My take on Musk buying Twitter: the company has censured and pissed off the right wingers, and pays a bunch of woke idiots to run it for the purpose of propaganda. Assuming the right left split is near 50/50, it should be easy to fire all the overpaid deadweight, open it for all opinions, and build a bigger audience. We hear only the radicals on the news,, but I have to believe most Americans still believe in free speech.
"I'd be willing to wager that three weeks from tomorrow, the S and P 500 will be below the recent low of 3821..."
My livelihood no longer depends on market trends, and technical analysis has never been my forte, but...you're on. Not because I think you're wrong, but the odds are such as to leave room for doubt and why not. FWIW, I think the market bottom is somewhere between 3380 and 2304 (so, around the close on 3/20/2020), or at least that it would take a catastrophe to breach the bottom trend line.
I'd be willing to wager that three weeks from tomorrow, the S and P 500 will be below the recent low of 3821...
I don't have any contrary bets to offer, except that money flow still needs a place to go. I think we're in agreement that stock valuations are pretty well divorced from both economic reality and FMV, and I don't see that changing over the long term, at least until the money flow dries up. So, while the bears are currently happy, it's probably a transitory condition predicated more on the need for a breather than any sort of return to Greenspan days (when he would intentionally take hot air out on a semi-regular basis).
As far as reasons for market rallies and declines, you might as well read bird innards than the financial press. It's all just a guess and as likely to be wrong as correct.
For the second time this month the S and P 500 is rallying on "news of Fed policy". Supposedly the reason is the official release of the minutes from the May 3-4 FOMC meeting where the Fed backed away from 75 basis point increases. A few days later it sunk in that they were strongly suggesting at least two 50 more 50 basis point increases followed by a string of 25 point hikes. Something that has not happened in the adult memory (and presumably investing careers) of anyone Gen X or younger. I think there is a certain amount of disbelief that they will actually do it. That's a mistake as they will have no choice.
The other possibility for the rally is the recap of first quarter GDP growth that just came out. The revision was actually downward to minus 1.5%. The embedded reason for optimism appears to be strong consumer spending and job/wage growth. Also probably a realization that the down numbers were actually due largely to an unsustainable ramp up in inventories in Q4 2021 together with a record trade deficit. To the down side, I do not see how this trend in consumer spending is sustainable given loss of buying power to inflation and the increase in interest rates, and consequently the cost of consumer credit.
I think it's unlikely that we are in a recession (that Q2 GDP will be likewise down) but i see the likelihood of a recession by the first quarter of 2023, at the latest, to be high. I think stocks consequently have a long way to fall.
Any contrary bets?
Well hopefully I can at least re-direct the political bent in this thread from "Go Brandon" to something somewhat economically based...
Elon Musk is a perpetual enigma to me. He strikes me as a very odd fellow and a pathological narcissist (a lot of that going around with newsworthy people these days). But he is undeniably capable and driven as well. Somewhat reminiscent of Howard Hughes. His audacity also impresses the hell out of me.
You can't deny that he has been wildly successful. Regardless of the fact that I think Tesla's stock price and hence market capitalization, is completely silly, he has managed to create a new car company making millions of vehicles, and to do it from scratch with new technology. AND the damned things actually work, and work well. That's no small thing and is so far unique in the startup electric vehicle field. Then there's the parlaying of his pay pal fortune into a front runner in the highly competitive and massively capitalized field of satellite launches. He also did that in an a very short period of time and to a degree of success that is undeniable. In fact I'm making this post over his orbital based internet system. Incredible.
So why the fuck would he even want Twitter? Economically speaking that is. The narcissism of it speaks for itself. What is the new frontier of potential large new market here? Restoring Donald Trump's account? Sure, that would bring back his supporters plus all the people who simply can't look away. But that's just a return to baseline. There are also the millions of people who, bafflingly to me, follow twitter, and who he is grossly offending by attempting this purchase and lashing out against politically against in the process. Namely, overwhelmingly young, urban, liberal people. Coincidentally I have personally never strongly correlated Teslas with Trump votes.
Purely from the standpoint of economic self interest, I do not see where he is going with this
"No way he can buy Twitter now..."
Not at the first offer price, no. But he's angling for a substantial discount, hence the performative noise about bots.
Cross post from Politics...
Tesla lost another 7% today, making the loss YTD at 48%.
No way he can buy Twitter now...
Ain't nothing like a slow, gentle stroke and a warm, wet towel to make you go nite-nite.
Where are these car dealers getting all these used cars from? Will be interesting to see if Ford and Chevy will still sell their gas hogs, bet they wish they still made a car, but they didn't know how to make a descent car after the early 70's....
I’m really concerned as I said before when in the Netherlands my friend thought we could be going into a dark ages . It is showing today , nothing is growing only just things we absolutely need . Technology , Medicine and all the nice things we have got used to are going to die . Maybe like the 1970s before Ronald Reagan .
Go Brandon
So we stay on point
From CNBC
“Dow hit its first eight-week losing streak since 1923, and the S&P 500 briefly fall into bear market territory on an intraday basis.”
Build Back Better Baby!
Awww, poor Tucker, once again unable to articulate his position so resorts to throwing a tantrum.
If you are going to just start spamming this thread with the same quote over and over, maybe you should run over to the right handed circle jerk thread in politics so your fellow puppets will stroke you gently back to sleep.
~Scamp
Tramp
You really are an class act Bud
Let me say this again, like I really give a shit what you think or owe you the respect of answering any of your questions
From CNBC
“Dow hit its first eight-week losing streak since 1923, and the S&P 500 briefly fall into bear market territory on an intraday basis.”
Build Back Better Baby!
Tucker, I am curious if you blamed trump for the huge stock market crash of 2020.
I am also curious if you think it’s a coincidence that at the same time we have record inflation, corporate profits are also at an all time high.
Spin away with your answers.
~Scamp
I knew Inflation was bad, but the used motorcycle I bought 3 years ago is worth more today than when I bought it. I had noticed used car dealers expanding their inventory like crazy. Now I know why.
Well let’s see if any of the lefties can spin this to show how well everything is in the Biden world
“Dow hit its first eight-week losing streak since 1923, and the S&P 500 briefly fall into bear market territory on an intraday basis.”
Build Back Better Baby!
The other shoe from the Johnson Governments ramming through of Brexit at all costs, and with all attendant wishful thinking, which has been inexorably falling ever since, seems finally poised to hit the ground.
The obvious issue (to me and seemingly everyone else), given the ultimate kicking of the can down the road on intractable trade issues, was the need for a customs border either in the Irish sea or between Northern Ireland (technically Britain) and the Republic (an EU member). Since British Conservative Party politics have been staunchly opposed to the former, the customs "wall" is being created of necessity by EU regulators along the land border. The interruptions this has caused to trade within Ireland undoubtedly figured into Sinn Fein's historic Parliamentary victory a couple of weeks ago.
This impasse has always seemed inevitable to me, and bound to result in the ultimate disintegration of Britain, first with Irish re-unification, and then with Scottish independence. What was not so obvious was the recent covid related global supply chain stress and return of global inflation with a vengeance. High inflation is always political dynamite and seems likely to hasten the obvious end game.
Does anybody see a different potential outcome here? And if so, how?
The greater issue is fertilizer, imo. Russia and Belarus are fertilizer hubs, not just for the finished product, but the raw components. That's going to affect more than a couple crops, it's going to affect all varieties of crops.
I think there will be some serious core inflation effects from the interruption of wheat and corn exports from Ukraine. Those, like oil, are global commodities. Hard to know how many people are dumb enough to blame that on Ukraine. Driving up I-5 from Portland through Washington's "crazy quarter" I passed a billboard with a sad faced uncle Sam (been there for at least four decades) that now says: "How many dead Americans will we leave behind in Ukraine?".
Yeah, no idea.
@maye , next month when you go on vacation ask the Europeans . It is interesting what you you will hear regarding the Ukraine war. We have never had a WW on our soil so we look at it so differently . Same time lots of people want to forget about Putin in a what happens , what happens . Our friends are very concerned . Their sons future wife’s father is a 58 year old man that is fighting daily in Ukraine . He can’t leave but his daughters and wife are staying with our friends .
We have a Russian friend and she listens to Russian news, and believes the US is going to see all kinds of shortages and price hikes. She believes that Putin was justified in invading the Ukraine, so probably easy for Putin's propaganda machine to convince people like her that we're all going to suffer because the Ukraine didn't roll over and play dead.
We import more from Russia than we export, but from an economic standpoint, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. The major imports are -
"The top import categories (2-digit HS) in 2019 were: mineral fuels ($13 billion), precious metal and stone (platinum) ($2.2 billion), iron and steel ($1.4 billion), fertilizers ($963 million), and inorganic chemicals ($763 million)."
ww w.worldstopexports. com/russias-top-import-partners/
The crazy thing is that we have way more crude oil in Alaska than we need, which is apparently what mineral oils fall under. Perhaps we'll start actually using it rather than sitting on it, unless extraction/transportation is the bottleneck. If it is, we should fix that.
Of course, Russia needs to fund it's war machine, so not selling it's exports may be like cutting your nose off to spite your face. I doubt China cares much about Russia's atttack, but the other european countries sure as hell are going to take notice. Top 10 trading partners with Russia are -
China: US$68 billion (13.8% of Russia’s total exports) Netherlands: $42.2 billion (8.6%) Germany: $29.6 billion (6%) Turkey: $26.5 billion (5.4%) Belarus: $22.8 billion (4.6%) United Kingdom: $22.3 billion (4.5%) Italy: $19.3 billion (3.9%) Kazakhstan: $18.5 billion (3.8%) United States: $17.7 billion (3.6%) South Korea: $16.9 billion (3.4%)
Canada, Mexico, and China are our top 3.
"By now you’ve heard that the annual rate of inflation hit a 41-year high of 8.5% in March. Prices for food, energy and used vehicles increased the most, with preowned cars and trucks jumping 35%, gasoline 48%.
But here’s something you may not know: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which issues the monthly consumer price index (CPI), has changed its methodology for measuring inflation more than twice over the past few decades. Today’s CPI doesn’t actually tell us how much prices have changed; instead, it allegedly tells us changes in the cost of living.
This is why, in 2020, I called the CPI “fake news.” In reality, inflation as you and I understand it is running much higher than reported.
If we use the BLS’s methodology from 1980, prices actually increased 16.8% last month, which is almost double the official CPI print. "
Frank HolmesContributor
