It is getting to be “Old Hat” each week seeing another record close.
Not to look a “gift Horse” in the mouth, but I do wonder how long this can go.
It’s noteworthy that gold bugs have driven the price of gold to record levels at the same time.
It’s not getting any better in the Middle East or in Ukraine.
An election is upon us in a month.
I am beyond concerned about growing deficit.
That is a large “Wall of Worry” and this market is climbing it like it is a “Mole Hill.”
We will get another jobs report this Friday that may indicate the strength of the economy.
Much to evaluate on where we go from here.
For me there is little value out there outside of financials and a couple of fallen angles.
I am intrigued by Intel as it may actually fight its way back.
Many had given GE up for dead, but the sum of the various divested parts are starting to make back much of what was lost.
In both cases, though, there is so much lost ground to recover.
That is one of the problems with value stocks.
They got to where they are for real reasons.
The AI factor seems to be losing steam. The realization is that it will take time to monetize the
benefits outside of the chip makers.
There is no doubt that AI will change the economy much like the internet did a couple of decades ago.
We have the obvious early winners and now to see who else will reap the rewards.
It did not take long for a savvy business man like Larry Ellison at Oracle to get into the game.
We have seen Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet and Amazon jump into the action.
Most of the previously mentioned players are piling into the data centers that will be required to support AI.
An interesting player in AI is the utility sector.
These immense data centers will use up significant amounts of energy.
This will require the construction of a significant amount of energy generation plants.
We now see the rebirth of nuclear power. Remarkable how environmentalists have grown silent over the impact of a nuclear meltdown.
As we have seen in the past such actually happens.
The supposedly new trend is to downsize these plants. No matter how you do it, electric rates will increase. That is not what consumers need at this point with inflation.
You might see activists realize that natural gas isn’t as bad as they thought.
I will say that historically, we are coming into one of the best trading parts of the year.
The Holiday season has been a good time for the value of your retirement account.
You take that with a honeymoon after a Presidential election and this could make for a three-plus month of profits.
One factor driving this climb north will be the drop in the Fed Funds rate.
There is so much cash on the sidelines and it won’t get as high a yield as it did earlier this year.
We are probably will see the Fed Funds rate drop down to around 3.5%.
That is over a point away from where we are right now.
It only makes sense that the Fed will have at least two more quarter-point cuts this year taking us down nearer 4%.
It seems that you have a real chance to see your retirement account grow into 2026, no matter what else is happening in the world. Nothing goes on forever and 2026 could really prove however to be quite challenging.