Blogging Will Be Severely Limited For The Next Few Days -- Perhaps Next Few Weeks -- March 9, 2023

Today: warm, overcast, calm, small chance for rain. Beautiful day.

Reading:

For a "throw-away" book, this book turned out to be very, very interesting. I could have done worse.

Plans:

I'm still preparing for Sophia's summer "vacation." I'm putting together a number of summer projects for Sophia that will take some time now.

One big change in my personal life: my feelings about keeping books on shelves has/have changed. My life has, literally overnight, improved 100% and all of a sudden, I have much more space. LOL. Imagine that. And I'm not reading any less; more, if anything. But I digress.

The twice daily Bakken report will always be posted. 

Hopefully, I will post, at least once a week, thoughts on investing, which for me has now become much more interesting than blogging on the Bakken. The Bakken never ceases to amaze me but most of my reporting on the Bakken is "more of the same."

To make blogging on the Bakken more interesting, it helps to get questions from readers with regard to the Bakken. 

I'm in an incredibly good mood.  

This was posted in January, 2023, and update from an earlier post, same subject;

Investors:

• for those with a 30-year horizon, this is going to be another great year for investing;
• at the rate the Fed initiated and continued the increases in the Fed rate, Schwab data suggests 550 days (range 500 - 650) before the market gets back to "where it was"
• start: March 20, 2022; days remaining in 2022 -- 286
• end, "back to where were" range:
• 500 - 286 = 214 = August 2, 2023 (summer doldrums; dog days of summer)
• 650 - 286 = 364 = December 30, 2023 (Santa Claus rally)
• long-term investors can keep picking up shares at deep discounts at least until mid-year, 2023 [update: extended 180 days, to June 30, 2024].
  
• in other words, this "story" -- at best -- is just mid-cycle. A lot of time left before we "get back to where we were." 
• universities and other magnets for donations will probably feel the effect the greatest as donors cut back.
• AAPL re-sets: now a "value" company; not a "growth" company. Will trade at a lower P/E. Perhaps true also for other companies, like Tesla.

Now, the update. With the new Fed policy enunciated by JPow on March 7, 2023 -- "higher, sooner, longer," the 500 - 650 day range great buying opportunities has been extended. Based on JPow's comments two days ago, the range can be extended 180 days which takes us to June 30, 2024.

The "consensus" is that the coming recession has now been pushed out to 2025. Yes, 2025. 

Link here. 

Maybe more on this later, but the recession, "when/if" does not bother me a bit; "this" recession has been predicted for so long, it will be a relief when it comes. LOL. What excites me is that for index investing the market won't be back "to where we were" until June 30, 2024; that in the meantime, it will be a stock-pickers market.

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Mother Goose

Advice for today:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat. 

His wife could eat no lean. 

And so between them both, you see, 

They licked the platter clean.

A "talking head" on CNBC repeated the meme: with interest rates this high, bonds are competing with stocks.

My mother knew nothing about investing and kept all her money in cash, money market accounts, and occasionally CDs. She was thrilled with 14% interest rates in the 1980s (?). 

My father, whether he knew anything about investing or not, I don't know. He always said it was always better to be "lucky" rather than "smart."  He did incredibly well in the market despite no formal training and no informal education with regard to investing. I don't think he ever read a book on invested, and ever read The WSJ. About all he did was watch the CNBC crawler ten minutes every day while checking the day-old Bismarck Tribune "money section." 

But he did most of his investing during a multi-decade bull market. He never invested in Treasuries or bonds; he only invested in stocks.

Both mom and dad ended up financially quite well off, probably better than most.

So, for mom, bonds did not compete with stocks. Bonds competed with cash under her mattress.

For dad, stock did not compete with bonds. AAPL competed with SLB for his dollars. 

And it continues in the next generation. For my wife, the money market accounts compete with cash in her savings account; and, for me AAPL competes with DVN for my dollars. 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. 

Again, all my posts are done quickly. There will be typographical and content errors in all my posts. If any of my posts are important to you, go to the source. 

So, now back to work on Sophia's projects. 

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Army, Navy, Air Force

For the young person who wants to join the military but doesn't know which service, here's some free advice:

Rainstorm: