The Investment Thread

[homer]

14 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

 Nikkei back up 10% today, Asian Markets as a whole bouncing back. Most stop up in after hours.

I think the crash was a bit premature...as long as things don't really pop off in the Middle East....but we'll see. 

People were calling it Black Monday before the markets even opened yesterday, 

[BrewerFan]

20 minutes ago, homer said:

People were calling it Black Monday before the markets even opened yesterday, 

Yeah, there may have been a touch of hyperbole online!  And some of those flames are or were being stoked even more as it's August in an election season(a historically great month for the markets)...

 

[thebruce44]

On 7/15/2024 at 11:20 AM, owbc said:

I’m fairly optimistic about the future, I think we’ll probably figure out many of the problems facing us. We’re likely going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, for instance. But I think there are plenty of humans on this planet so I don’t feel any obligation to replace myself and my spouse with 2 (or more) children and governments need to start planning for that. 

I'm late to this thread, but my 2 cents (worth less than that as I've had a few cocktails tonight):

I think we are in the beginning stages of the singularity, meaning we will see technological, and by extent, societal disruption similar to the industrial revolution, only exponentially dramatic.

The next generation of LLMs, will have capabilities similar to masters degree subject mater experts, still needing guidance/context to solve problems. Once humanoid robots come online (25/26) that could change quickly with the amount of data they will absorb. I'll stop there, so I don't sound nuts, but I think we will see major economic disruption within the next 2-6 years.

I have 2 kids-- a 3 year old and a 5 year old. I try to make peace with what their future will be like and how to prepare them if my experience is completely irrelevant. As a baseline, I met me wife in a bar from friends literally pushing me to muster up the courage to go talk to a total smoke show...that is already an antiquated way to find a partner compared to swiping on your phone. What happens when all the entertainment, personalities, and companionship you need are curated directly to you?

Anyway, I'll hold onto my NVIDIA, INTEL, and CAT and then lets hold onto our butts.

That's the end of my TED talk.

[BrewerFan]

On 8/7/2024 at 12:57 AM, thebruce44 said:

Anyway, I'll hold onto my NVIDIA

Well...hope the Intel is a recent addition, but the NVDA is looking like it'll have another insane earnings. 

~31B 77% margins, 66% gross, and 155 to 160(before the quarterly NVDA dip back to ~140 or so, and then Q4 should be a monster one if Blackwell is on schedule(the new schedule).

[nate82]

2 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

Well...hope the Intel is a recent addition

Intel is junk.  They are going to be in serious trouble with their consumer based CPU's as some have oxidation issues.  There will probably be a class action lawsuit at some point in the near future for this.  Intel's entrance into the consumer GPU market is also flopping bad.

Intel has been losing market share in both the consumer CPU and server side to AMD for awhile now.  Intel used to dominate the server side of things being the main supplier for server CPU's and they still are but they have gone from about 90% to about 75% in the last 8 or so years.  This trend looks to continue with Intel losing more and more market share in Desktop, Server, Mobile and Client. 

 

More information on the oxidation issues for Intel. 

 

[homer]

I bought some Redfin earlier this week. Hoping the home sales pick up once rates drop.

[LouisEly]

Bureau of Labor Statistics revised their non-farm payroll "growth" number for the 12-months ending March of 2024 downward by over 800,000 jobs, a 30% decrease from what was initially reported.  That's over 65K fewer jobs per month.  Oops.

Turns out, like I was saying at the time, the employment picture was not quite as rosy as some were proclaiming it to be.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/21/nonfarm-payroll-growth-revised-down-by-818000-labor-department-says.html

[nate82]

5 hours ago, LouisEly said:

Bureau of Labor Statistics revised their non-farm payroll "growth" number for the 12-months ending March of 2024 downward by over 800,000 jobs, a 30% decrease from what was initially reported.  That's over 65K fewer jobs per month.  Oops.

Turns out, like I was saying at the time, the employment picture was not quite as rosy as some were proclaiming it to be.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/21/nonfarm-payroll-growth-revised-down-by-818000-labor-department-says.html

But we have been talked down to on how this is a great economy and you are just imagining things.

It would be nice if our politicians finally wake up and stop spending more than the taxes coming in.  I doubt they will and it won’t really matter who gets elected next it will be the same ole same ole.

[thebruce44]

On 8/22/2024 at 4:11 AM, BrewerFan said:

Well...hope the Intel is a recent addition, but the NVDA is looking like it'll have another insane earnings. 

~31B 77% margins, 66% gross, and 155 to 160(before the quarterly NVDA dip back to ~140 or so, and then Q4 should be a monster one if Blackwell is on schedule(the new schedule).

I've had Intel and CAT pretty much forever and am afraid to sell at this point.

[BrewerFan]

On 8/22/2024 at 8:54 AM, nate82 said:

Intel is junk.

Yeah, that was kinda the point.

The suspension of their dividend, the restructuring, the mass layoffs. 

So if you're invested in INTC, would you prefer to be invested when they just crashed or holding out on the way down?

[BrewerFan]

37 minutes ago, thebruce44 said:

I've had Intel and CAT pretty much forever and am afraid to sell at this point.

Well...CAT and NVDA have done well, so...hopefully, that's made up for INTC.

The 3 rate cuts likely looking at this year, should certainly help CAT. 

 

[owbc]

On 8/23/2024 at 12:51 PM, nate82 said:

But we have been talked down to on how this is a great economy and you are just imagining things.

It would be nice if our politicians finally wake up and stop spending more than the taxes coming in.  I doubt they will and it won’t really matter who gets elected next it will be the same ole same ole.

Austerity would just cause more unemployment. 

[nate82]

2 hours ago, owbc said:

Austerity would just cause more unemployment. 

For government employees yes but if they have the skills they should be able to find employment.  If we follow Ron Paul’s plan it wouldn’t cause much if any unemployment.  

[owbc]

16 minutes ago, nate82 said:

For government employees yes but if they have the skills they should be able to find employment.  If we follow Ron Paul’s plan it wouldn’t cause much if any unemployment.  

So why are worried about the current employment rates then? People just need to pick up skills and they will be fine. 

[nate82]

1 minute ago, owbc said:

So why are worried about the current employment rates then? People just need to pick up skills and they will be fine. 

The problem with unemployment numbers right now is that some jobs get far more applicants than others.  Tech jobs have far more applicants than there are jobs.  Some trade jobs have a lower number of applicants than jobs available.

It is skill plus an unwillingness to take jobs that are available.  Some of the jobs people skip actually pay more or just about the same that are in high demand.

I am not really worried about the unemployment numbers yet.  They are still within acceptable numbers.  Zero percent unemployment would be great but that is utopian level of thinking and utopias don’t exist.  

[BrewerFan]

On 8/23/2024 at 3:11 PM, thebruce44 said:

I've had Intel and CAT pretty much forever and am afraid to sell at this point.

Man, bad day for us! 

Stock announces a 50B buyback.
They beat on the top line
They beat on the bottom line
They guide better than expected
Blackwell, projected to help them generate 200B in revenue in Fiscal '26

And NVDA down 8-9% after hours. 

When you grow that fast, you can't just beat by 1.5B or ~4%, it has to be much higher. Gonna be a bad day for tech tomorrow(maybe, I never actually know what the hell the market will do from day to day). 

But if there's a huge overreaction and it gets down into the 100-110 range, I'll load up on more. 
Otherwise, AVGO...and then...IDK, more AMZN and IWM. 

[homer]

7 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

Man, bad day for us! 

Stock announces a 50B buyback.
They beat on the top line
They beat on the bottom line
They guide better than expected
Blackwell, projected to help them generate 200B in revenue in Fiscal '26

And NVDA down 8-9% after hours. 

When you grow that fast, you can't just beat by 1.5B or ~4%, it has to be much higher. Gonna be a bad day for tech tomorrow(maybe, I never actually know what the hell the market will do from day to day). 

But if there's a huge overreaction and it gets down into the 100-110 range, I'll load up on more. 
Otherwise, AVGO...and then...IDK, more AMZN and IWM. 

Yeah I don't get the markets sometimes. You beat expectations across the board and people are...disappointed. Maybe expectations were wrong?

 

Also, GDP grew 3% last quarter.

[BrewerFan]

4 hours ago, homer said:

Yeah I don't get the markets sometimes. You beat expectations across the board and people are...disappointed. Maybe expectations were wrong?

 

Also, GDP grew 3% last quarter.

What's the expression? Short-term voting, long-term weighing?

 

After taking a little more time to digest the numbers, I think it's really just about the Blackwell delay and the deceleration of growth. Blackwell is probably going to bring in 40B in Q4(assuming it's in full production).

But the margins dropping a bit and Huang guiding for lower margins in Q4 probably due to Blackwell...I think it's just going to be a lull. 

You grow 1000% in 2 years, I guess you need more than a 3.8% expectations beat.

Still very bullish about them for the next 12 months. It's also hard to be mad at TSM raising prices as I own TSM stock as well. 

 

3% GDP growth! Inflation coming down...pretty strong economy for all the Bears calling for a recession. 

[owbc]

1 hour ago, BrewerFan said:

What's the expression? Short-term voting, long-term weighing?

 

After taking a little more time to digest the numbers, I think it's really just about the Blackwell delay and the deceleration of growth. Blackwell is probably going to bring in 40B in Q4(assuming it's in full production).

But the margins dropping a bit and Huang guiding for lower margins in Q4 probably due to Blackwell...I think it's just going to be a lull. 

You grow 1000% in 2 years, I guess you need more than a 3.8% expectations beat.

Still very bullish about them for the next 12 months. It's also hard to be mad at TSM raising prices as I own TSM stock as well. 

 

3% GDP growth! Inflation coming down...pretty strong economy for all the Bears calling for a recession. 

The S&P 500 is up 18% YTD. If you bought the dip at the start of August you would be up 7-8%. 

[BrewerFan]

14 hours ago, owbc said:

The S&P 500 is up 18% YTD. If you bought the dip at the start of August you would be up 7-8%. 

Yeah, I'm not a trader, but the stocks that I am a bit more knowledgeable about or familiar with, I tried to scoop up on the 5th. I didn't have a lot of dry powder, but NVDA dropping to 92? Bought a few hundred shares of that in the 90s...I was a bit nervous as I'm already way too heavy there, but sold at 128.50 before earnings(which I was positive I'd regret, I just always want to have some liquidity in case something silly happens. I'm looking at SMCI right now. I think they're going to come back strong. META...I was going to sell at 500, but we went right past that.  

Got into AVGO that week. I'd been looking for an entry point there. 

I did take the 5th/6th to put another 7500 into an account I'd started for my Nephew. Well, accounts. 529 and then a custodial where I can invest in a little more growth, but I was a little tentative as back then, we weren't sure how long or bad it was going to be. Just had a bad Jobs report IIRC and the Carry Trade...obviously, with hindsight, we'd all be rich.
 

Right now I'm just trying to plan my next steps. Financial institutions thrive after rate cuts, so I'll look there, but Sept is the worst month, and then you add two very different markets based on the President. 

[Fear The Chorizo]

On 8/29/2024 at 12:31 PM, BrewerFan said:

What's the expression? Short-term voting, long-term weighing?

 

After taking a little more time to digest the numbers, I think it's really just about the Blackwell delay and the deceleration of growth. Blackwell is probably going to bring in 40B in Q4(assuming it's in full production).

But the margins dropping a bit and Huang guiding for lower margins in Q4 probably due to Blackwell...I think it's just going to be a lull. 

You grow 1000% in 2 years, I guess you need more than a 3.8% expectations beat.

Still very bullish about them for the next 12 months. It's also hard to be mad at TSM raising prices as I own TSM stock as well. 

house of cards

3% GDP growth! Inflation coming down...pretty strong economy for all the Bears calling for a recession. 

It's all good, and everything's stable and steadily getting better...

until it's not.  Fundamentals are not great, and cost of living is waaaaay out of whack for too many people.  Market volatility still reminds me alot of this same time period in 2008 - different reasons, but tough to not see history repeating itself in the markets.

 

[BrewerFan]

3 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

It's all good, and everything's stable and steadily getting better...

until it's not.  Fundamentals are not great, and cost of living is waaaaay out of whack for too many people.  Market volatility still reminds me alot of this same time period in 2008 - different reasons, but tough to not see history repeating itself in the markets.

 

How? Housing prices are rising? I need to know HOW else this is like the Housing Crisis or...what I find FAR more ridiculous, is the Dot Com Bubble(which I also hear, albeit not from you)?

Inflation is under 3%. It was higher under Reagan, Ford, Carter, Nixon(when he froze Wages and Prices...which pissed everyone off). 

It feels like if you try hard enough, you can draw comparisons to every economy. 

It's Sept. The Market is going to be awful as it ALMOST always is(especially in an election year). I'm not sure what these harbingers of the next great recession are. 

[BrewerFan]

50 basis points...

Guessing you get two more cuts this year? 

[nate82]

Mortgage rates still haven’t dropped and have actually increased a bit.

I don’t expect mortgage rates to drop below 6%.  At least not until the 10-year treasury drops.  Should be around 6.2 to 6.4 by the end of the year.  Another rate cut wouldn’t even impact this either.  Mortgage rates have actually stayed fairly stagnant since the rate cut it was at a low of 6.08 and has gone back up to 6.3 in October.  Expected rates for mortgages in October are to be around 6.5%.  For Q4 most have predicted a 6.2% rate.  For 2025 most economists are predicting a low of 6 to 6.1%.

Even if there are more rate cuts I don’t see mortgage rates moving all that much and I wouldn’t expect them to be below 6%.  We may see some months at 5.9% but I believe the average should stay at or above 6% for 2025.  The best predictor of mortgage rates is the 10-year treasury notes.  If you see decreases there then expect mortgage rates to decline along with the notes.  There is a bit of a lag but mortgage rates tend to follow the 10-year notes more closely than anything else.

[BrewerFan]

15 hours ago, nate82 said:

Mortgage rates still haven’t dropped and have actually increased a bit.

I don’t expect mortgage rates to drop below 6%.  At least not until the 10-year treasury drops.  Should be around 6.2 to 6.4 by the end of the year.  Another rate cut wouldn’t even impact this either.  Mortgage rates have actually stayed fairly stagnant since the rate cut it was at a low of 6.08 and has gone back up to 6.3 in October.  Expected rates for mortgages in October are to be around 6.5%.  For Q4 most have predicted a 6.2% rate.  For 2025 most economists are predicting a low of 6 to 6.1%.

Even if there are more rate cuts I don’t see mortgage rates moving all that much and I wouldn’t expect them to be below 6%.  We may see some months at 5.9% but I believe the average should stay at or above 6% for 2025.  The best predictor of mortgage rates is the 10-year treasury notes.  If you see decreases there then expect mortgage rates to decline along with the notes.  There is a bit of a lag but mortgage rates tend to follow the 10-year notes more closely than anything else.

Does anyone actually want them back down to 3-3.5%? 

If they get back down there in the near future, it's going to mean that the recession that's been predicted 15 times in the last 10 months will have come to fruition. Great week with the Jobs report revised up, CPI was solid. 

Things seem to be humming along pretty well at the moment. New records regularly, great news from the Tech Sector. If not for a Presidential Election, everyone would probably be in agreement things are looking pretty good!

 

 

I mean, as long as the WHOLE Country doesn't become Detroit, life looks pretty good!