”Front running is useless, unless others react and push the prices farther in the intended direction.”

Thanks @BaluBalu. That’s good to know.
Actually I was asking whether the hidden trading might sometimes serve to intentionally hide certain trades from public view - for any reason? Or is it as @Yogi suggested merely a way to reduce costs and make markets operate more efficiently? If it’s simply done for efficiency and to keep costs down it shouldn’t matter whether 50%, 75% or 90% of all trades are hidden. As the linked article states, the trend is upward.

YBB Notes After the Press Conference
Rates: Fed funds held at 4.25-4.50%, bank reserves rate at 4.40%, discount rate at 4.50%. Treasury QT continues at -$25 billion/mo, MBS QT at -$35 billion/mo.
Financial conditions are restrictive considering that the longer term rates have risen. Fed fund rates are well above the neutral rate (that’s known in hindsight only), so the trend for fed fund rates is flat or down.
Fed has a dual mandate for inflation & jobs. It will stick to the +2% average inflation target (trailing 12 months) as most global central banks do. It’s a bad idea to talk about changing the goals while not meeting them. The 5-yr Fed review will not include the +2% average inflation target.
There are uncertainties with any new administration. So, the Fed will be watching how the details evolve for fiscal, tariff & immigration policies.
Fed will evaluation President’s Executive Orders & the applicable laws (Dodd-Frank, etc) as they relate to DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) & other matters. The Fed operates with its own resources & not with annual federal budget allocations. The importance of central bank independence has been proven over time.
Fed models consider a wide range of parameters & outcomes, but it waits for specific scenarios to develop before acting.
The Fed has withdrawn from the NGFS (Network for Greening the Financial System) because NGFS goals have become too broad globally, while the Fed has narrower mandate & focus.
The Fed isn’t concerned about the stock market levels or the popularity of cryptos, but it evaluates them from the perspectives of financial stability. Regulation of banks under Fed supervision is to ensure that asset risks are appropriately accounted for.
Housing OERs are coming down from high levels. Higher mortgage rates are negatively impacting housing.
Consumers will benefit from lower inflation, but that doesn’t mean lower prices & that is causing some unhappiness.
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1861/thread

Guys, give it up on that 2% target that's been around since at least the aftermath of the GFC. We're doing fairly well at 4.25 - 5% in most cases....

FOMC Statement, 1/29/25
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20250129a.htm
Presser Video https://www.youtube.com/@federalreserve
Press Releases https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases.htm
#FOMC #FederalReserve #Economy

USFR paid distribution on 1/28/25.
As of 1/28/25, the 30 days SEC yield is 4.25%.
https://wisdomtree.com/investments/etfs/fixed-income/usfr

Never Mind …

Best post in another TDS thread.
Let me guess the next 4 years...same old stuff.
And now the Dems scream about inflation...mmm...where were you when inflation hit the ceiling?

Former White House ethics lawyer: Trump actions ‘pushing the limits’ common in dictatorships
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5108520-donald-trump-norm-eisen-watchdog-firings-birthright-citizenship/

Tom Bowley's latest video from pre-market on Tuesday -
He is pretty dour on the market and says be prepared for a 10% correction in SPX, down to 5500. I do not recall Tom being this downbeat about the market in the past couple of years.

What a difference a day makes. Of course, it would mean nothing to the peanut gallery.

Never Mind …

Best post in another TDS thread.
Let me guess the next 4 years...same old stuff.
And now the Dems scream about inflation...mmm...where were you when inflation hit the ceiling?

There's more to that plane landing business and tariff fight than meets the eye. For example I didn't know that "... Colombia and the U.S. had an existing agreement for deportations under former president Joe Biden, and it accepted 475 deportation flights from 2020 to 2024, accepting 124 flights in 2024 alone."
Heather Cox Richardson - Letters From an American, January 27, 2025. Link

By Ryan T. McCormack and Paul J. Schroeder. January 21, 2025.
Performance Takeaways
° Invesco QQQ advanced by 4.07% on an NAV total return basis and outperformed the S&P 500® Index in Q4 2024.
° For 2024, QQQ saw an NAV total return of 25.60%, and outperformed the S&P 500 Index’s total return of 25.00%.
° QQQ’s overweight exposure and outperformance of the Consumer Discretionary sector and underweight exposure to the Health Care sector (per Industry Classification Benchmark- ICB) were the largest contributors to relative performance against the S&P 500 Index.(1)
This post is offered up as food for thought and nothing more.
Link

I can see crypto being the next liar loans, sub-sub prime type debacle and leading to the next crisis down the road. Add: When NFT's come back run for the hills.

It already is. Look into Gemini Earn and the impact of its counterparty risk, which was VERY VERY similar to the GFC and CDOs. I was making *nice* interest on my then-crypto savings but after a few months I really got queasy and got out completely ..... soonafter the 'crypto winter' began and the lawsuits started. Dodged a bullet there, I did since many folks are still waiting to get some/all of their money back.
FOTUS' recent memecoins are a perfect way of buying influence. All a donor/nation has to do is tell him what their blockchain ID is and he can confirm "their payment was received" --- totally anonymous yet completely 'transparent' in the public ledger.
The next GFC is going to be epic, I bet.....and it could well happen on FOTUS' watch.

From The Barron's Daily this AM:
Coffee Prices Hit Record High After Trump’s Tariff Threats

Coffee prices hit an all-time high after President Donald Trump backed off a tariff threat to Colombia, one of the world’s largest coffee producers, following a dispute over deporting migrants. Colombia supplies about 30% of U.S. coffee imports.
Continuous arabica coffee futures on the Intercontinental Exchange closed at $3.49, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Coffee prices haven’t been this high since 1972. Arabica is the most widely grown kind of coffee.
Trump called on Sunday for immediate 25% tariffs on Colombia after its president, Gustavo Petro, refused two repatriation flights of Colombian migrants from the U.S. aboard military cargo planes. Petro later agreed to the U.S. terms for repatriation.
A White House spokeswoman said the tariff orders would be “held in reserve” until the U.S. returns the first planeload of Colombian migrants.
Trump’s threats added to worries about weather-related factors reducing global coffee supplies. Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer, had a record number of forest fires last year. Vietnam, the second-largest coffee producer, has warned of lower outputs after severe droughts.
What’s Next: The U.S., the world’s second-largest coffee importer after the European Union, expects to import 1.5 million tons of coffee beans this year, according to Agriculture Department data. Starbucks, the largest U.S. coffee importer, reports earnings today.
See also with subscription:
https://www.barrons.com/articles/coffee-prices-spike-after-trumps-tariff-threats-to-colombia-4cf4be7e?mod=djem_b_Feature_1282025 70712 AM

Yup, same here. Looks to be correct. For now.
But WAIT. i've noticed such before, too:
My BLX shows the correct share price at M*. But the indicated percentage rise today does not jive with a different website. I go visit Stocktwits a lot. And Stocktwits shows BLX rose by 0.53%. But M* says +1.18%. I'm not gonna do the math. It rose .20 cents, to $37.84.

Giroux marches to his own drummer which is why I like him -- he tends to stay away from meme/mometum stocks in large quantities. NVDA is like a 2.5% holding, so no big deal compared to a fund that's 10 or more percent in it (and other 'popular' stocks)

If the below data is correct (and please advise if it is not), just an incredible performance by PRWCX today.
PRWCX had just under 40% in Tech as of 12/31/24, and yet somehow, today, when FBALX (the allocation fund we have long owned as PRWCX's companion) shed 1.32%, PRWCX only shed 0.34%.
Note of course that Giroux has dropped his his equity stake to under ~55% while FBALX is holding closer to their normal ranges at ~64% with ~32% in Tech.
Bottom Line: PRWCX was slightly outperforming FBALX YTD coming into today, but that lead has now widened to ~1.67%.
All in a year that Giroux per the above ^ chart predicts an S&P drop of 11.6%.
Well done, David! Well done!
-------------------------------
And as a follow up to my prior post about port changes this year, specifically adding Value, we bought two US LCV funds late last year, OAKMX and DAGVX.
DAGVX is UP 5.35% YTD and only shed 0.26% today.
OAKMX (a fund we held for years long ago) is UP 6.31% YTD, with a nice 0.95% gain today!
If you are looking for worthy domestic OEF diversifiers, you can do a lot worse than these two!

Following are edited excerpts from a current Washington Post report:

A government-wide hiring freeze has led the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to yank job offers to more than 200 new examiners, the front-line employees who closely monitor banks to ensure they operate safely and adhere to an extensive rule book.
The FDIC is already facing a staffing challenge, particularly with a lack of examiners, undermining its ability to reduce the risk of bank failures. A chronic shortage of examiners contributed to the failure of Signature Bank, one of three large banks to collapse in 2023, the agency has said.
Examiners are essentially charged with making sure a bank doesn’t fail, a critical function at the roughly 6,000-employee FDIC, of which roughly 2,300 are examiners. The agency oversees about 4,500 banks around the country, most of them small. It also insures trillions of bank deposits and winds down failing banks. Its work is funded through industry assessments.
Perhaps more significantly, the agency is already in need of additional examiners, with frequent turnover and staffing shortages contributing to major setbacks in recent years. Current and former regulators said they feared the situation could snowball if hiring cuts combine with an uptick in the departures of retirement-eligible employees.
A review of the March 2023 failure of Signature Bank found the supervisory group overseeing large financial institutions in the FDIC’s New York office had average vacancies of about 40 percent. For the six years before Signature’s collapse, the FDIC couldn’t adequately staff the team dedicated to the bank.

Give FOTUS a break. That golf ball he's chasing is 5x larger than his brain.
Tariffs - the wave of the future. They really do work.... at least, until somebody with any kind of clue finally calls your bluff.

Will DeepSeek be the pin to the bubble?
Stay tuned.

YBB,
Necessity is the mother of invention. US companies have lost their minds with unlimited access to capital and Nvidia chips. So, they did not have to be disciplined. A $500B joke!
Corporate America is always trying to out grift American politicians. Both these cast of characters have conditioned us not to question their motives until conditions become extreme.
Jensen Haung knew today is coming, based on his behavior over the past few weeks. But all my cousins in Tech keep drinking the cool aid.
Today is too soon for me to buy any American company.

I am often reminded of the guy that built the Gossamer Albatross. I saw him on the speaking circuit back in 1979. IIRC, he asked Dupont why they gave him 200K to build his human-powered airplane. He said they told him that it would cost them 10 million to do the same thing.

Per BBG, 8 of the 10 biggest market-cap declines were NVDA....
1 Nvidia $-560B 1/27/25
2 Nvidia -279 9/3/24
3 Meta -251 2/3/22
4 Nvidia -228 1/7/25
5 Nvidia -212 4/19/24
6 Nvidia -208 6/24/24
7 Amazon -206 4/29/22
8 Nvidia -205 7/17/24
9 Nvidia -205 7/24/24
10 Nvidia -197 8/29/24