JavaScript is disabled
Our website requires JavaScript to function properly. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser settings before proceeding.
We used to live a couple miles from the 737 Max plant in Renton, 2008-2017. The Landing, a shopping area was across the street from the plant, it was more or less completed just before the great recession. When Boeing really started to hum again the ghost town at the Landing suddenly awoke. From about 2010 on it was as if nothing could possibly go wrong in the 'hood. New restaurants sprung up everywhere, they were all busy. Most of the good folks I got to know either worked at Boeing or worked for a company that made parts for, or supplied services to Boeing. Times were good.

I don't miss the area nor bear any malice, Renton was good to us. I hope they weather this new storm and see brighter days ahead.

Boeing really lost their way this time; all they have to do is build and sell airplanes that, once airborne, remain airborne until they land. Not saying it's easy to do but they've had plenty of time to practice. One could make the case they wrote the book.

My Christmas wish for Boeing is they learn from their mistake, the next quarterly results won't matter if no one wants what you sell.
 
Calling for a market crash and explaining that things are not what they seem. I'd expect the market to continue up for a bit, it wouldn't surprise me to see 30,000 plus for the Dow in a few months, then wham, some external event like a Ukraine/Russia conflict. In reality, none of us know what the future will bring.

The Crazy Events Of The Past Month And What They Mean For 2020


The Crazy Events Of The Past Month And What They Mean For 2020

Brandon Smith
December 22nd, 2019
 
Calling for a market crash and explaining that things are not what they seem. I'd expect the market to continue up for a bit, it wouldn't surprise me to see 30,000 plus for the Dow in a few months, then wham, some external event like a Ukraine/Russia conflict. In reality, none of us know what the future will bring.

The Crazy Events Of The Past Month And What They Mean For 2020


The Crazy Events Of The Past Month And What They Mean For 2020

Brandon Smith
December 22nd, 2019

"up for a bit" another S&P 500 record high yesterday...
 
The market is doing well, and it probably will into at least spring of 2020, but since it is a gambling market based quite a bit on speculation, and since I made more in the market during 2019 than I did at my day job, I moved to a less speculative stance and one that will better hold my gains from 2019. That said, even with a much more conservative stance, I am still doing well in my retirement funds nonetheless (in part because bonds are doing well too, which is because a lot of people are doing the same thing I did).

But remember a couple of basic rules about the stock market:

1) In the short term, past performance is not a good indicator of future performance. The market is very volatile.

2) Do not invest $ into the market that you are not willing to lose, unless you are able to hold onto your investments long enough (years) for them to rebound. I.E., don't invest money into the market today, that you are going to need tomorrow - which is why I pulled back (I may retire soon).

3) Buy low, sell high. Again, I just did this. Don't get greedy and hold on trying eek out the last little gain. Know when to hold and when to fold. If you aren't already in the market, now is not the time to jump in. The time to jump in is when the market bottoms out.

4) Finally, the market is not the economy and the economy is not the market, but the economy can drive the market down. Keep your eyes on the economy, not the market - unless you play the market for a living, in which case you should already know all of this.
 
Last Edited:
Wally Worlds all over the US are NOT hiring anyone right now. Everyone I talked to all over said their store was woefully understaffed and cutting hours for the ones they do have working, no promised advancements, etc. Wally is plugged in to the markets pretty well, so maybe they know something we don't, like the Virginia anti-gun scum blowing up the country and demonrats getting shot in the street. The last time I checked, the local store had almost no ammo in stock, oddly the only stuff, other than shotgun shells, was .380 and .40 S&W. No 9mm, .45 ACP or most rifle ammo, Even .22s were gone. Because of Christmas? Don't know.
 
I'm going to disagree slightly with the notion that it is a bad time to "get into the market" while it is hitting record new highs. My take is that there is always opportunity to be found, you just have to be willing to look in the dumpsters for it. Berkshire Hathaway is only comprised of 48 stocks and 10 of those stocks equal 80% of the value of the fund. Do not focus on the market as a whole. Look for value. Look for companies that are having a bad day. Look at individual stocks.

Intel hit a 52 week high today of $59.85. I purchased shares back on May 31st for $44.16 at the height of trade war jitters. Had I listened to Wall Street analysts, they would have told me it was a value trap.....money down the drain. They were saying the same thing about Apple, which I foolishly did not purchase at $184-$185 a share, but I did buy Intel.

Since that purchase, I have also received $0.94 per share in dividends.

This time next week I intend to close that position. Daddy wants a new gun.

H&K_P7_(6825671856).jpg

-E-
 
Last Edited:
There's no doubt in my mind that an individual investor can do really well but, you have to learn the trade.

Look for value. That sounds easy, but how do you do that? You have to learn the trade.

Look for companies having a bad day. That sounds easy too, but how do you know a bad day won't become a bad year? You have to learn the trade.

I believe you are right nehalemguy, but it takes hard work and diligence to learn the trade and become reliably successful. Most folks, like myself, are too busy making a living to give intelligent investing it's dues in order to reap the rewards, it's great you got there.
 
Part of the problem with investing in individual corps is that you don't have all the info. As mentioned, they might have a bad day and be looking at a bad year. From what I heard a few months ago I would not have bought Intel because they had lost one of their divisions (sold to a competitor) due to bad decisions/investments, and the outlook for the near term was not good. However, they hard other irons in the fire so they have turned it around.

Either way, Intel is more or less a value corp in the long run, so holding onto them would not necessarily be bad - but I would not buy them when they were up, only when they were down - i.e., my rule #3; buy low, sell high.

My advice should have had more context; I was not talking about buying individual stocks, I was referring to investing in retirement funds in a 401K/IRA. Investing in the stock market by buying stock directly is a different game, one I don't have the time for right now - so I let the funds do it for me.
 
There's no doubt in my mind that an individual investor can do really well but, you have to learn the trade.

Look for value. That sounds easy, but how do you do that? You have to learn the trade.

Look for companies having a bad day. That sounds easy too, but how do you know a bad day won't become a bad year? You have to learn the trade.

I believe you are right nehalemguy, but it takes hard work and diligence to learn the trade and become reliably successful. Most folks, like myself, are too busy making a living to give intelligent investing it's dues in order to reap the rewards, it's great you got there.

Trust me when I say that I've taken more than a few lumps. Fortunately my successes have outweighed the hits.

It's really not as hard as some think. There are now trading platforms that are zero commissions and no minimum balances. You can open an account with Robinhood and purchase a single share of whatever stock you fancy at no additional cost beyond the cost of the share. Those platforms have made what was a rich man's game into an opportunity for the average Joe to build wealth outside of the company 401k.

I personally like stocks that pay a good dividend. Dividends can soften the blow when I make a poor choice and also add icing to the cake when I hit it out of the park.

Some stocks that I own are currently underwater. For example....Energy Transfer. I am currently -4.5% with this stock at $13.14 per share. However, it pays an annual dividend a of $1.24 per share....+9.5% per share return at the current price. I'm ok with sitting on that stock with that kind of dividend return.

As for the "bad day" scenario, earlier in this thread I posted about my purchase of Altria Group (Marlboro, Copenhagen. etc..). Altria has a multi billion dollar stake in Juul Labs, the maker of e-cigarettes and vaping pods.

When people started dropping dead from smoking vaping pods earlier this year the MSM news plastered it across the airwaves. Each day the MSM had a new and updated body count, even though it was looking like the vast majority of deaths were related to illicit THC laced pods . Investors saw the media coverage, panicked, and began dumping shares of Altria..... which is when I began buying shares.

The MSM news, being what they always are, soon moved on to the next big story and quit reporting on vaping deaths. I knew this would happen because that is how our news media works. One week its vaping pods. The next week its climate change, or Russians, or whatever.

Investors calmed down and realized that there was now value in Altria at the reduced share price and started buying again.

Altria is now up over 20% since I began buying shares and they declared a dividend on Christmas Eve.

Don't be afraid to try it, but don't try to be a day trader a-hole either. Start small. Build slowly. Be patient. It's really not hard as you might think.

-E-
 
Another good week in the market - I don't keep real close track of my investments (in part because I have to deduct the 401K contributions), but again I think my investments appreciated by more than my take home pay, possibly as much as my gross pay.

I would like that to continue, but I don't think it will - just have to wait and see what happens.
 
I just stay with power shares, people with way more time and skill have run them well for a long time. I don't need home runs and I can ILL afford big negative lessons, so I'll just remain happy with singles, doubles and an occasional triple.
 
With respect to dividend paying equities, unless things have changed, the shareholder need to pay close attention to certain dates in order to receive the dividend, the ex-dividend and record dates being the two most important. In any event, these dates may influence when an investor might buy, or sell a stock. If a shareholder knows that selling today, even though she really, really wants to, will result in loss of dividend, she may hold off until tomorrow in order to lock in the dividend. The point being that a sure thing, the dividend, can influence an otherwise "rational" desire to sell at a certain time. The same thing applies on the buy side of the equation.

Not trying to overstate the case, just saying that dividends can be a factor in buy/sell decision making, it's one more thing to keep track of.
 
With respect to dividend paying equities, unless things have changed, the shareholder need to pay close attention to certain dates in order to receive the dividend, the ex-dividend and record dates being the two most important. In any event, these dates may influence when an investor might buy, or sell a stock. If a shareholder knows that selling today, even though she really, really wants to, will result in loss of dividend, she may hold off until tomorrow in order to lock in the dividend. The point being that a sure thing, the dividend, can influence an otherwise "rational" desire to sell at a certain time. The same thing applies on the buy side of the equation.

Not trying to overstate the case, just saying that dividends can be a factor in buy/sell decision making, it's one more thing to keep track of.

My understanding is that some/many funds reinvest the dividends into the stock holding. Not sure about holding the stock directly - I have not dived into that realm yet, but I am thinking about picking up some stocks which have bottomed out - e.g., Boeing, and then selling when they revive later.
 


From Charles Smith at Of Two Minds, about the stock market
Everyone knows the price has lost connection with reality, and so every punter and algo is one second away from hitting "sell" and locking in the gains from a manipulated bubble.

From David Collum at Peak Prosperity YouTube
We are so close to a financial crisis now that we may be way, way past the fail-safe.

From Doug Casey at International Man
This is going to be one for the record books. Much different, much longer lasting, and much worse than the unpleasantness of 1929-1946.
 
Last edited by a moderator:


From Charles Smith at Of Two Minds, about the stock market
View attachment 646000 Everyone knows the price has lost connection with reality, and so every punter and algo is one second away from hitting "sell" and locking in the gains from a manipulated bubble.

Which they just did - yesterday and today. I did it a couple weeks ago. But I am down about $1k from what I had yesterday. I am still about 30% in stocks so that is to be expected.
 

Upcoming Events

Tillamook Gun & Knife Show
Tillamook, OR
"The Original" Kalispell Gun Show
Kalispell, MT
Teen Rifle 1 Class
Springfield, OR
Kids Firearm Safety 2 Class
Springfield, OR

New Resource Reviews

New Classified Ads

Back Top