Stay on target 🎯 (a visit with my friend Charles Payne)
The Sandbox Daily (11.13.2024)
Welcome, Sandbox friends.
Today’s Daily discusses:
stay “on target”
Let’s dig in.
Markets in review
EQUITIES: Dow +0.11% | S&P 500 +0.02% | Nasdaq 100 -0.16% | Russell 2000 -0.94%
FIXED INCOME: Barclays Agg Bond -0.02% | High Yield +0.03% | 2yr UST 4.275% | 10yr UST 4.449%
COMMODITIES: Brent Crude +0.01% to $71.90/barrel. Gold -1.03% to $2,579.5/oz.
BITCOIN: +1.04% to $88,909
US DOLLAR INDEX: +0.44% to 106.486
CBOE EQUITY PUT/CALL RATIO: 0.79
VIX: -4.69% to 14.02
Quote of the day
“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
- Jimmy Dean
Stay “on target”
Today I had the pleasure of joining my guy Charles Payne on set at Fox Business for Making Money.
TV hits are always 100% terrifying so much fun ! Honestly, I don’t know how my friend/colleague/subscriber Ryan Detrick does this every day!!
The core message today is simple: “stay on target.”
Today’s economic climate seems remarkably benign and investor-friendly despite the incredible stresses and turns the economy has endured over the last five years.
Shut everything down? No wait, reopen it !
Vaccines. Recession calls. Bank runs.
You name it, there’s always been a reason to sell.
And yet, as the old Wall Street adage portends, markets climb the wall of worry higher.
Over the last few weeks, it’s been like a game of Whac-A-Mole with my kids watching one economic data release after another: 3rd quarter U.S. GDP print, October payrolls, corporate earnings one day after the next, inflation data, the U.S. Election Day, Fed cutting interest rates, and on and on.
So much information. In fact, it’s too much information.
How do we make sense of it all?
One strategist says this inflation report is amazing. Flip the channel and that strategist is poo-pooing it.
And yet, despite all the noise, the S&P 500 has gone from 2191.86 on March 19, 2020 (COVID-19 bottom) and 3491.58 on October 13, 2022 to 6000 today. That represents cumulative gains of 173% and 71% from these major market bottoms. No opinion there; prices are facts.
When you felt like puking, instead you should have been backing up the truck and moving all the chips to the center to hit the “buy” button. Easier said than done, I know.
Fast forward to today, it’s the exuberance of all-time highs that accompany the post-election Trump bump. No matter where you look, it’s all-time highs.
Imagine sitting on the sidelines while your obnoxious neighbor is yolo-ing calls on Tesla and booking 5- or 10-baggers on shitcoins.
What is an investor to do today?
My advice to investors: stick to your process.
Your gameplan and my gameplan will never be the same. And that’s ok. In fact, it’s perfectly normal. We each have our own tools in the shed.
Don’t worry about this stock or that report or your friend boasting his latest win.
Follow your indicators, understand your time horizon, manage risk appropriately.
Trends are moving higher, align with the trend. It’s that simple.
If you are not bullish in a bull market, then how are traditional long investors supposed to make money?
And remember: remain balanced, keep a level head.
Stay on target.
*** Quick programming note ***
The Sandbox Daily is off tomorrow for the iCapital Conference in New York City on Thursday 11/14. We will be back to our regularly scheduled programming on Friday 11/15.
That’s all for today.
Blake
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Welcome to The Sandbox Daily, a daily curation of relevant research at the intersection of markets, economics, and lifestyle. We are committed to delivering high-quality and timely content to help investors make sense of capital markets.
Blake Millard is the Director of Investments at Sandbox Financial Partners, a Registered Investment Advisor. All opinions expressed here are solely his opinion and do not express or reflect the opinion of Sandbox Financial Partners. This Substack channel is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. The information and opinions provided within should not be taken as specific advice on the merits of any investment decision by the reader. Investors should conduct their own due diligence regarding the prospects of any security discussed herein based on such investors’ own review of publicly available information. Clients of Sandbox Financial Partners may maintain positions in the markets, indexes, corporations, and/or securities discussed within The Sandbox Daily. Any projections, market outlooks, or estimates stated here are forward looking statements and are inherently unreliable; they are based upon certain assumptions and should not be construed to be indicative of the actual events that will occur.
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