Hi Flagpole, I've been a fan of yours for a long time. I remember back in 2007-2008, you were excited about the 2005 Honda Accord you just bought. You even got a higher trim than the base model because you liked the bells and whistles. I was a 24 year old idiot who bought a new 2007 Accord which is why I remember this.
For someone who beats the market for over 3 decades, wouldn't you have just bought a new Accord instead of a used one? Or upgrade to an Acura at least?
Friday, it was announced that new CAFE standards will increase from the current 36mpg today to 49mpg in 2026. That's a huge jump! The 2026 models will come out in fall 2025 and that's only 3 1/2 years away to produce a 36% increase in gas mileage over 15 million new car sales.
The obvious beneficiary will be EV and battery-related companies.
I'm think that a lot of EV-related stocks will jump pre-market, after Monday open, and throughout the coming week. Any thoughts on what stocks might be early movers?
I have some cash on the sidelines and plan to buy pre-market Monday morning so I'm open to suggestions.
Friday, it was announced that new CAFE standards will increase from the current 36mpg today to 49mpg in 2026. That's a huge jump! The 2026 models will come out in fall 2025 and that's only 3 1/2 years away to produce a 36% increase in gas mileage over 15 million new car sales.
The obvious beneficiary will be EV and battery-related companies.
I'm think that a lot of EV-related stocks will jump pre-market, after Monday open, and throughout the coming week. Any thoughts on what stocks might be early movers?
I have some cash on the sidelines and plan to buy pre-market Monday morning so I'm open to suggestions.
Trump will reverse those CAFE standards and everyone knows that Trump will reverse the CAFE standards. But sure might be a trading bump.
No one's panties are in a bunch lol. You're basically claiming to have run sub 3 for the mile, and we're laughing at your expense.
Oh, your panties are in a bunch.
Hi Flagpole, how do you feel about the fact that no one on Wall Street has done what you claim to have done, and also the fact that your claim is statistically impossible?
The weird twists in this inversion are inflation and the fact the fed will be selling bonds/letting them run off. and the loss of some of globalism's deflationary help.
seems to me a 'good' outcome if long term bonds are correct in their prediction of moderating inflation. I mean long term bonds yield 2.5%. That's predicting a lot less inflation in the out years.
But the 2 year is also yielding 2.5%. So maybe the question is that the fed will raise rates to around 2% ...will be enough to crush excess demand in the economy without recession.? Maybe the 10 year *should* yield 4% given the inflation problem but is yielding only 2.5% because of an impending fed-induced recession.
Will we get a soft landing with less growth but no recession, and will that be enough to kill off inflation?
I have no idea and neither do you. Except Igy. He knows.
Hi Flagpole, I've been a fan of yours for a long time. I remember back in 2007-2008, you were excited about the 2005 Honda Accord you just bought. You even got a higher trim than the base model because you liked the bells and whistles. I was a 24 year old idiot who bought a new 2007 Accord which is why I remember this.
For someone who beats the market for over 3 decades, wouldn't you have just bought a new Accord instead of a used one? Or upgrade to an Acura at least?
Hmm. Well, there are some reasons why you are a noob. In COMPLETE seriousness with NO extra fake bravado thrown in for fun, here's my answer to you.
1) My investing has had ONE goal, and one goal only...COMFORTABLE RETIREMENT.
2) To get to that goal, I employed some rules that I followed, and one was to not buy a new car. I'm impressed that you remember the 2005 Honda Accord, but the rest of your recollection about it is fuzzy. I bought it USED in 2008. I was more interested in a Honda Civic, but at that time gas prices were sky high, so the Civics were as expensive or more than the Accord, so we went with the Accord. It didn't have any special bells and whistles on it (more so than the 1995 Saturn it was replacing though). It's just what was on the lot. It was the best car I had owned to that point, and it replaced the car that I was driving at the time, a Saturn SL1 with manual windows. My wife was driving our 2000 Ford Windstar at the time which DID have power windows, but the car I drove daily did not. It turned out that eventually it was my least favorite car I have ever owned. It had a design flaw that allowed normal road debris to puncture a hole so the freon for the air conditioner leaked out, and that happened, so it didn't have air conditioning at the end of my owning it. It also was a boat of a car. Kind of clunky to drive and not fun at all. It is the car that turned me off to sedans. I will never own another sedan. I could have had the air conditioning fixed, and the engine was awesome, and I probably could have owned it for ever, but in 2017 I decided I really hated that car and sold it and bought a new Kia Soul which I don't own anymore because after owning it for 4 years, I sold it to my daughter as her first post-college car (she got a nice family discount).
3) I am not a car guy. I buy cars for safety and reliability and functionality. In the fall of 2021, I bought a new Hyundai Kona AWD. It is easily the best car I have ever owned with all the current tech that I enjoy. I can afford to buy just about any car I could want, but no need to get anything better today than this Kona. I don't buy things to impress people, and I have no need to buy a car that is in line with my wealth.
4) Here's what buying modest cars, regular unbroken investing has done for me. At age 55, I own my home outright and have zero debt. I have more money invested in retirement accounts than I ever thought possible and that I will ever need. I have additional money in non-retirement mutual funds that I can use if I want to, and we currently have 3 years of expenses saved up in CASH. That's not as big a deal as it sounds because our expenses are crazy low these day with no debt and adult children who don't live here anymore, but still, it's a little bit of a pile. My wife was able to be a stay at home mom for 15 years. We put two kids through college, and I m going to retire completely from working in June (though we will still have income as my wife plans to keep her job as a college professor for 5 more years). And, I am retiring from being my own boss because I had enough invested to take a risk many years ago to hang up my own shingle.
5) Eventually we hope to be close to wherever the kids end up. My daughter has a career and is living in an expensive part of the country. She is the more likely of my two kids to be married soon and have kids, so we may opt to live close to her at least initially. My son is just beginning his career and we have no idea where he will end up. I do not know if the house we eventually buy will have the footprint to allow this, but the one extravagant thing I have my eye on is to have an in-house two-lane bowling alley. We will see. I might change my mind on that when it's time...I mean, I am getting older every day, so who knows if I will develop arthritis or some other ailment that will make bowling not that fun.
The weird twists in this inversion are inflation and the fact the fed will be selling bonds/letting them run off. and the loss of some of globalism's deflationary help.
seems to me a 'good' outcome if long term bonds are correct in their prediction of moderating inflation. I mean long term bonds yield 2.5%. That's predicting a lot less inflation in the out years.
But the 2 year is also yielding 2.5%. So maybe the question is that the fed will raise rates to around 2% ...will be enough to crush excess demand in the economy without recession.? Maybe the 10 year *should* yield 4% given the inflation problem but is yielding only 2.5% because of an impending fed-induced recession.
Will we get a soft landing with less growth but no recession, and will that be enough to kill off inflation?
I have no idea and neither do you. Except Igy. He knows.
Of course I have no idea how it will play out. I do believe the Fed and the Government are responsible for the distortions. Anyone that looks at the market excesses with a reasonable eye sees the benign outcome as unlikely.
Hi Flagpole, how do you feel about the fact that no one on Wall Street has done what you claim to have done, and also the fact that your claim is statistically impossible?
Thanks in advance!
First of all, many people have been pretty successful with the "Dogs of the Dow" strategy that I do not employ. For the others, I guess they tried too hard or in the wrong way. Maybe I'm blessed. Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe the purchases I made when the market dipped were luckily perfectly timed. I have long said my investment returns have nothing to do with any knowledge on my part...other than the knowledge to do it. I do feel like a lucky person. My wife is the greatest. My kids are brilliant and talented. I watched my son become a high school state champion and All-American. I watched my daughter excel as a student and in her chosen career which is very competitive. I watched both kids run successfully in college. I watched my father become the first and still possibly the only one to be cured of an "incurable" cancer (that is still considered to be incurable), the odds of which are much greater than my investment returns. My parents and in-laws are all over 80 and healthy and doing great (My MIL might just be 79 though).
I do not have an answer to you as to why they fail. I do not have an answer to you as to why I have not (though with my investing amount and length of time, I would still be successful today even if I lost to the Dow every year). I have often thought I must have been a really good person in a past life. I see that as an attitude of gratefulness for what I have...because it is that and ONLY that.
yeah I'm sympathetic - first thing going through my mind is 'ha not this time'
but to be fair we do have some extraordinary circumstances this time (plague/war/Qe/QT/inflation spike/booming economy but few workers/reduced globalism)
and the sample size on the 'inversion predicts recession' is small.
If the indicator failed this time it will still be a decent indicator.
Hi Flagpole, how do you feel about the fact that no one on Wall Street has done what you claim to have done, and also the fact that your claim is statistically impossible?
Thanks in advance!
First of all, many people have been pretty successful with the "Dogs of the Dow" strategy that I do not employ. For the others, I guess they tried too hard or in the wrong way. Maybe I'm blessed. Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe the purchases I made when the market dipped were luckily perfectly timed. I have long said my investment returns have nothing to do with any knowledge on my part...other than the knowledge to do it. I do feel like a lucky person. My wife is the greatest. My kids are brilliant and talented. I watched my son become a high school state champion and All-American. I watched my daughter excel as a student and in her chosen career which is very competitive. I watched both kids run successfully in college. I watched my father become the first and still possibly the only one to be cured of an "incurable" cancer (that is still considered to be incurable), the odds of which are much greater than my investment returns. My parents and in-laws are all over 80 and healthy and doing great (My MIL might just be 79 though).
I do not have an answer to you as to why they fail. I do not have an answer to you as to why I have not (though with my investing amount and length of time, I would still be successful today even if I lost to the Dow every year). I have often thought I must have been a really good person in a past life. I see that as an attitude of gratefulness for what I have...because it is that and ONLY that.
The odds of anyone beating the market 32 out of 33 years is roughly 1 in 4.3 billion, but probably much lower. So, if everyone in the world invested in the market and tracked their performance over 33 years, statistically only 1 in the world's population would be able to do that (beat the market 32 out of 33 years). So, it turns out that Flagpole IS that person .. the only person in the world capable of beating the market 32 out of 33 years. The odds are not the same, but I would liken it to a March Madness person picking EVERY pick right all through the tournament - from the first round all the way to the winning team. EVERY pick is correct without fail. We have someone capable of doing that slumming with us in LetsRun.
To follow up, the odds of a perfect bracket for the NCAA tournament is about 1 in 120 billion. So if everyone in the US picked out a 67% accurate ballot that was completely unique, you might have a perfect ballot every 336 years. I would not put a perfect ballot past Flagpole.
First of all, many people have been pretty successful with the "Dogs of the Dow" strategy that I do not employ. For the others, I guess they tried too hard or in the wrong way. Maybe I'm blessed. Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe the purchases I made when the market dipped were luckily perfectly timed. I have long said my investment returns have nothing to do with any knowledge on my part...other than the knowledge to do it. I do feel like a lucky person. My wife is the greatest. My kids are brilliant and talented. I watched my son become a high school state champion and All-American. I watched my daughter excel as a student and in her chosen career which is very competitive. I watched both kids run successfully in college. I watched my father become the first and still possibly the only one to be cured of an "incurable" cancer (that is still considered to be incurable), the odds of which are much greater than my investment returns. My parents and in-laws are all over 80 and healthy and doing great (My MIL might just be 79 though).
I do not have an answer to you as to why they fail. I do not have an answer to you as to why I have not (though with my investing amount and length of time, I would still be successful today even if I lost to the Dow every year). I have often thought I must have been a really good person in a past life. I see that as an attitude of gratefulness for what I have...because it is that and ONLY that.
The odds of anyone beating the market 32 out of 33 years is roughly 1 in 4.3 billion, but probably much lower. So, if everyone in the world invested in the market and tracked their performance over 33 years, statistically only 1 in the world's population would be able to do that (beat the market 32 out of 33 years). So, it turns out that Flagpole IS that person .. the only person in the world capable of beating the market 32 out of 33 years. The odds are not the same, but I would liken it to a March Madness person picking EVERY pick right all through the tournament - from the first round all the way to the winning team. EVERY pick is correct without fail. We have someone capable of doing that slumming with us in LetsRun.
Remember that time when you were persistent and insistent that my Artisan mid-cap fund didn't earn 60% that calendar year up to Christmas that year? Remember how you provided links (that were bogus) to support your incorrect view? Remember?
The odds of anyone beating the market 32 out of 33 years is roughly 1 in 4.3 billion, but probably much lower. So, if everyone in the world invested in the market and tracked their performance over 33 years, statistically only 1 in the world's population would be able to do that (beat the market 32 out of 33 years). So, it turns out that Flagpole IS that person .. the only person in the world capable of beating the market 32 out of 33 years. The odds are not the same, but I would liken it to a March Madness person picking EVERY pick right all through the tournament - from the first round all the way to the winning team. EVERY pick is correct without fail. We have someone capable of doing that slumming with us in LetsRun.
Remember that time when you were persistent and insistent that my Artisan mid-cap fund didn't earn 60% that calendar year up to Christmas that year? Remember how you provided links (that were bogus) to support your incorrect view? Remember?
Flagpole, We will find out on Monday if you filled out a 100% perfect March Madness ballot. Only happens once every 336 years. YOU are that person to do it!
Remember that time when you were persistent and insistent that my Artisan mid-cap fund didn't earn 60% that calendar year up to Christmas that year? Remember how you provided links (that were bogus) to support your incorrect view? Remember?
Flagpole, We will find out on Monday if you filled out a 100% perfect March Madness ballot. Only happens once every 336 years. YOU are that person to do it!
Here are your quotes challenging me on my Artisan (and also my Contrafund claim too...forgot about that one) claim back in 2020 (they are in this thread, and you and anyone else can look them up):
"The Artisan fund IS NOT up 60%"
"Flagpole, the Fidelity Contrafund is NOT up 31% this year. It is up only 18% YTD. Are you just making up numbers???"
"Flagpole - this is your Fidelity Contrafund - see where it says "18.64% YTD?" It doesn't say 31% or whatever you said."
"Flagpole -that is up to February 18, 2020!!! Are you really this dumb? Look at the link you doofus. It is YTD as of February 18. Deer in headlights anyone?"
And then finally, after I hit you over the head with CORRECT links to CORRECT information about the Artisan and Contrafund funds, you FINALLY said this - "I will backtrack a bit. Yahoo Finance appears to have the wrong YTD. I think 31% is correct."
So, you were insistent. You provided links that you thought proved your point. They didn't, and in one case you had a correct link but didn't know how to read the information that was there. You called me "dumb". You accused me of making up numbers (and thus lying). Turned out that YOU were wrong. I mean, of course you were. Artisan was up over 61% at that time (proven by me at the time with Morningstar links). Contrafund was up 31% YTD at the time (proven by me at the time again with Morningstar links).
I do not lie...EVER. You have repeatedly shown that you don't know what you're talking about on a variety of topics. You have claimed to be a mathematician which you are not, and on and on. Odd that you used the "deer in the headlights" phrase when on another thread you thought that deer ran away from headlights. Sorry dude, but you have ZERO credibility. It is clear that you aren't doing as well with your investments as I am. Sorry to hear that, old man.
Flagpole, We will find out on Monday if you filled out a 100% perfect March Madness ballot. Only happens once every 336 years. YOU are that person to do it!
Here are your quotes challenging me on my Artisan (and also my Contrafund claim too...forgot about that one) claim back in 2020 (they are in this thread, and you and anyone else can look them up):
"The Artisan fund IS NOT up 60%"
"Flagpole, the Fidelity Contrafund is NOT up 31% this year. It is up only 18% YTD. Are you just making up numbers???"
"Flagpole - this is your Fidelity Contrafund - see where it says "18.64% YTD?" It doesn't say 31% or whatever you said."
"Flagpole -that is up to February 18, 2020!!! Are you really this dumb? Look at the link you doofus. It is YTD as of February 18. Deer in headlights anyone?"
And then finally, after I hit you over the head with CORRECT links to CORRECT information about the Artisan and Contrafund funds, you FINALLY said this - "I will backtrack a bit. Yahoo Finance appears to have the wrong YTD. I think 31% is correct."
So, you were insistent. You provided links that you thought proved your point. They didn't, and in one case you had a correct link but didn't know how to read the information that was there. You called me "dumb". You accused me of making up numbers (and thus lying). Turned out that YOU were wrong. I mean, of course you were. Artisan was up over 61% at that time (proven by me at the time with Morningstar links). Contrafund was up 31% YTD at the time (proven by me at the time again with Morningstar links).
I do not lie...EVER. You have repeatedly shown that you don't know what you're talking about on a variety of topics. You have claimed to be a mathematician which you are not, and on and on. Odd that you used the "deer in the headlights" phrase when on another thread you thought that deer ran away from headlights. Sorry dude, but you have ZERO credibility. It is clear that you aren't doing as well with your investments as I am. Sorry to hear that, old man.
Just give it up .... you are a bold-faced and bald-faced liar. You are banned from here on out. Banned. See ya!
Here are your quotes challenging me on my Artisan (and also my Contrafund claim too...forgot about that one) claim back in 2020 (they are in this thread, and you and anyone else can look them up):
"The Artisan fund IS NOT up 60%"
"Flagpole, the Fidelity Contrafund is NOT up 31% this year. It is up only 18% YTD. Are you just making up numbers???"
"Flagpole - this is your Fidelity Contrafund - see where it says "18.64% YTD?" It doesn't say 31% or whatever you said."
"Flagpole -that is up to February 18, 2020!!! Are you really this dumb? Look at the link you doofus. It is YTD as of February 18. Deer in headlights anyone?"
And then finally, after I hit you over the head with CORRECT links to CORRECT information about the Artisan and Contrafund funds, you FINALLY said this - "I will backtrack a bit. Yahoo Finance appears to have the wrong YTD. I think 31% is correct."
So, you were insistent. You provided links that you thought proved your point. They didn't, and in one case you had a correct link but didn't know how to read the information that was there. You called me "dumb". You accused me of making up numbers (and thus lying). Turned out that YOU were wrong. I mean, of course you were. Artisan was up over 61% at that time (proven by me at the time with Morningstar links). Contrafund was up 31% YTD at the time (proven by me at the time again with Morningstar links).
I do not lie...EVER. You have repeatedly shown that you don't know what you're talking about on a variety of topics. You have claimed to be a mathematician which you are not, and on and on. Odd that you used the "deer in the headlights" phrase when on another thread you thought that deer ran away from headlights. Sorry dude, but you have ZERO credibility. It is clear that you aren't doing as well with your investments as I am. Sorry to hear that, old man.
Just give it up .... you are a bold-faced and bald-faced liar. You are banned from here on out. Banned. See ya!
Truth hurts, eh, dumb@ss? You have tried to prove me to be a liar before. How'd that work out for ya? You showed you didn't know how to look up fund stats, didn't know how to read them when you actually had a correct link, and in another thread you went on about how the national debt was in "billions" of dollars. You even emphasized it by saying "BILLIONS with a 'b'!" Man, if only. You have made other mathematical errors over the years here too. You don't know what you're talking about. I don't lie EVER, and you will never catch me in one. Normally I would tell someone what they just learned today, but you are clearly incapable of learning. You have "banned" me before. It would behoove you to stick to that, because you always come out the loser when you try to take me on.
Just give it up .... you are a bold-faced and bald-faced liar. You are banned from here on out. Banned. See ya!
Truth hurts, eh, dumb@ss? You have tried to prove me to be a liar before. How'd that work out for ya? You showed you didn't know how to look up fund stats, didn't know how to read them when you actually had a correct link, and in another thread you went on about how the national debt was in "billions" of dollars. You even emphasized it by saying "BILLIONS with a 'b'!" Man, if only. You have made other mathematical errors over the years here too. You don't know what you're talking about. I don't lie EVER, and you will never catch me in one. Normally I would tell someone what they just learned today, but you are clearly incapable of learning. You have "banned" me before. It would behoove you to stick to that, because you always come out the loser when you try to take me on.
Unread. Banned. You got the Golden ban. You supposedly have a journalism degree but don't even know that quotation marks go outside the period. Your journalism degree needs to be rescinded. You are an embarrassment to the University of Toledo.
The dogs of the DOW approach does not consistently beat the DOW. That’s been demonstrated quite well, which one can find with relatively little searching effort. Flagpole is stretching the truth.
