So much for that economic forecast

[Lighthouse 84]

How can anyone say, with a straight face, that things are going well with the economy? 

IBTL.

[Spotcheck Billy]

And police blotter.

From reading his posts, I think he already suffers flashbacks.

[4everwarriors]

Yeah, y'all should bee as fooked up as me. Dat's ok. Ewe bea ewe, hey?

[Uncle Rico]

My stock portfolio is robust and that’s the real economy

[wadesworld]

4Never strikes me as a First Watch frequenter.  Guess it probably depends on how many bad drivers are out in the Quon.

How can anyone say, with a straight face, that things are going well with the economy? 

IBTL.

I don't think people are saying that things are great with the economy.  I do think given world events over the past 2 years, the economy is much better than it could be and much better than most other places.

[tower912]

Still recovering from a pandemic and going through a war.  The economy isn't great.   In the original COVID economy thread two years ago, hard time ahead was pretty much universally predicted and accepted.  And that was without a war.

Economies hate disruptions.

[Goose]

I was in NYC on Monday and Tuesday, and it was extremely quiet, from the airport, people on the street and the train to CT. The only thing that caught my eye was there were a lot more regular cars in the city than I have ever seen. My friend, who is great for the economy and eats out 4-5 times a week, told me that many restaurants are closing 1-2 hours earlier than pre pandemic. I have no idea how NYC is faring overall, but it did not appear to be bustling in trade.

Truth be told, in regard to the economy at the moment I do not care who the President is, I think we are in a stalled state of affairs and I do not like what I see down the road. There is blame to be passed to every President since 9/11 and that is not going to fix anything. I said early last summer that inflation had not yet started in the USA at that time in a real way and it was going to get worse. I am doubling down and saying inflation is going to get a lot worse and last longer than the Fed has been advising.

I can't speak for anyone else, but my wife and I have gone on self imposed lockdown due to the state of the economy. Since the MU season ended we have gone out to eat twice and we normally go out 2-3 times a week. IMO, dining out has lost having a perception of value to me over the past six months. An example, I love the wings at Elsa's and a platter of wings is now $50, and I will take a hard pass on the wings.

[Lighthouse 84]

My stock portfolio is robust and that’s the real economy

Interesting.  Current numbers from 2 minutes ago:

 In the last year, mine's up 6.69%.  But YTD it's down 9.07%

The Dow is down .25% in the last year and down 6.62% YTD.
Nasdaq is down 8.35% in the last year and down 17.70% YTD.
S&P is up 2.57% in the last year and down 10.05% YTD.

Not sure what you're invested in but the numbers don't seem to be trending in the right direction. Unless of course, this is one of your "opposite day" posts.

[4everwarriors]

There would never have been a war if our enemies didn't perceive us as being so weak militarily. The needle moved into  negative territory with the Buffoon's clusterfook handling of Afghanistan, hey?

[Uncle Rico]

There would never have been a war if our enemies didn't perceive us as being so weak militarily. The needle moved into  negative territory with the Buffoon's clusterfook handling of Afghanistan, hey?

😂😂

[Uncle Rico]

Interesting.  Current numbers from 2 minutes ago:

 In the last year, mine's up 6.69%.  But YTD it's down 9.07%

The Dow is down .25% in the last year and down 6.62% YTD.
Nasdaq is down 8.35% in the last year and down 17.70% YTD.
S&P is up 2.57% in the last year and down 10.05% YTD.

Not sure what you're invested in but the numbers don't seem to be trending in the right direction. Unless of course, this is one of your "opposite day" posts.

Playing the stock market is pretty easy. 

[Sir Lawrence]

I can't speak for anyone else, but my wife and I have gone on self imposed lockdown due to the state of the economy. Since the MU season ended we have gone out to eat twice and we normally go out 2-3 times a week. IMO, dining out has lost having a perception of value to me over the past six months. An example, I love the wings at Elsa's and a platter of wings is now $50, and I will take a hard pass on the wings.

Goose, get thy arse over to Doc's.  Wings are 5 for $10, 10 for $19, and 20 for $37. 

[MU82]

Interesting.  Current numbers from 2 minutes ago:

 In the last year, mine's up 6.69%.  But YTD it's down 9.07%

The Dow is down .25% in the last year and down 6.62% YTD.
Nasdaq is down 8.35% in the last year and down 17.70% YTD.
S&P is up 2.57% in the last year and down 10.05% YTD.

Not sure what you're invested in but the numbers don't seem to be trending in the right direction. Unless of course, this is one of your "opposite day" posts.

As the market ran up, up and away through the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, the indexes grew top-heavy with cyclical tech giants. For example, the top 10 holdings of the extremely popular Nasdaq-tracking QQQ fund (AAPL, MSFT, AMZN, TSLA, GOOG, GOOGL, NVDA, FB, COST, AVGO) make up 53% of the ETF.

Those kinds of stocks became quite overvalued, so when there was a cyclical rotation to more value-oriented stocks, they fell the hardest. Those with more of a value/defensive investing style have significantly outperformed over the last year. For instance, total return for PG, AEP and JNJ is 24%, 18% and 14%, respectively, over the last year, compared to 1% for SPY.

So while I don't know if Rico was pullin' our chains or not (I suspect yes), it is highly possible that his portfolio is "robust" even though the indexes have given back some gains.

As for the overall economy, I'll let others push their political agendas there. I'm too busy listening to recordings of Kevin McCarthy's post-1/6/21 conversations with other lawmakers about how he was going to ask Trump to resign ("I've had it with this guy!") after the then-president fomented a violent coup attempt against his own government. It's now interesting (but hardly surprising) to see how McCarthy and the other cowardly sheeple have capitulated to their emperor in a purely political calculus.

They don't care about the economy. For that matter, they don't care about democracy, either. It's on to the 2022 midterms!

[jesmu84]

Please, one question...

How's that Joe Biden workin' out for ya, hey?

I'm actually doing okay under Biden. My house value has never been higher.

I could be doing a bit better, but Trump's 2017 tax plan raised my taxes. That's about the only negative in the last few years.

[Goose]

Sir

You might have talked me into it. Karl at Elsa's is going to be waiting a long time to get $50 for wings from me and Doc's might be a good option. Plus, I like their great bourbon selection.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

There would never have been a war if our enemies didn't perceive us as being so weak militarily. The needle moved into  negative territory with the Buffoon's clusterfook handling of Afghanistan, hey?

Yes, the U.S. military is so weak because we refuse to spend anything on our defense. That's why Putin attacked the U.S. a NATO country, Ukraine.



It's truly astonishing how stupid Rupert Murdoch has made you people.

[JWags85]

There would never have been a war if our enemies didn't perceive us as being so weak militarily. The needle moved into  negative territory with the Buffoon's clusterfook handling of Afghanistan, hey?

FFS.  You can't begin to believe this is true.

[Jockey]

There would never have been a war if our enemies didn't perceive us as being so weak militarily. The needle moved into  negative territory with the Buffoon's clusterfook handling of Afghanistan, hey?

Yeah. Trump saying he wanted to disband NATO had nothing to do with Putin thinking we were weak. He thought trump had done enough damage to NATO - he has learned in the last 2 months that the orange buffoon is gone.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

FFS.  You can't begin to believe this is true.

Dude, he is a "healthcare professional" who has come to believe over time that the COVID vaccines aren't safe. He'll believe literally anything that confirms his bias.

[Mutaman]

I was in NYC on Monday and Tuesday, and it was extremely quiet, from the airport, people on the street and the train to CT. The only thing that caught my eye was there were a lot more regular cars in the city than I have ever seen. My friend, who is great for the economy and eats out 4-5 times a week, told me that many restaurants are closing 1-2 hours earlier than pre pandemic. I have no idea how NYC is faring overall, but it did not appear to be bustling in trade.

NYC is doing ok considering what its been through the past two years. its a lot quieter during the daytime because so many people are still working from home. The return to the office is proceeding slowly. Its a lot quieter at night because folks are not out and about coming and going to restaurants, broadway, and the movies like in pre pandemic days.
The notion that the city is more dangerous does not stand up to scrutiny although it could be said that there are more folks with emotional problems out, particularly in the subway.

[Goose]

AMZN guidance is a reflection of the state of the economy, IMO. I think AMZN and the Apple's of the world have power to tell things like they are, while I think a lot of companies undersold the supply chain and rising costs in their guidance. Other thing that seldom is discussed, AMZN and others, should be having blowout top numbers due to increased sales prices. My gut tells me the number of units of SKU's being sold tells the real story.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

AMZN guidance is a reflection of the state of the economy, IMO. I think AMZN and the Apple's of the world have power to tell things like they are, while I think a lot of companies undersold the supply chain and rising costs in their guidance. Other thing that seldom is discussed, AMZN and others, should be having blowout top numbers due to increased sales prices. My gut tells me the number of units of SKU's being sold tells the real story.

Disagree. AMZN suffering from the same post-COVID issue as Netflix; people are leaving their houses again.

[Goose]

TSmith
What do you consider people leaving their house and doing? Chipolte barely met top line numbers and admitted that increased sales price offset rising costs. In addition, if people are leaving their houses to do things that is usually when other segments of consumer goods rise rapidly. Going on a vacation people usually will buy new clothes or shoes, getting involved in a new hobby and people buy things associated with that hobby. There is not a consumer good item that AMZN is not involved in, and they should be protected for any change in consumer sentiment.

The big boys have more than offset their rising costs and still are struggling to hit top line numbers. I do supply chain management for a living and feel I have solid understanding of the marketplace. The consumers are still spending money and buying product, just not the same amount of units. To be honest, I think the AMZN and Netflix comparison shows a complete lack of understanding of the makeup of the US consumer.

I think there is a big storm brewing and I am not going to have my head in the sand. Consumer good inflation is real and going to get worse. As I noted in earlier post, APPL and AMZN can confidently state unsure guidance without hurting their brands. 99.9% of the consumer goods marketplace are not in the same position to sound alarms. Now, I hope I am wrong for obvious reasons, but being involved in all aspects of retail for over 30 years has taught me a little bit about the US consumer and I am not sounding an alarm for the sake of sounding an alarm.

[MU82]

COST, MSFT, FB, MCD, PG, TSLA and others all beat estimates and upped guidance. GOOGL, AMZN, MMM, TROW and others didn't have strong guidance.

All of which tells us what about what? If all were offering strong guidance or weak guidance, it might tell us something concrete. But some companies simply have stronger projections than others. As always.

They are all wary of inflation, lingering pandemic affects and supply-chain issues, as they should be.

[Herman Cain]

Having lived through the economies of the 70s , I can safely say we are entering a stagflation mode. Inflation with low to backward economic growth.

In our company we see the supply chain issues lasting for another year, and sustained difficulties in hiring employees. Add in increased regulation and my guess is we have a hard recession sometime in the next twelve months