The Last Trading Day Of August, 2024 -- August 30, 2024

Locator: 48508PERSINV.

A reminder: historically, the months of August and September are the worst months of the year for investors who hope to pay more for shares. 

The chartist: a wild day on Wall Street yesterday --  not the least of which, Warren Buffett runs a trillion-dollar mutual fund!

The close: not too bad considering many folks feel the US is headed for a recession --

Switching horses mid-stream: reviewing the two screen shots above and then the screenshot below, I'm trying to figure out, as an investor, why I would want to switch horses in mid-stream? Link here:

Choose your fighter, link here: 

QQQ, the top ten, it's amazing, some folks on social media still don't get it, read the comments at the link:

 

 

Apple, Steve Jobs: I'll be posting this link as a stand-alone later. If you go to the link, spend some time on the replies. Enlightening. Wow, I loved his self-confidence -- shall we say, "ego"? Best quote here:

When you're already the best, growth comes from sales, not innovation.

Put that on a tombstone. RIP.

Steve would likely be happy that Tim Cook has told his suppliers to increase iPhone deliveries by 10% -- and that would be over what was already going to be a record delivery.

For Tim Cook to anticipate that many iPhones to be sold, there are two things going on. See if you can think of those two things. 

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Disclaimer
Briefly Reminder 

• I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.
• I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 
• See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 
• 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. 
• Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.
• I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 
• And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia.  
  

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Personal Investing
For The Archives

I first started buying NVDA a couple of years ago, and then quit adding to my position shortly after starting it. The run-up was becoming excessive. 

Cramer might have suggested at some point to take half of my NVDA profits "off the table" and play with the "house's money."

I didn't sell, but on August 5th or whenever it was, with the huge reset, I bought more. Then ignored the market for about two weeks.

Immediately after NVDA reported earnings (actually the next morning because I don't trade after-hours), I took all the free cash I could find and bought more NVDA head-over-heels, as they say. 

Actually, it was Sophia that was guiding me. She's responsible for all the investing now.

Oh, by the way, that reminds me. For the first time in my life, listening to Sophia, I am taking my "tax-loss harvesting" to a new level.

And then this article: 

From the article: 

It might surprise you that index funds such as the $562 billion SPDR S&P 500 Index EFT Trust (the first exchange-traded fund to track the US large-cap benchmark index) or the $248 billion Vanguard S&P 500 ETF have portfolios that are concentrated almost 20% to three companies: MSFT, AAPL, and NVDA.

I have never understood bonds. Maybe Sophia will figure it out.

I've never subscribed to the 60/40 portfolio -- again, because:

• I don't understand bonds; and,
• I've never understood the rationale for a life-cycle investment strategy.

I have a rolling 30-year investment horizon. 

I've also never understood the rationale for a traditional IRA over that of a Roth IRA, but that's a "story" for another day, though I have talked about it more than once on the blog. 

I digress. Back to that 60/40 stuff. If one likes 60 (equity) / 40 (bonds), why not consider 60 (growth stocks) / 40 (value stocks with dividends). 

Some energy stocks have paid over 6% year-over-year for decades. And reinvesting those dividends in those same companies have resulted in some huge positions. I'm not convinced those have been particularly great investments but the investments have never affected my quality of life, and have never caused me to lose any sleep. And now, Sophia has a pretty big position in energy companies that are paying 6% today and way, way, way more than that based on the original price paid 30 years ago. 

As mentioned not too many days ago, I was negatively impressed with the select group of high-rollers at the most recent quarterly Schwab quarterly chartbook briefing -- and they spent valuable time quibbling over 4.3% vs 4.2% returns on bonds. It seems no one was paying attention to the elephant in the room, QQQ. 

This is the type of question I would have enjoyed: does Schwab have an ETF like the QQQ? Link here.

The first question I would have asked: how can two "ETFs" with 94% correlation have such amazing different results? Assuming I'm interpreting that correctly. Are the results the same if "adjusted" for fees?

I don't know but ...