How are you feeling about the economy and your investments

[Easto]

Personally I think things are getting better. I'm only down about 10% from my all time highs before the latest downturn earlier this year. My hope is to see the S+P 500 around 4600 by the end of the year. Also, I don't seem to be hearing as many people complaining about higher prices. I think everyone has come up with their own way to stretch their dollar. People are buying more off-brand items and really looking for discounts.

[Paft]

I'm not too keen on the current economic state, especially with investments. I've been down much more than I've been up over the last three years, and given the BS that was the debt ceiling negotiation, plus the massive case of irrational exuberance over AI that's causing a deep gutting of mid-level jobs and hostility towards the middle class ... it doesn't look too good to me for the future.

[Easto]

I've stayed mostly in Index and various Growth funds and although I did take a hit earlier this year I'm feeling pretty good. I think one of the things that really hurts the market is there is way too much of a knee-jerk reaction that is perpetuated through social media. People who shouldn't be in the market are making singular picks and choices that they know nothing about. Then when they win or lose it's all over social media, when in fact that up or down move really means nothing.

[Philip]

Inflation is cooling down, report just came out today it is at 4% now. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-sta ... lation-cpi
The interest rate hikes seem to be working, Fed will likely pause further increases tomorrow until the end of the summer, and the market seems to be happy about it.
Still, there is a bit too much euphoria imho, it's been going up riding the AI wave and expectations of inflation cooling down, I think there may be a correction/pause coming up one of these days.
Banks are still shaky from the interest rate hikes, small businesses seem to be complaining about no available minimum-wage workers, rents and real-estate are still both sky-high, etc. Higher cost of borrowing will have to affect the economy eventually, it's still playing catch-up.

Things seem a bit too rosy for my taste, I'm very cautious where I want to get in at those prices.

The debt ceiling will always get raised, the fact is elected officials from both parties will always opt to print more money instead of reducing their salaries, spending, entitlements, etc. This in turn affects inflation, which is essentially tax on everyone's savings (well those that do have savings). The rate of return on portfolios has to keep up with the speed of money printing essentially, just to thread water. However, the US dollar is still one of the most stable currencies, the only other alternatives are real-estate (illiquid and taxed), maybe gold (lagging returns), knowing your investments well, or some type of close to perfect diversification.

[YeOldeStonecat]

I'd love to see S&P back up past 4,600 maybe 4,700 again real soon too...but I'm not too hopeful of it getting there by end of this year. Sure wish it would, since I'm very aggressive in my 401k.

I know the official numbers paint inflation in mid single digits...but I really feel it's been at LEAT in the teens (double digits). Compare your grocery bill, eating out bill, gas bill, electric bill, etc...this year, last year, and go back to 2018 or 2019. Yeah there's more than a single digit difference. But that's what the incumbents do...falsify the unemployment numbers to make things look better.

Have a bit of AMD stock and Ubiquiti (UI) stock....as with other tech stock in the recent years, they've been plummeting. Glad to see them going back up again. UI has a way to crawl back to where they were, hopefully they'll get there. I expect AMD to really take off again by end of this year, yesterday they announced their new AI chip, intending to give front runner nVidia a real run for the money...possibly knock them off the pedestal, the AMD chip has better specs. What's been keeping AMD stock a little low lately is they've had slower than expected delivery rates on their Epyc high end server CPU..

Yup, the debt ceiling will always be a can kicked down the road by the incumbents. Nobody in our gov't...either side...will ever stare it down and address it.

[MadDoctor]

The debt ceiling will always be a can kicked down the road by the incumbents. Nobody in our gov't...either side...will ever stare it down and address it.

What he said.

[Easto]

I know the official numbers paint inflation in mid single digits...but I really feel it's been at LEAT in the teens (double digits). Compare your grocery bill, eating out bill, gas bill, electric bill, etc...this year, last year, and go back to 2018 or 2019. Yeah there's more than a single digit difference. But that's what the incumbents do...falsify the unemployment numbers to make things look better.

I do agree that it could possibly be in the "double digits". Everything you've mentioned has probably gone up at least 15% in my experience. I pay the bills and I see it. But I think we are also more flexible and adaptable that we give ourselves credit for. Sure, I enjoyed going out to restaurants with my wife. 3 years ago we might have gone out at least 3 times a week, now we only go out about every other week (once). What I'm guess I'm trying to say is that it's not as hard to adjust and ease the pain as it might seem.

[YeOldeStonecat]

What I'm guess I'm trying to say is that it's not as hard to adjust and ease the pain as it might seem.

Very true. Those who consume luxuries...can certainly cut back. My wife and I are foodies also, and enjoy going out to restaurants...and we order up fancy stuff, appetizers, the better cuts of steaks, drinks, desert....the habit was at least several times a week. And for the past 5 years living the high life at the marina, on the boat, and as is typical for me...heading up huge fancy cookouts at the marina. Not hot dogs and hamburgers..but big fancy stuff with a lot of sides...we'd gather up several of the grills and do massive feasts at the marina with our dock friends.

Sold the boat 2 months ago...as, this year we're laying low...prepping to sell the house up here and move to FL in January.
Will probably be a lateral move budget wise for us, as CT is expensive, and FL recently became quite expensive, and we're moving to SW Florida which is..and expensive part of FL. Open up a SW FL branch of the biz!

But yeah, regardless of how fast we're burning money at the house, inflation rates, from what I see, are easily double digits..not that 4, 6, or 7% stuff the incumbents try to downplay it as. I do our grocery shopping, I see the electric bill, the internet bill, the other utilities, the clothes shopping, the runs to the hardware store for "stuff for the house", I do lots of ordering at our office and have seen the climbs in computer prices, network hardware prices, especially the shipping prices (from the disties that don't offer free shipping...but when our normal distie is out of stock and you NEED the part(s)..you order from the others). I hear the grumblings from staff here about COL. We did a 10% pay raise for all last fall, and that's all we could do, didn't cover the COL increase for everyone but it slowed the bleed.

[Easto]

Sold the boat 2 months ago...as, this year we're laying low...prepping to sell the house up here and move to FL in January.

So... FL doesn't have any extradition agreement with CT?

[Philip]

Snow birds like YSCat are causing real-estate price spikes down here in FL when they sell their fancy houses up in CT, hemm

[Easto]

Snow birds like YSCat are causing real-estate price spikes down here in FL when they sell their fancy houses up in CT, hemm

Next thing you know he's going to start putting Biden signs out on the lawn.

[Philip]

Oh well, our governor has us locked up so tight with all those latinas, we can use some Yankee diversity I suppose

[YeOldeStonecat]

Hah....
Wife and I have roots in Florida (oddly enough family from her side and my side...Boyton Beach)
But we're not fans of the east coast, we'll be in south west coast...more conservative there too! (even though CT is a blue state...I'm historically red).

We won't be bringing the "the way we did it up north" attitude....we already have the southern ways of doing things in our blood. We're down there 3-4 times a year anyways for the past 15 years, may as well live there.
Philip...targeting Englewood area...I love Rotonda West, Cape Haze/Placida area. Maybe Englewood East (more X flood zone there too). Possibly Nokomis...we do like Nokomis.

Had a slight detour of the Crystal River area for a while, Dunnellon, Homosassa Springs. We spent time there last winter and loved the gorgeous spring areas. So for a little bit we started thinking about moving there. But we don't want to have to drive a long way to get to the beach. Will have to rent for a year or so as insurance companies are settling down and cooling their butts from Ian.

[Philip]

Crystal River area is very quiet in general, if you don't count the few tourists and scallopers, it is somewhat far from civilization. Venice/Fort Myers areas have grown tremendously in the past 20 years, beaches are closer..
I like the mid-lower west coast, if I had my pick I'd take anything South from St. Pete down to Ft Myers maybe, I like Longboat Key, Siesta Key, haven't explored much of Rotonda west/Boca Grande in many years. Generally as you know it is more touristy and lively from Clearwater down, a lot more intracoastal areas/barrier islands too.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yeah we've deeply familiar with..Brandenton...and south all the way to Marco Isl Know every neighborhood very well between those two, know every street of Anna Maria Island (stayed there several times a year for 15 years), south...Longboat, Lido, Siesta Key (stayed there many many many times)...throughout Sarasota, Osprey, Nokomis, Venice, Englewood.

Rotonda West, Placida, Cape Haze is a "corner"...mainland side of Don Pedro Island..and Boca Grande. Which are just south of Manasota Key.
This is north of Ft Myers a bit. I say "corner"...because if you look at say, Placida...and north of Englewood...those are protected lands, won't develop much more. It's an interesting corner that won't get too busy. Been there during peak snowbird season...nice not seeing a stream of cars on the road.

[Philip]

Sounds good, I also like quiet corners still a driving distance to something lively. I know where it is, just haven't been in that area exploring in many years and it all expanded in population a lot down there.