I accidentally snorted out whisky at reading half of these ... I was only trying to find the quote that no one has yet devised, concocted, imagined, or plausibly advocated a use case
https://www.cryptoaltruism.org/blog/15-quotes-about-the-potential-of-blockchain-and-crypto
efficiency! math!
andreesen sounds like he is talking about full-faith / -credit currency

Unbelievable set of quotes (are they real?) Well, all I can say is:
Song: Happy Days Are Here Again
Lyrics: Jack Yellen(1) (4) (5)
Music: Milton Ager(2) (4) (5)
Year: 1929(3) (5)
Genre: Popular
Country: USA
Happy days are here again!
The skies above are clear again,
Let us sing a song of cheer again,
Happy days are here again!
Altogether shout it now,
There's no one who can doubt it now,
Let us tell the world about it now,
Happy days are here again!
Your cares and troubles are gone
There'll be no more from now on!
This song was originally posted on protestsonglyrics.net
Happy days are here again!
The skies above are clear again
Let us sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again!
So long sad times, go long bad times,
We are rid of you at last;
Howdy gay times, cloudy gray times
You are now a thing of the past.
Happy days are here again!
The skies above are clear again
Let us sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again!
This song was originally posted on protestsonglyrics.net
Your cares and troubles are gone
There'll be no more from now on!
Happy days are here again!
The skies above are clear again
Let us sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again!
Happy Days are Here Again Lyrics

I’ll go out on a limb and predict HSGFX (even with its new name) will continue its 15-year track record of losing money for investors.

On that note, how does one get away with being a permabear in a market that traditionally advances the vast majority of the time?! I'm not sure whether his existence is a greater testimony to his own ineptitude, or to the folly of the people who place their faith in him?! It seems akin to putting your money in a bottle and burying it in the backyard!

It’s amazing that someone of his intelligence could do so poorly over 15 years. I’m a bit of a bear myself. But there are alternatives to going “all-in” on equities. Think long / short funds, hedged equities, high yield & floating rate bonds, convertibles, multi-asset funds. Cash earned little over that period, but with compounding you’d still be quite a bit ahead of HSGFX. I’d think short-term bonds should generate positive returns (in excess of cash) with very minimal downside risk going forward now that rates have risen from abysmal lows.

I’ll go out on a limb and predict HSGFX (even with its new name) will continue its 15-year track record of losing money for investors.

On that note, how does one get away with being a permabear in a market that traditionally advances the vast majority of the time?! I'm not sure whether his existence is a greater testimony to his own ineptitude, or to the folly of the people who place their faith in him?! It seems akin to putting your money in a bottle and burying it in the backyard!

I’ll go out on a limb and predict HSGFX (even with its new name) will continue its 15-year track record of losing money for investors.

Tariffs would be the wild card for 2025. Major market headwind, if approved.

From Crash, re: 2025: Market returns will be sub-par, or at the low end of average. Bonds might be just as attractive as equities. The economy is balancing on a colossal mountain of gummint debt. Tax breaks, or extended tax breaks for those who need it least, will only add to the perversion.

Japan Govt debt may be 150% of GDP but what counts is how much of it is owned by the Japanese, especially its own central bank.
I thought the following was interesting:
“OTHER VOICES. Jenny JOHNSON, President & CEO of Franklin Templeton. AI hype will come to an end and a period of pessimism will follow. Such up and down cycles are normal for new technologies. Early and fast adopters may not be the eventual leaders. The profitless AI capex has to be digested. Look for AI beneficiaries in enterprise software, data analytics, customer service, finance, healthcare, collaborative work, picks and shovels (chipmakers, cloud hosts, data centers).”
How did Franklin growth or value funds perform during 2023 and 2024, the current AI boom period. Just checking if her comments were colored by the performance of her funds.
I used to think business leaders are intellectually honest (I know I was naive). The latest one that killed my optimism about that breed is Howard Lutnick. He had his strategists parade for two years telling us how the economy is going to be bad and that the stock market was about to crash / correct. It turned out he was a Trump bum licker and massively politically biased. I feel sorry for all the opportunity cost he caused for investors who listened to him and his minions who of course will benefit either way.

If you ever felt Howard Lutnick’s qualifications were deficient to become Commerce Sec, you were missing this piece of info -
https://www.ft.com/content/73ef7b34-3969-4466-993e-0d1d24ef434a

I just got done grading my 25 graduate capstone papers, coincidentally .... ergo, scotch awaits!
(And good call on infrastructure investing; it's been a large part of my portfolio for years.)

Noticed the huge drop?
To the extent that M* can be trusted about this:
WBALX paid for Dec., yesterday: $0.6875 cents/share.
PRFDX pays today: $2.5597 per share.

Per WSJ...
"The Trump transition team has started to explore pathways to dramatically shrink, consolidate or even eliminate the top bank watchdogs in Washington.
In recent interviews with potential nominees to lead bank regulatory agencies, Trump advisers and officials from his newfound Department of Government Efficiency have, for example, asked whether the president-elect could abolish the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., people familiar with the matter said.
Advisers have asked the nominees under consideration for the FDIC, as well as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, if deposit insurance could then be absorbed into the Treasury Department, some of the people said."

Gift link from the WSJ, free for all:
https://www.wsj.com/finance/regulation/trump-advisers-bank-regulations-fdic-efa761dc?st=5QeEfJ&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
... if, if, IF this ever happens, I'd expect the next financial crisis will make 1929 look like a quaint fun-filled tea party....

I accidentally snorted out whisky at reading half of these ... I was only trying to find the quote that no one has yet devised, concocted, imagined, or plausibly advocated a use case
https://www.cryptoaltruism.org/blog/15-quotes-about-the-potential-of-blockchain-and-crypto
efficiency! math!
andreesen sounds like he is talking about full-faith / -credit currency

I’ve been forgetting who I am ever since I turned 75. Maybe I’ll take a look.
Thanks for the heads-up Yogi. I don’t post or read financial discussion boards anywhere else. Something similar happened at Amazon years ago where real names became attached to the product reviews. By going into profile settings it was possible to re-set things and revert back to the user names.

Bump up.
Any takers here for KSS, currently priced at $14 and yielding 14% dividend?

90% payout ratio and unsteady track of divs in recent years .... not for me.

Deep value investor is a different breed, most of us here do not belong to. With those metrics it could be attractive if it had a Moat but in the space it is in and high interest rates, it is probably sleep walking into a graveyard.
If you guys remember, a couple of years ago, there was a take private offer at $55 a KSS share and the Board thumbed its nose at the bidder. There are a lot of Boards in the US that belong in North Korea.

I don't recall that, just offering a quick-take on the question. (I don't play in the retail space beyond consumer staples, sorry)

Bump up.
Any takers here for KSS, currently priced at $14 and yielding 14% dividend?

90% payout ratio and unsteady track of divs in recent years .... not for me.

Deep value investor is a different breed, most of us here do not belong to. With those metrics it could be attractive if it had a Moat but in the space it is in and high interest rates, it is probably sleep walking into a graveyard.
If you guys remember, a couple of years ago, there was a take private offer at $55 a KSS share and the Board thumbed its nose at the bidder. There are a lot of Boards in the US that belong in North Korea.

@FD1000- Thank you for once again reminding us what a fantastic genius you are. With all of the other important stuff that we have to keep track of we sometimes lose track of what you and your fantastic genius are up to. Hoping to hear more about you and your fantastic genius in the future!

It’s hard to be humble.

CPI +2.7%, core +3.3%, both in line with expectations (Wednesday)
PPI +3.0%, core +3.5%, both above expectations (today, Thursday)
Remember that PPI is based on wholesale prices and when those are rising, the next CPI readings (based on retail prices) may also be higher.
This doesn't look good for progress towards +2% average inflation target.
The next PCE release is on Friday, 12/20/24, a couple of days AFTER the FOMC Statement & Powell's presser next week.

AAII Sentiment Survey, 12/11/24
BULLISH remained the top sentiment (43.3%, above average) & neutral remained the bottom sentiment (25.0%, below average); bearish remained the middle sentiment (31.7%, above average); Bull-Bear Spread was +11.6% (above average). Investor concerns: Budget deficit, debt, inflation, the Fed, dollar, geopolitical, Russia-Ukraine (146+ weeks), Israel-Hamas (61+ weeks). For the Survey week (Th-Wed), stocks mixed (growth up, cyclicals down), bonds down, oil up, gold up, dollar up. NYSE %Above 50-dMA 58.21% (positive). With several ECB rate cuts ahead, the dollar should remain stronger for longer. #AAII #Sentiment #Markets
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1767/thread

Interesting re Israeli AI firm. I guess the IDF wasn't using them Oct 7th?
I am always bemused bu the multiple attempts over the years to replace MDs and their diagnoses.
AI may very well be able to read X rays and EKGs better than humans, but if I had a dime for every time "something" about they way a patient looked or the tome of their voice prompted me to ask the question that made the diagnosis I would be very rich.
Patients want human beings taking care of them, not a machine. AI may eventually stop disasters with poorly trained RNNPs ( like the one after an online course and 500 hours of preceptor-ship sent a patient with a blood sugar of 600 home to die per Bloomberg's report) but that will not solve the issues in medicine today- too much corporate profit.
Will only make them worse

@FD1000 - everything you say makes sense, but the sheer volume of data that is capable of being managed by companies (of all sorts) is increasing exponentially. And, I have to imagine that in short order the types of data that do much of the heavy lifting in forecasting and prediction (i.e., account for 98% of the variance) will be settled upon. So, gaining access to that last 1.5-2% isn't going to move the needle much for many investors. Or maybe imperfect data can be overcome with a super-rich model (as Bayesian maven Gelman says "Big Data Need Big Model").
Now, I guess the counterpoint would be that if JPM, DE Shaw, GS, and kindred competitors spend gazillions of dollars shaving 1/1000000th of a nanosecond off a trade execution time, they might find a way to convert that 1.5% information edge into some real money. I don't know.
I guess I can just see a point where there are fewer meaningful asymmetries to leverage. I think Charly Munger or Tweedy Browne (or etc.) said at one point that you used to have pour through pages of out of date trade journals to get a sense of companies' profitabilities and obligations, but now that can be sifted through readily by computers and databases.
So, again, while I was never all-in on indexing, I'm guessing that this spells the end for large chunks of the biz, with only a few super brains-in-beakers types of firms like Shaw or Guggenheim or etc. I don't see how First Eagle or Harris Associates or Wellington or FPA or Osterweis or etc. last another five years.