So thrilled with the market right now!

[Dog]

Our portfolio is just below it’s high point from last year. No complaints as I’m in year five of a 72t on my IRA which is 60% of our portfolio. I will give a big sigh of relief if I can get through five years of withdrawals from my IRA and still end with a higher balance (was worried about the sequence of returns threat).

 

[dtbach]

I'm finding this a great time to rebalance my portfolio to a more conservative style. I'm sure it will still climb after I sell stocks, but I think I'll be able to sleep better when the bull dies at some point.

 

[audreyh1]

We are still a ways from our high water mark in late Jan 2018.

 

[foxfirev5]

We are just about at our high water mark of 2018. However it is largely due to appreciation of our brokered CD's. Not too impressive.

 

[Lsbcal]

We are still a ways from our high water mark in late Jan 2018.

Same here. We are about 2% from it. That kitchen remodel last year took a chunk but we did it before the fall sell off. Fortunate timing.

 

[W2R]

Well, the Dow may have gone down a (very) few points yesterday, but my portfolio went up a little more, so I had ANOTHER all time high to record.

And another all time high today!!! Unbelievable! Every single day!

This is eerily reminiscent of the days of Wh.... (oh well, I didn't actually SAY it...)

 

[MarieIG]

And another all time high today!!! Unbelievable! Every single day!

This is eerily reminiscent of the days of Wh.... (oh well, I didn't actually SAY it...)

 

[SecondCor521]

And another all time high today!!! Unbelievable! Every single day!

This is eerily reminiscent of the days of Wh.... (oh well, I didn't actually SAY it...)

 

[Another Reader]

Say, W2R, maybe you should go car shopping tomorrow, instead of posting Wh- like exclamations here!

 

[GravitySucks]

Think I'll rebalance a wee bit to cover the new roof. I have the money set aside in bonds that are maturing tomorrow, but I'm a little off on the AA.

 

[steelyman]

DowDuPont (DWDP) recently spun off Dow (DOW) and GoogleFinance was slow on the uptake, associating the ticker “DOW” with a company called “Downer EDI” (great name for a stock, huh?) and its share price.

The result was a slightly muted tally for my brokerage account and no resulting “w*” psychological effect (that’s short for “W2R”, right?).

It seems to be fixed now, though.

 

[Lsbcal]

I'm feeling really good about my portfolio right now ... dangerous? Whenever I feel either really good or really bad I update my decades chart.

YMMV, but what I see is that the blue line (our current decade) has a slope maybe a bit better then the 7% growth slope (red dashed line) in the last 60 months. That is in line with historical results. So I'd worry (more) if the returns accelerated (higher slope) on this chart.

You can see the higher slope leading up to the October 1987 crash (black line, with decline at about the 90 month point on X-axis). But notice even that 1980's rise took a few years to play out. Of course, history is always a bit different going forward.

 

[street]

^ that is a very interesting chart. Thanks for sharing it.

I'm also excited about where the market is now. I keep telling myself not to get to excited because I know what is coming someday. I'm very close to another milestone just a very small 4 digit number away. A positive day today of any kind might push me over. I been pushed over before and will be exciting to go over again. Lol

 

[NW-Bound]

I always like lsbcal's above chart, which gives a feel of the market history at a glance.

Perhaps the wonderful return of the last 10 years is not so bad, bad meaning irrational, as it comes after the miserable lost decade of 2000-2009, which we also deserved because of all the dotcoms and tech stock excesses.

OK. I will pause on writing covered call options today.

 

[Ready-4-ER-at-14]

I'm finding this a great time to rebalance my portfolio to a more conservative style. I'm sure it will still climb after I sell stocks, but I think I'll be able to sleep better when the bull dies at some point.

Also a tad anxious and I am specifically wary of next Friday. Options expire third Friday of month and people seem to be cashing out a week early lately.
I sold part of some triple cost gains in tax deferred accounts to buy some cds at 3.1% out maybe 10ish years. The switch was quite cash flow positive.

It amounted to 1% of stock holdings so is technically minimal rebalancing.

 

[Lsbcal]

I always like lsbcal's above chart, which gives a feel of the market history at a glance.

Perhaps the wonderful return of the last 10 years is not so bad, meaning irrational, as it comes after the miserable lost decade of 2000-2009, which we also deserved because of all the dotcoms and tech stock excesses.

OK. I will pause on writing covered call options today.

Thanks.

Keying on that "irrational" word, I have never read Shiller's Irrational Exuberance but now I have a hold on it at the library. In a recent Bloomberg interview, Shiller put a high value on the emotional factor that leads millions to their spending and investing decisions. He's very up front that we just don't know how to model such behavior and even with confidence surveys it's still a guess as to the market forward moves.

 

[NW-Bound]

Darn investors are a crazy bunch, who race themselves in a stampede. The problem is you don't know when they reverse course and running to or fro.

I am looking at my main trading account right now. The market still has 25 minutes until close.

Dow is up 0.17%, S&P up 0.44%, NASDAQ up 0.59%. This single account is up 0.80%. And that is with a short of 20 call option contracts, which show up as increasingly negative on the account. And I still have 30% in cash. Else, I would be up even higher.

Buyers are bidding up many of the stocks that I have: semiconductors, biotech, energy. Will they still love them as much comes next week? Next month?

 

[street]

NW-Bound>>> semiconductors I would think would be a great stock to be part of. With spring here there is always a huge demand for industry to use that type of product.

 

[NW-Bound]

There is not a seasonal effect that one can observe on chip demand. This cyclical industry goes through cycles that can last a few years. I don't know what drives the chip demand now. Smartphones are not that hot anymore, and there's no pent-up demand for people to update their PCs.

I was at Fry's Electronics recently, and reported elsewhere on this forum that traffic was poor, some empty shelves were not restocked, the few employees wandering the store not having much to do, only 1/4 of the cash registers being manned.

Who are using these chips being produced? Of course I can only observe at the retail level, while a lot of electronics is used in the infrastructure, cloud servers, Web servers, etc...

 

[Lsbcal]

Isn't all that analysis of the semiconductor industry baked into the prices already? Or are those professional analysts not doing their jobs?

I don't know where one goes to get really good insights on future trends. I've looked at some growth stocks that have boomed in the past and it seems to me that it was very hard to anticipate the next big thing. Like the Apple iPhone. I certainly didn't see that coming and I was right there in Silicon Valley (but not a consumer of such a product). I love Netflix but didn't take the plunge there either. And Amazon, it was always priced high and I'm a big consumer there but don't own the stock.

I think many foreign investors go for US growth stocks probably because they cannot find comparable opportunities in other developed markets like in Europe.

If I were looking for a growth stock I'd probably hunt in the midcaps.

 

[street]

Doesn't the electric industry use the semiconductor market? That industry can be on and off as well depending on economy etc.. I still would think it is a very good market to be invested in.

Have you tracked if there has been a pattern of better time of the years which is better?

 

[W2R]

And another all time high today!!! Unbelievable! Every single day!

And today, too! Every single day of this entire week. I like this...

 

[NW-Bound]

Isn't all that analysis of the semiconductor industry baked into the prices already? Or are those professional analysts not doing their jobs?

I don't know where one goes to get really good insights on future trends. I've looked at some growth stocks that have boomed in the past and it seems to me that it was very hard to anticipate the next big thing. Like the Apple iPhone. I certainly didn't see that coming and I was right there in Silicon Valley (but not a consumer of such a product). I love Netflix but didn't take the plunge there either. And Amazon, it was always priced high and I'm a big consumer there but don't own the stock.

I think many foreign investors go for US growth stocks probably because they cannot find comparable opportunities in other developed markets like in Europe.

If I were looking for a growth stock I'd probably hunt in the midcaps.

There are analysts in every sector. But while it is easy to see the status quo and to come up with the explanation for that, predicting the future is tough like you said.

Have you been to the Tesla thread to see if people agree on anything? And even when you have the majority agreeing on something, the crowd often turns out to be wrong too.

And in investing, timing is of utmost importance. You can bet on a downbeat sector, believing that it will come back. And unless that sector is another proverbial horse buggy industry, it will come back at some point. But if it takes too long, your dead money invested there will return less than the overall market and you trail the indexers.

 

[Lsbcal]

...

And in investing, timing is of utmost importance. You can bet on a downbeat sector, believing that it will come back. And unless that sector is another proverbial horse buggy industry, it will come back at some point. But if it takes too long, your dead money invested there will return less than the overall market and you trail the indexers.

Timing sure is crucial. One needs special information or a well informed mind to take advantage of that. I've never figured out how I would bet on short term timing (minutes, days, or a few months). Once I bet on a gold company stock and made a quick return. But really I had to admit I didn't know what I was doing. It was just that the stock appeared to be temporarily mildly down. Not a good methodology.

Another time I bought a lottery ticket and won $9 for my $1 invested. Other then that one time I have never played the lottery since. Why mess with a winning record?

But I am a market timer in the longer term. Just haven't pulled the trigger yet since I studied this in 2009. The trigger is cocked with the flat yield curve.

 

[NW-Bound]

We are still a ways from our high water mark in late Jan 2018.

I don't think I have seen you saying anything about the composition of your portfolio over the years, other than having a lot of Apple. But if you topped out in late Jan 2018, you are definitely not an indexer.

I topped out on Jan 26, 2018. I gained 8% YTD on that day, only to lose 11% from Jan 26 to Feb 08. Do people here still remember the crash of the volatility funds that spread to the overall market? Talk about the tail wagging the dog!

I need another 5% to get back there. Part of that 5% is the 3% WR since.

Doesn't the electric industry use the semiconductor market? That industry can be on and off as well depending on economy etc.. I still would think it is a very good market to be invested in.

Have you tracked if there has been a pattern of better time of the years which is better?

No, there's no seasonal variation to the stock price of the semi sector. It is highly volatile, and after the crazy run up in 2000, the sector lost 80% of its value, and took 15 years to recover.

Of course, the sector is nowhere as highly valued like in 2000, and quite a few stocks even sport P/E lower than that of the overall market.