first time ever!

remember this?? LOL

This will be good.

Even knowing how our system works I can’t believe people actually think the president alone makes or breaks the economy. Presidents are the face of the country, not it’s inner workings.

Confidence has a lot of influence. If the people believe that we have a leader who is going to make things better, it props up the stock market. If the people believe the opposite, it hurts stock prices.

That said, it's easy to inflate the stock market by printing money and devaluing the dollar. If the stock was worth $100 last year and $120 this year, you didn't win if that $120 is really now only worth $80.

Day ain't over yet.

We best hope the market holds because if we get more inflation and the interest rates stay now so the housing market does not tank there will be no incentive to save a dime in a market that will lose you a ton of money by saving it. The housing fiasco is only about 12 years behind us and recovery took about 5 years. Our memories are really getting poor, as in earlier years we typically only made the same errors a couple times a generation, not every 10th birthday. I know many feel that history is not an essential course to have in HS, but to me our lack of learning from history is getting a lot more expensive then in the past.

Bryce

Somebody must of missed Monday this week.

I dictate my own success by how hard I work and what I do with my money.

For the most part, the government only really affects me with taxes, of all forms, and jacked up monetary policy/spending. I hate taxes and the monetary policy/spending has been jacked up for a long time.

X2 bbwli. The market is only as good as long as investors believe it is. Panic set in on Monday. And that was something to see. I can only imagine what will happen if we get a 10 percent or 20 percent drop. Monday’s drop was 2.5. And the sell off was something to see.

When people are panicking, stay cool and buy. That’s what billionaires do, and if you want to have money, do what people who have money do. I wish we would have another 2008, I’d make a boatload of money. I was too young and dumb to capitalize on it then.

The problem is that my money is already invested so I don't have any available cash to invest. The only way to buy during a panic is to have your money sitting around, not making money, the rest of the time. And...you never know when you're at the bottom until it's over. If it drops 10%, do you invest? Will it go back up or will it keep falling? What if you wait for it to drop 20%? You'll miss 10 years of growth waiting for that drop. That means you were sitting on cash hoping to someday make 20% while everyone else spent that decade doubling their money just making a boring 8% per year.

My strategy is to just put as much as I can into my investments with every paycheck. When I think and try to strategize, I always lose money. Slow and steady (and boring) wins the race for me.

If you have the money and the patience you may consider real estate. With all this new found money and new found investors, housing development is booming. When the market tanks, probably want have to wait long with this administration, foreclosures will sky rocket. Might find some houses on the cheap.

Anyone invested in the market had be very careful . What goes up will come down the people running our country are not for us . The fact that printed and borrowed money will not last . Be ready to get out soon.

One might keep in mind, Biden hasn't passed any of the items on his wish list, regarding taxes/monetary policy. Nor has he ended any of Trump's tax cuts or tarrifs either. If the current party in charge gets these things done. Well, you might want to hang on to something solid. Like a steer, maybe.

While some stocks doubled and tripled after the March 2020 bottom there were other stocks that increased by 5 to tenfold from that same bottom. These were smaller conventional energy stocks. Some of these stocks are still paying 7 to 10% dividends at current prices. Yes, March 2020 was a very good time to be sitting on a little cash. I would highly recommend keeping a little powder dry for the next market tantrum. They seem to be occurring with more frequency.

All three major indexes closed at records. To me, that is much more significant than anything the Dow might do.
BUT.... I have to consider where we are and how quickly we got here.

Pretty amazing recovery from March of 2020.
On the other hand, we have easy earnings comparisons with last year. Many companies that have reported increased earnings have actually seen their stocks drop in the past two weeks.

Increasing inflation, ridiculous spending proposals, continued unemployment hand-outs, increasing unemployment numbers, proposed higher tax rates, and the possibility of a rate hike sooner than expected..........what could go wrong ?

This coming week will see more earnings reports from some big names. Will good news be good or bad for the market ? The Fed also has a two day meeting on the 27th & 28th. I expect next week to see some bumps in the road.

Here's some voo doo trivia. This July has 5 Fridays. Only 31 times since 1950 has that occurred. Two-thirds of those 5th Fridays have seen the indexes decline. Should be interesting

Biden is 1/8th of the way through his administration.

That was an amazing interesting info about July. Very interesting about the markets. Thank you White 17.

Not many way to make interest on your money now the market and real estate, oh then there is the fur market

2018

The Federal Reserve and interest rate hikes

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates four times this year. Earlier this month, at the Fed’s last meeting of 2018, Chairman Jerome Powell signaled that the central bank’s board of governors would likely issue fewer rate hikes next year, but investors were not appeased and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 352 points.

The stock market woes come despite signs that the general economy is still doing well — with record low unemployment, strong GDP growth and relatively low inflation.

After a two-day meeting, the central bank announced rates would rise a quarter of a percentage point, to a range of 2.25% to 2.5%

Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rates for Third Time in 2019

Tuesday's session capped off a strong year for the stock market: In 2019, the S&P 500 rose by 29%, the Nasdaq by 35% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 22%

"We will not raise interest rates preemptively because we think employment is too high, because we fear the possible onset of inflation," Powell told lawmakers while testifying before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. "Instead, we will wait for evidence of actual inflation or other imbalances."

Jerome should try building a house. He will find some evidence.