Investing

[Screwball]

Gambling has been a problem for a long time. It's just easier now. There are more ways to do it as well. Visit a local animal club over the last 50 years and you will see tons of people pissing away money they shouldn't. Guy gets paid on Friday afternoon. Gets home Friday night and has lost it all in 4 hours. Happened 50 years ago and still happens today.

[Screwball]

Speaking of gambling; those 100 year bonds.

Why Alphabet’s 100-year sterling bond is raising new fears over debt-fuelled AI arms race - Bubblevision

[Tiger337]

12 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Gambling has been a problem for a long time. It's just easier now. There are more ways to do it as well. Visit a local animal club over the last 50 years and you will see tons of people pissing away money they shouldn't. Guy gets paid on Friday afternoon. Gets home Friday night and has lost it all in 4 hours. Happened 50 years ago and still happens today.

I agree.  It's always been a problem, but it's more widespread because it's so easy and acceptable now.  It is now widely promoted as a fun, entertaining activity and it's going to get worse.  

[romad1]

I wish I had come up with that. 

[Screwball]

And let's not forget the lottery. Example. I live in a small town. We have a Moose, Eagles, VFW, American Legion, Amvets, Elks, and probably another I can't remember. In 2019 alone, and I know this because I saw the numbers; around 600 members between the men and women and they spent $493,000 on the lottery alone in one single club. That's a drop in the bucket to the state operated gambling machines and ez-pull tickets they call them. Huge money. 

[Tigeraholic1]

 

Rate-cut expectations have surged (dovishly) higher this week (along with tumbling Treasury yields) amid a mixed macro picture (Labor market 'good', Retail sales bad, Housing ugly).

Today could change all that as CPI for January prints with risk skewed to the upside. January brings annual resets and they tend to surprise on the high side.

Despite the 'hot' whisper numbers (and 4 previous Januarys in a row of upside surprises), headline consumer price inflation came in cooler than expected in January (+0.2% MoM vs +0.3% expected). That pulled the headline CPI down dramatically from +2.7% to +2.4% - near the lowest in 4 years..

Edited 14 hours ago by Tigeraholic1

[Hongbit]

Santa Claus is more believable than today’s fake CPI report.

[Screwball]

1 hour ago, Hongbit said:

Santa Claus is more believable than today’s fake CPI report.

Consumer Price Index News Release - from the BLS

Above is the link to the actual report. Can you tell us what part is not believable?

If not, you are just making **** up, and no better than the guy you hate. That's why we tried to keep all the political horse**** out of here. To no avail, I admit. 

[Tigeraholic1]

24 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Consumer Price Index News Release - from the BLS

Above is the link to the actual report. Can you tell us what part is not believable?

If not, you are just making **** up, and no better than the guy you hate. That's why we tried to keep all the political horse**** out of here. To no avail, I admit. 

Per Unhungbit....

 The problem with that is you can’t get your rocks off feeding your bizarre fetish of trolling the right on a sports message board.  

[Hongbit]

51 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Consumer Price Index News Release - from the BLS

Above is the link to the actual report. Can you tell us what part is not believable?

If not, you are just making **** up, and no better than the guy you hate. That's why we tried to keep all the political horse**** out of here. To no avail, I admit. 

Maybe all those years of hitting the bong are finally catching up to you.

I’ve been posting on here years about my feelings on these reports and the BLS.    Go use the search function if you are so bothered by my post.  

[Screwball]

23 minutes ago, Hongbit said:

Maybe all those years of hitting the bong are finally catching up to you.

I’ve been posting on here years about my feelings on these reports and the BLS.    Go use the search function if you are so bothered by my post.  

I don't see any proof of what you are talking about. Care to give some or just bitch and insult people?

About my bong business; which is none of yours, so you can kindly GFY.

[Hongbit]

Just relax and let the weed do its job.  You are going to scare the Doritos with all this anger.   More zen, less profanity.  

[Tigeraholic1]

1 hour ago, Screwball said:

I don't see any proof of what you are talking about. Care to give some or just bitch and insult people?

About my bong business; which is none of yours, so you can kindly GFY.

He is just trolling, nothing to see here. Probably elbows deep into a can of Hormel Chili.

[CMRivdogs]

8 hours ago, Screwball said:

And let's not forget the lottery. Example. I live in a small town. We have a Moose, Eagles, VFW, American Legion, Amvets, Elks, and probably another I can't remember. In 2019 alone, and I know this because I saw the numbers; around 600 members between the men and women and they spent $493,000 on the lottery alone in one single club. That's a drop in the bucket to the state operated gambling machines and ez-pull tickets they call them. Huge money. 

And that probably doesn't count BINGO. 

[Tiger337]

ZeroHedge is a conservative darling but he's just the messenger.  I don't think these numbers are fake.  They will be adjusted later, but that's not the same as being fake.  

[Screwball]

21 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

And that probably doesn't count BINGO. 

Good point.

[Screwball]

17 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

ZeroHedge is a conservative darling but he's just the messenger.  I don't think these numbers are fake.  They will be adjusted later, but that's not the same as being fake.  

I don't know how ZeroHedge got into this. No matter I guess.

Let me go about it this way.

The CPI is our inflation indicator, as we all know. It has been reported since like forever. And since forever everyone who pays attention knows it's bull****. It is not an accurate gauge of the real economy and what people like us feel each and every day.

When Del started this thread probably 10+ years and three boards ago we used to have incredible conversations on why exactly these reports are bull****. That's what good investors are suppose to do - dig into the numbers (like short sellers - the true hero's of our markets (probably all now broke)) - to sniff out, and know where, the bull**** is.

After all, we are only trying to protect and grow our hard earned money. Knowing where the bull**** is a good thing to know, IMO.

Wall Street loves those who don't do their homework.

Edited 6 hours ago by Screwball

[Screwball]

4 hours ago, Hongbit said:

Just relax and let the weed do its job.  You are going to scare the Doritos with all this anger.   More zen, less profanity.  

You might get a kick out of this, or maybe not. I always loved your handle and wanted to burn one with you. 'ear.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Screwball said:

The CPI is our inflation indicator, as we all know.

It's such a good number the even the Federal Reserve doesn't use it. 

I think in general BLS is probably as good or better than the stat group anywhere in the world. I think the bigger problem is that we are willfully ignorant about paying attention to what the numbers do and don't mean. No greater example than the near total uncoupling of GDP and the economic health of an average American family. As long as we keep believing in the myths about certain numbers instead of paying attention  better numbers that actually tell you something useful, we'll keep getting bad results for ordinary people. The old saw is that you get what you measure. We measure GDP so we keep getting GDP, even as the real socio-ecomomic health of the country goes down the tubes.

The numbers may not be corrupt, but how we use them is getting to be.

Edited 4 hours ago by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

The worst numbers for measuring economic health are the probably market indexes.  They are measuring something in which the majority of American are unable to participate.  Why would someone who has no money to invest care about the S&P 500?    

[Screwball]

It doesn't matter if it is the CPI, PPI, job numbers whatever it is, all the economic the reports are really well done IMO. The problem is - is - how they are presented. As someone said above - the headline number. That's what Bubblevision and the nightly news tells us. But that's not the whole story.

When you dig into the reports, and you can even download an excel files I think, you can see trends of how the numbers are changing between different sectors and industries over time. Combine this with the other reports and you get a much better idea of what is going on. Don't believe Jim Cramer.

For example; lets say the data tells us housing might be down for a few years. We check our 401k and see what we have for mutual funds. Find the fund, see what it holds, and how it is weighed. Maybe 8 to 12 assets make up the fund, and is 40 percent heavy in housing. We may want to find something else. Given what we can do with our account of course.

[gehringer_2]

24 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

The worst numbers for measuring economic health are the probably market indexes.  They are measuring something in which the majority of American are unable to participate.  Why would someone who has no money to invest care about the S&P 500?    

interesting note on the indexes. In the same way it has become the case that GDP is measuring gains in too narrow a segment of the economy to be meaningful for the general population, the S&P 500 isn't even a decent indicator of the overall health of American business because the market cap of the Mag7 tech companies have exploded to such huge numbers that that is all you see in what the index's value, the other 493 stocks hardly matter. My marker for this is that I was holding an S&P index fund and got a message from the fund manager last month that they had to suspend the normal fund by-law about how large a percentage of the index could be concentrated in a small number of stocks because it had come into conflict with the rule that the fund had to hold the whole 500 in proportion to market cap. 

That's about when I decided to get out.

[Tiger337]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

interesting note on the indexes. In the same way it has become the case that GDP is measuring gains in too narrow a segment of the economy to be meaningful for the general population, the S&P 500 isn't even a decent indicator of the overall health of American business because the market cap of the Mag7 tech companies have exploded to such huge numbers that that is all you see in what the index's value, the other 493 stocks hardly matter. My marker for this is that I was holding an S&P index fund and got a message from the fund manager last month that they had to suspend the normal fund by-law about how large a percentage of the index could be concentrated in a small number of stocks because it had come into conflict with the rule that the fund had to hold the whole 500 in proportion to market cap. 

That's about when I decided to get out.

I am putting more and more money into a CD ladder as I age.  I am still in S&P 500, but also have a global fund which has done significantly better than S&P since the beginning of last year.  I am not sure what to do with maturing CDs as interest rates drop.  So far, they are still decent (close to 4% in January).  

[Deleterious]

There are a few equal weight S&P 500 funds if that is more your style.

[gehringer_2]

51 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

There are a few equal weight S&P 500 funds if that is more your style.

I've been fairly aggressive for the last several years, but both because I'm uncomfortable with valuations and because I'm now older, I'm just pulling back in general, esp on anything related to the mega caps. I don't really like doing investment homework all that much. I'll spend a lot of time on it, buy some things, then let things ride quite a while between reviews. I think now is a good time to do some re-positioning.