?

Hell, from zero to one would be a 100% increase. Or would it be an infinite increase? I can't remember.

That’s a fact. It’s going to be a wildly different landscape in that arena for some time, it seems.

I thought about that a while back. Then I realized that there may be a lot of people who are around the age of 62 who may have lost their jobs because of the virus/shutdowns and are now thinking of starting SS early rather than later as they had planned. That might off set the people collecting SS who happen to pass away. Either way, they are going to have to do something in the next 15 years or so. I have always told people they should save like they are not getting SS and if they get SS someday, then it is bonus money to spend or give away.

How many Americans are 70 or over?

Somewhere between 35 and 40 million.

According to Census Bureau American Community Survey projections in 2018, 65 and over is roughly 52.3 M. This is always a fun site to go look at data.

https://data.census.gov/cedsci/?q=population%2070%20and%20older