The Steross Market and Investing Thread

Are we heading into a recession?

A mixed bag. More seem to point away, but the ones that I trust the most (unemployment and yield curve) are worrisome. Anyone else have other things they look for? Do you use it in your investment plan?
What you provided is very interesting, but I don’t even attempt to time the market with investing.
IMO, it is better for the average investor to continue money in market and just stay as diversified as possible …with very low fees.
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What you provided is very interesting, but I don’t even attempt to time the market with investing.
IMO, it is better for the average investor to continue money in market and just stay as diversified as possible …with very low fees.
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Who wants to be average? :D

Good point. I should qualify that my wife and I do time the market. She uses 1.88% of our invested assets. I use up to 3.76% of our assets but honestly typically am too busy to even do that so it is much less. The rest is almost all indexed. I track what we are doing versus indexes, and we are beating the S&P slightly. For the time spent probably isn't fruitful compared to working. But, it is more enjoyable than just working more. Plus, having a little bit that I play with reminds me how freaking difficult it is and prevents me from doing something stupid with the majority.

I don't agree with the thesis that the individual investor cannot beat indexing, but I do agree that the majority won't put in the effort to do it correctly, will get too excited when things are good, and too upset when things are bad.

I cut my teeth investing heading into the dot.com bust. Then lived through the GFC. A few years prior to the GFC I had taken a job that significantly increased my income relative to prior. Not purposefully, I had built up a lot of cash. I started a DVA plan coincidentally just prior to the GFC to get the money invested. With DVA you add money to keep your account value increasing. It was VERY difficult putting even more money in as the system appeared to be crashing. But I did and it worked out splendidly.

The problem for me is that my first ten years of investing saw two very large bear markets. Therefore, my tendency was to fear the market and hold cash waiting for the next shoe to drop. Add to that a move overseas and confusion on where to even invest, and I made a tragic mistake of sitting on far too much cash over the next 10 years.

Sorry, blathering on, but the point is that particularly for younger people I fully agree with you that it is best to close your eyes, stick the money in the broad low fee indexes of your choice, and look away for a few decades and enjoy the high probability that you will have significant wealth.
 
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Just had a round of layoffs with my company. They didn't mention tariffs but we're tied at the hip with the auto industry so there's a good chance that at least had some impact on this decision.
 
Anybody that’s investing for retirement would be advised to understand the concept of sequence of return risk and plan to take steps to mitigate the risk according to their situation and comfort level. Not doing so would be a really bad idea,
 
Tommy Tuberville: "We were probably over-bloated with the stock market here for a while. We went up quite a bit."


That 70S Show What GIF
 
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I agree with this. A CEO has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. Elon Musk's actions, whether good for the country or not, are clearly harming Tesla. He should either step down or be removed by the board.
International Auto Show in Vancouver Canada has Uninvited Tesla

The electric carmaker was due to participate in the International Auto Show in Vancouver, Canada from 19-23 March, but it has now been removed with event executives citing safety concerns.


In a statement, executives explained that they had offered Tesla ample opportunity to voluntarily withdraw amid recent protests at their dealerships and Tesla owners rebranding their own cars to avoid vandalism.

But, Eric Nicholl, executive director of the event, said they were forced to take action and remove Tesla from the lineup due to their “primary concern” for the safety of staff and event goers.

Nicholl said Tesla was provided “multiple opportunities to voluntarily withdraw”.

“This decision will ensure all attendees can be solely focused on enjoying the many positive elements of the event,” the statement explained.

Scores of protests have taken place at Tesla dealerships across the US and even further afield, as people express their anger over Musk’s controversial role advising US president Donald Trump.

It also comes as Trump infuriated Canadians by suggesting he wanted the country to become America’s 51st state.

Pat McCutcheon, an attendee at a Tesla protest in Surrey, British Columbia, said he thinks the event organisers made the correct decision.

“The last thing you want (for) one of your organisations is for there to be some vandalism or some physical confrontation. So, I think they made the right decision,” he told AP.


McCutcheon added: “Elon Musk is using his extraordinary wealth to basically corrupt democracy and do what he wants to do, and citizens, both in the United States, Canada, globally, need to push back on this.”

Amid the ongoing controversy, Trump’s Tesla “infomercial”, filmed outside the White House, was slammed as “dystopian corruption”. Trump also claimed he was going to buy a brand new Tesla because people are “illegally and collusively” boycotting Tesla.
 

A Huge Amount of Money ($1.4 BILLION) Is Missing From Tesla​

Tesla is in deep trouble. The embattled EV maker has seen sales plummet worldwide in large part due to its CEO Elon Musk's highly polarizing behavior.

Tesla's share value has also dropped precipitously, down over 37 percent year to date, wiping out all gains made since Musk's key ally Donald Trump was elected last year.


Even the company's financials are now sprouting some glaring questions. As the Financial Times reports, a whopping $1.4 billion appears to have vanished in thin air. The enormous hole arises when examining the carmaker's capital expenditures and how those compare to the reported rise of the value of its assets.

According to Tesla's cashflow statements, the firm spent $6.3 billion on "purchases of property and equipment excluding finance leases, net of sales" in the second half of 2024. However, its balance sheet claims the gross value of property, plant, and equipment rose by only $4.9 billion — leaving an eyebrow-raising $1.4 billion discrepancy.

Link
 

Accenture is DOGE's first corporate casualty as shares dive on warning that contracts will be cut​


Down 8% after they report revenue is down after DOGE contract cuts

Link

 

Heads up if your invested into Defense contractors

Hegseth Cancels Defense Contracts. IT Government Contractors Sell Off​

Shares in government contractors Booz Allen Hamilton, Gartner, CACI International and Science Applications International tumbled on Thursday after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon was canceling $580 million in contracts, including deals with Gartner and consultancy McKinsey. While Booz Allen stock fell, shares in rival Palantir Technologies rose.
 

Heads up if your invested into Defense contractors

Hegseth Cancels Defense Contracts. IT Government Contractors Sell Off​

Shares in government contractors Booz Allen Hamilton, Gartner, CACI International and Science Applications International tumbled on Thursday after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon was canceling $580 million in contracts, including deals with Gartner and consultancy McKinsey. While Booz Allen stock fell, shares in rival Palantir Technologies rose.
So my experience is that these firms do a lot of the daily work that is beyond what the gov civilian workforce can manage. Not sure how this is going to go with the layoffs and hiring freeze on the gov civilian side.

Hopefully, they are looking at the workload and only cutting contracts where they can absorb the extra work. Maybe they are also going to find a way to cut some daily workload without degrading service to acquisition, procurement, and fleet support.

I'll be watching this one.
 
A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that households expect 30-year mortgage rates to increase to a median of 7 percent a year from now.

 
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