There’ll be a bounce — just when you sell off the last of your stocks.
If that sounds silly, it’s makes as much sense as the advices I hear and read from the learned gurus on air, in print and online.
I’m not hearing any “Buy Now” in bated breath. The loudest noise I hear is from begging politicians. Yuch.
The best “play” this year was energy stocks. Buffett owns Occidental (OXY) and Chevron (CVX). How have these gone in the last dismal month?
Not well. OXY is blue. CVX is brown.
What about the S&P500 in the last six months?
Not hot either:
So what? We all bought bitcoin as a hedge against this misery and it’s done well. Or has it?
Here’s bitcoin year-to-date. It’s horrible.
It’s dropped by about half this year. Ooops. Glad I warned you against it.
The ONLY money I’m making in this miserable market is my three small shorts on Citigroup, JPMorgan and Chevron. I shouldn’t be making money on C and JPM. C sports a P/E of only 5.6 and JPM 9.8. Heck they’re “value” stocks. Go figure.
I had a nice 80th birthday party on Saturday. No one talked about the market. I didn’t get any compliments on my brilliant stocks picks in this blog. They complimented me on the warm, not-a-cloud -in-the-azure blue-sky weather Susan, Claire and Michael had arranged for the party. They have a direct line to someone up there. And they did a brilliant job on the party.
Advices
+ Watch out for Auto-Pay. Places like DirecTV keep sneaking up their bill. Until one day you notice and scream.
+ Parking lots are lethal. There are no rules. No one looks. Hence oodles of fender-benders.
+ At Stop Signs ,look both ways TWICE before you move.
+ A red light in Manhattan means speed up. It doesn’t mean Stop. That rule is for Colorado, or somewhere.
+ Check. Check. Check. They delivered the wrong rug, They delivered the wrong circuit board. They forgot to bill for the air filters. Check. Check. Check.
+ Use a spell checker. My friend Ron Acher says I should use one on this blog. I do. But he speaks Australian, also called strine. Say it fast.
+ The last step is where everyone falls. Be careful. Have I said that before?
+ Turn on your AC before you need it. It takes time to cool big rooms.
A birthday present for me
If you forgot to send me a bar of gold bullion for my birthday, I’ll accept a contribution to World Central Kitchen. They feed Ukrainian refugees inside and outside the country. They’re the best charity. Click here.
The best article on guns
It’s not negative or positive. It’s a history:
How Did Guns Get So Powerful?
Decade by decade, firearms have become deadlier—and tightened their grip on our collective imagination.
Click here.
A good article on inflation
Here’s What You Need to Know About America’s Super-Hot Inflation
Inflation is a tricky problem, but it has a few clear causes and consequences, and policymakers are working to bring it to heel.
The article ends with these paragraphs:
The question – and big uncertainty – is just how much Fed action will be needed to bring inflation under control. If America gets lucky and supply chain shortages ease, the Fed might be able to let the economy down gently, slowing the job market enough to temper wage growth without causing a recession.
In that optimistic scenario, often called a soft landing, companies will be forced to lower their prices and pare their big profits as supply and demand come into balance and they compete for customers again.
But it is also possible that supply issues will persist, leaving the Fed with a more difficult task: raising rates more drastically to slow demand enough to bring price increases under control.
“The path toward a soft landing is a very narrow one – narrow to the point where we expect a recession as the baseline,” said Matthew Luzzetti, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank. That’s partly because consumer spending shows little sign of cracking so far.
Households still have about $2.3 trillion of excess savings to help them weather higher rates and prices, Mr. Luzzetti’s team has estimated.
“There continues to be deep pockets of pent-up demand,” Anthony G. Capuano, chief executive of the hotel company Marriott International, said during a June 7 event. “Unlike previous economic cycles and economic downturns, here you have this added dimension, which was folks were locked down for 12 to 24 months.”
Click here.
That’s it for today.
Boy, what a way to make a small fortune. Start with a large one.
See you tomorrow, Harry Newton
