November 2023

My webmaster is going with his bride to France for the month of November. I am not computer literate except to hunt and peck when writing and rebooting when anything goes wrong. So, you'll have to survive without my words of wisdom from the land of milk and honey for the rest of the month. You'll be hearing from me in December.

4 November 2023

We have Covid (we're OK but tired) so this is going to be short. Last week when we loaded up on stocks, we were slightly worried that we might be misreading our tea leaves. But then Chairman Powell spoke, Treasuries rallied and all was right with Mr. Market. The end of week rally allowed us to get back to a much more comfortable cash position while locking in profits and getting most accounts back to their yearly highs up 10% to 16%.

Over the past several years the September/early October pull back has been followed by a rally into Mid November and then another swoon into year end with a big rally in January. We shall see.

We eliminated our retailers except Tapestry (Kathy's favorite) and VF Corp (crashed this week-overdone) because we want to get through November earnings season to reconsider.

We also sold our banks except Fifth Third. Last week no guru liked banks. Now rates are going to drop to 0% and banks will be in the gravy not grave as they were in March. Happily, 4% C/D rates are finally letting savers obtain decent returns after suffering through 10 years of famine while the Big Boys and Girls enjoyed the plenty.

Target, Disney and Zoom earnings come this month. We banked a profit on TGT and DIS and will await the reaction. We made the $6 yearly dividend in 3M in a month and since we aren't sure they'll keep it with the billions they owe and so we move on.

With the crazies in control of the House of Representatives we were uncomfortable with our fully invested posture and so we are thankful for the rally to allow us to lighten up.

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