Oso planning to go pro
I invest in management teams. Elon is not a team player and he is not a good manager. I would have trouble letting him manage my money.
MUFINY tore himself away from posting NY Post links long enough to allow Brian Moynihan (or maybe Jamie Dimon) to have lunch with him. Turns out the Fed was planning on a hard landing for the economy until Moynihan (or Dimon) lobbied for a soft landing, upon which the Fed said, "Oh, OK, I guess we'll try for a soft landing."After lunch, MUFINY went back to tracking the hourly movements of the Hausers and Aaron Rodgers.
Skat, did you get a sense for what sort of redesigning is happening? More shared space/smaller footprint, or something else?
Reconfiguration of space to facilitate diverse work styles like different conversation/meeting areas with different vibes that are more casual. Gathering places that are less private that aren't the cafeteria to give a sense of camaraderie at work when people are in the office. Shrinking of desk/cube areas since it's rare that over 60% of employees are in the office anymore. Investment in technology to support hybrid remote staff being integrated back into the office. Redesigning traditional tech company spaces to be warmer, more feminine to help make those spaces more comfortable for non-male folks. All fun nice-to-have changes to help with recruiting, help with retention, help draw people from their home offices back into the office sometimes. Nothing terribly profound beyond the willingness to spend on nice-to-haves.
Toyota stock is approaching its 52-week high as the company capped a banner year.From Seeking Alpha:Japanese automaker Toyota Motor (NYSE:TM) Wednesday reported a record 11% jump in global production of 926,573 vehicles, while worldwide sales advanced 14% from a year earlier supported by strong demand in domestic and international markets.Domestic sales for the month climbed 27%, sales in both the United States and China increased by about 17%, while those in Europe climbed 15%, the company said in a statement."Continuing from last month, sales (in North America) were up year-on-year as a result of strong demand for hybrid vehicles such as the RAV4 and Corolla HEVs in addition to semiconductor shortages trending toward recovery," Toyota said.
I keep reading articles about their solid-state batteries that are very far in development and already planned for production. If what I read that Toyota reports about them, they have a game changing EV battery.
Will someone call the White House and tell Uncle Joe to calm down with the economic stuff? These stock market gains are getting ridiculous and now I'm walking around with a wallet fatter than George Costanza's. Really, Joe, save some of the economic success for 2024. Is that too much to ask?
This article came up in my Google news feed Interesting read comparing now and 100 years ago.The Roaring '20s are so back, baby! (Probably. OK, maybe … hopefully?)Matthew Fox Dec 27, 2023, 7:40 AM EThttps://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-economy-decade-outlook-roaring-20s-investors-crash-chances-2023-12?amp
Article is behind a paywall, but I get the idea. I'm hopeful we're gonna have a great decade for investing, but I admit I'm always concerned when the term "this time it's different" is used!
The Roaring '20s are so back, baby! (Probably. OK, maybe … hopefully?)Matthew Fox Dec 27, 2023, 7:40 AM ETThe Roaring '20s could be back as the stock market and economy show signs of strengthening.The winding down of a pandemic, a strong US consumer, and record highs in the stock market are just a few similarities between the 1920s and today.But while the Roaring '20s ended with a stock-market crash and the Great Depression in 1929, experts say this time is different.Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read previewEmail address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.The winding down of a pandemic, a strengthening US consumer, and record highs in the stock market.Today's headlines sound a lot like the articles that were printed in newspapers across the US during the 1920s, when America was experiencing an economic boom driven by consumer spending and technological innovations following the end of World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic."The parallels are quite similar," NorthEnd Private Wealth's chief investment officer, Alex McGrath, told Business Insider.Those similarities have sparked some speculation on Wall Street that America is again heading for a prolonged economic boom that will drive the stock market to new heights, akin to what happened a century ago.So, are the Roaring '20s actually back?The market veteran Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research sure seems to think we're back in the Roaring '20s, and he says it's likely to be driven by a surge in productivity that is unlocked by technological innovations.In a series of research notes over the past few months, Yardeni has argued that adopting artificial intelligence could help boost efficiencies and profits at companies across various industries.Productivity growth is essential because it can help expand employee wage growth without the negative byproduct of increasing inflation. That would be a Goldilocks scenario for the economy, as the Federal Reserve wouldn't be forced to limit growth via interest-rate hikes, as it attempted to do throughout 2022 and the first half of 2023."Artificial intelligence is just one of several technological innovations that are likely to drive the economy during the Roaring 2020s," Yardeni said in a note over the summer.We've seen this scenario before, where technology helps drive efficiencies and sustained economic growth.In the 1920s, a slew of technological innovations helped employees increase their efficiency, companies boost profits, and consumers save time. This was unlocked by the widespread adoption of cars, electricity, agricultural machinery, the telephone, the radio, and even household appliances like the refrigerator.Demand for these new products sparked the creation of today's consumer credit system, with banks and companies directly offering customers loans and pay-as-you-go arrangements to boost product purchases, not unlike the recent rise of buy now, pay later.The advent of consumer credit further fueled the economic boom of the 1920s, which was characterized by 20% annual returns in the stock market, Infrastructure Capital Advisors CEO Jay Hatfield told BI."We do expect that low double-digit stock market returns could persist for the next five to seven years until the next Fed tightening cycle," Hatfield said. "Sustainable stock market returns are primarily driven by earnings growth, not multiple expansion, so we believe that low teens returns are more likely and sustainable."If those gains materialize, the S&P 500 would be trading above 10,000 by 2030, more than double today's levels.That thinking lines up with Carson Group's global macro strategist Sonu Varghese, who said in a note earlier this month that US stocks would be the best investment over the next five years, with a potential upside of 100%. A sustained rebound in productivity growth was the major bullish factor behind Varghese's forecast.Not so fastBut the economy isn't out of the woods just yet, with some strategists on Wall Street still expecting a recession to materialize in 2024. And that would undoubtedly throw a wrench into the Roaring '20s narrative."It is premature to suggest happy days are here again," US Bank Wealth Management's chief equity strategist Terry Sandven told BI. "Higher-for-longer inflation and interest rates, the potential for corporate earnings pressures and already-evaluated valuations temper our cautiously optimistic outlook."Sandven said he expected more sideways "chop" in the stock market next year, reversing this year's trend of strong market gains.McGrath, the NorthEnd CIO, says this year's trend of strong economic growth could reverse in 2024."Economic growth has certainly surprised to the upside in 2023, but that narrative may become more muted as the lingering effects of higher rates take hold in our country and across the globe," he said.A return of the Roaring '20s seems to hinge on what Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will do with interest rates in 2024, combined with how long the consumer and jobs market can remain resilient.The specter of the 1929 Great DepressionAccording to Sam Stovall, the chief investment strategist of CFRA Research, the question to ask isn't whether the Roaring '20s are back. He's instead wondering whether an era of extended prosperity will end with the same thud it did a century ago, when the Great Depression struck in 1929 alongside an 89% plunge in the Dow.The aforementioned tech advancements and the consumer-credit system that fueled so much growth ended up being double-edged swords."We had similar conditions (consumer demand, economic expansion, technological innovations) after World War II. So I guess the real, underlying question is, 'Could the US stock market be setting itself up for a 1929-like crash?'" Stovall told BI.Such a decline would mean complete and utter devastation for investors, consumers, and the global economy.But Stovall isn't worried, and stresses that this time is different. He says assorted checks and balances that didn't previously exist have since been put into place."I would say no, because financial market conditions today are very unlike those of the 1920s," he said. "In fact, we now have regulatory bodies and trading rules in place to avoid such outcomes as we endured in the aftermath of the crash."For example, investors can't buy stocks on 90% margin as they could during the 1920s, Stovall said.So while the similarities between today and 100 years ago are uncanny, the consensus seems to be that whatever age of prosperity awaits will stop short of ending in a cataclysmic, 1929-style disaster.If a true Roaring '20s is upon us, then it's a great time for stock investors and economists to buckle in and enjoy the ride
What's incredible is that all of this economic goodness is coming while the Fed raises rates at an unprecedented pace. It truly is hard to believe that the economy is humming along, the stock market is rising, and unemployment is so low after an increase in rates from essentially 0% to 5.5%. Simply amazing.
Thanks for posting. I'm skeptical of the concept that we're in the Roaring 20s Part II and that Great Depression Part II will occur in 5-6 years, but who really knows? Not the "experts."It's fun to look back a year ago and read what analysts were predicting for 2023. Most expected slight gains, several predicted market declines with a recession to boot. Nobody I could find predicted SPY to gain 25%.
In Jan '23 many seemed to be skeptical of a soft landing and now look at us. To me it seems like the Fed pulled it off with very little recessionary fear remaining. The AI speculation and housing market are the two things I worry about, but also not worried much...what a time.