Saturday, April 5, 2025

Stock Market 2025

 

    

 

 


I write this post over the weekend after two days of alarming declines in the stock market apparently due to President Trump’s imposition of new tariffs. I do not know whether the market will continue to sink on Monday or rebound. But I thought it might be a good idea to look at recent market performance and perhaps draw some conclusions. Let’s take a look at some specific examples of what has happened over the past five days, over the past 12 months, and over the past five years.

 

Here are the figures for the three most popular market averages over the past five days, the past 12 months, and over the past five years. 

 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down about 8% over the past 5 days, and down 1% over the past year. Despite the recent decline, it is up 82% over the past 5 years, an average of about 16% per year. Not bad! The broader Standard and Poor 500 index is down about 9% over the past 5 days, and down 1% over the past year. Despite the recent decline, it is up 103% over the past 5 years, an average of over 20% per year. The tech heavy NASDAQ index is down about 10% over the past 5 days, and down 3% over the past year. However, it is still up 111% over the past 5 years, even better than the other averages.

 

Here are performance figures of some individual stocks.

 

Apple is down about 14% over the past 5 days, but still up 14% over the past year. Over the past 5 years it is up 212%, an average of over 40% per year.

 

Retailer Costco is down only 1% over the past 5 days, but still up 30% over the past year. Over the past 5 years it is up 218%, an average of over 40% per year. Retailer Walmart is down only 2% over the past 5 days, but still up 40% over the past year. Over the past 5 years it is up 109%, an average of about 20% per year.

 

Tech giant NVIDIA is down 14% over the past 5 days, but still up 10% over the past year. Over the past 5 years it is up a whopping 1447%, an average of almost 300% per year. Tesla, despite the systematic campaign against Elon Musk, is down only 9% over the past 5 days, but still up 40% over the past year. Over the past 5 years it is up 648%, an average of over 120% per year.

 

Major utility Southern Company is down 2% over the past 5 days, but still up 27% over the past year. Over the past 5 years it is up a respectable 77% an average of about 15% per year, not bad for a utility. ATT (T) is down only 5% over the past 5 days, but still up 52% over the past year. However, it is only up 28% in the past five years, an average of about 5% per year. In the past year “T” has made a remarkable comeback.

 

It would appear that ordinary people whose 401k or IRA is invested in index funds or individual stocks are still way ahead of the game whether they are approaching retirement or not. The biggest mistake that people can make is to change their investment strategy as they approach retirement. These days most people’s retirement years will be longer than their working years. Investments for retirement should be long term since you will need the income for decades. 

 

For those worried about tariffs and inflation, at least the price of stocks has gone down in the past week. As I said at the outset of this post, I do not know what will happen next week in the market, but sooner or later the computers programmed to buy and sell at certain levels will start buying as prices decline, just as they have been selling and taking profits after five years of gains.

 

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Tuesday, April 1, 2025

DOGE Team Interview

No matter what you think of President Trump and Elon Musk, you owe it to yourself to view last week's interview of Elon Musk and his DOGE team by Bret Baier on Special Report, his daily evening news show on Fox News. Here is a link to the interview that was broadcast in two segments. Even if you just listen to the first 15 minutes, you will find it to be a real eye opening on Musk and his team. 

Here is just one example of what you will find. The Small Business administration has given out about $300,000,000 in loans to children under the age of 11. One loan for $100,000 even went to a nine-month- old infant. In addition, it has given out another $300,000,000 to people over the age of 120. Obviously, the government could not protect itself from fraudsters who steal the Social Security numbers of newborns, or deceased seniors and use them to steal money that could have been used for legitimate purposes. 

It is not that the government officials who approved these loans were corrupt, but the systems and procedures they used were antiquated and inefficient. If the Small Business administration's computers had been able to check the birthdates available on Social Security computers, the fraud could not have happened. Of course, these loans will never be paid back. When the infant enters adulthood, it will find a major blot on its credit rating.

These SBA loans are just a small part of what the DOGE team has found in just a couple of months. Musk claims that he hopes to eliminate a Trillion dollars 0f waste and fraud, and he has assembled what appears to be an extremely competent team. If they can reduce fraud, and eliminate wasteful spending, they will perform a great service. Just the other day, a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the Federal government had been regularly sending Medicaid reimbursements to more than one state for individuals who had moved. 

The interview also provided an insight into the type of people Musk has on his DOGE team. They are not nineteen-year-old whiz kids but experienced and talented business leaders and technocrats. One was the founder of AIR BNB, and another had taken leave from  five thriving businesses he owned in Texas to serve.  

It will be a shame if many refuse to watch this interview because they dislike Trump or Musk, or because it appeared on deplorable Fox News. As far as the latter is concerned, these people should be aware that Bret Baier has carved out a niche for himself on "Special Report." It occupies the 6:00 pm time slot and comes closer to the iconic news shows of the past than any other. Unlike the opinion shows on Fox and other cable news networks, it strives to be fair and balanced. It has become, for good reason, the highest rated news show on TV. Since the beginning of the year the Prime Minister of England, Emanuel Macron of France, and Ukraine's Zelensky have all been interviewed by Baier on Special Report. 

The interview with Musk and his Doge team is perhaps the best of the lot. It is worth 15 minutes of your time. Click on the link above or watch the video below.

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Monday, March 24, 2025

Ukraine: Stop the Killing

                                           

 



Even the most inveterate Trump hater should at least be able to give the President some credit for wanting to stop the killing in Ukraine. I know they distrust anything he says, and fear that he will strike a bad deal with Russia, but the older I get, the more I think that putting an end to the killing and ravages of war transcends all other considerations. 

As the saying goes, “War is Hell” but many commentators on both sides seem to regard it as a game that can be won or lost. However, would any of these pundits be willing to participate on an actual battlefield? It is always the young men on both sides who will bear the burden and face the horror.

A couple of years ago I read and posted on Lawrence Kirby’s Stories from the Pacific, a book about his experience as a young Marine in World War II. I was told about this book by my brother-in-law Richard Gardella who knew Larry Kirby briefly before the former Marine died at the age of 99 in a Senior residence. The stories in Kirby’s book are a real eye opener and at times extremely heart rending. 

In one especially moving chapter he describes one incident that took place while fighting in the jungle of the island of Guam. He was on a scouting mission when suddenly he came upon a young Japanese soldier about 20 feet away. Their eyes met in stunned silence but after a brief pause the Japanese hurled a grenade and Kirby rushed him and opened fire. Kirby was wounded by the grenade shrapnel, but the Japanese soldier was dead. Kirby never forgot that tragic experience. Years later he wrote this poem.

I met a youthful enemy 

My fear reflected in his eye

I loathed him not, nor did he me

But we must fight and one must die.

No longer boys but not yet men

Just sad young soldiers sick with fright

Flag and face our difference then

One’s timeless sleep would come that night

Panic grew with every breath

I had to kill, I had to try.

Why do I seek a stranger’s death?

With vain despair I wondered why?

I could be his friend, not foe

Such wish was true, not foolish whim.

The brave, young lad will never know.

With tragic skill I murdered him.

Long years have passed since when he fell

My heart still aches, no sense of pride.

Though I seem here I live in hell.

On that cruel day I also died. *

Lawrence Kirby believed that soldiers did not like to talk about their experiences mainly because no one would believe how horrible war could be for the young men who actually fought. He wrote, 

"The ultimate desecration of the human spirit is the conscious activity of cruel inhumanity, predicated and justified—at least in the minds of those who sent us—as noble and patriotic duty, a privilege and responsibility accepted willingly by only the brave, offering their lives in this crusade and, further, willing to kill other equally brave and misguided young men in the cause of patriotism and in the name of duty…. (53)

My war ended with Iwo Jima. I was one of the very lucky few to survive the terrible bloodshed. It was my last campaign, thank God. The killing, the screaming, the torn bodies, the shattered limbs the suffering—it had become too much to handle! There were times when I thought I would welcome death. Ending the terror seemed more important than living." (56)

It seems to me that all Americans should unite behind the President in his efforts to stop the killing. I don't believe it will be as easy as the President initially thought, but it would certainly help if, on this one issue, he had the support of a united America.   

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*Lawrence F. Kirby: Stories from the Pacific. P. 102

Monday, March 17, 2025

Irish Heritage

    

On St. Patrick's Day I repeat an earlier post on our debt to the Irish.                                          


Practically everyone must know that the great migration of the Irish to America took place after the terrible potato famine of the mid-nineteenth century. However, even before that disaster the Irish had been the subject of persecution going back to the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century when King Henry VIII seized control of the English church. 

The Irish were longtime enemies of the English and when Henry, who considered himself King of Ireland as well as England, attacked their thousand-year-old faith the enmity only grew worse. Later, Henry’s daughter Elizabeth tried unsuccessfully to subdue the Irish Catholics throughout her reign. After the Puritan revolution in England in the mid-seventeenth century, Oliver Cromwell brutally suppressed Irish resistance. By the end of the century William and Mary, after driving Mary’s Catholic father James from the English throne, delivered another devastating blow to the Irish at the battle of the Boyne.

The almost perpetual Irish resistance led the English and their Protestant friends in Ireland to pass penal laws that had the effect of depriving most Irish Catholics of all their rights including the right to their own confiscated properties. 

Many Irish left their homeland for good in the century before the great famine. They were sometimes called the “wild geese” and many of them made a name for themselves in Europe. In the nineteenth century the ruling family in Serbia was the Obrenovich family, heirs no doubt of some Irish O’Brien. Years ago, Ed Obradovich played linebacker for the Chicago Bears. His family must have come from central Europe but there must have been a Brady ancestor. I recall meeting a Polish American priest whose name, Okonski, must have derived from O’Conner. John Konecny, a long ago squash buddy, looked as Irish as Paddy's pig.

When the Irish came to America, they didn’t starve because of the availability of jobs and land. Nevertheless, despite separation of Church and State in America, the Irish were still objects of prejudice and discrimination primarily because of their Catholicism. I recall an American historian saying that the most long lasting and abiding prejudice in America was directed not against Jews or Blacks but against Catholics. That assertion may be disputed by some but the KKK was so called because its hatred was directed against Koons, Kikes, and Katholics.

Just because national or ethnic groups have been victimized by prejudice and discrimination does not mean that they themselves cannot practice such behavior when given the opportunity. Growing up in New York City in the 40s and 50s I vividly recall that only Irish need apply for membership in the City’s Transit Workers Union. I have never forgotten the resentment of my mother-in-law when her Italian parents were told by an Irish priest that they did not belong in predominately Irish St. John’s church and that they should attend the Italian church in town. 

Still, the success of the Irish in America means that we all are in their debt. I would just like to give a few personal examples. I was born and raised in the Woodside section of Queens, a neighborhood after WW2 made up largely of the descendants of Irish and Italian immigrants. My best friend was my cousin Pete whose father’s ancestry was Irish and German. Pete’s father, my Uncle Pete, was a New York City policeman who always seemed all Irish to me, and so did my cousin even though his mother was Italian. My next best friend was Dermot (Dermie) Woods whose family was very Irish. Both of Dermie’s older brothers had served in the Navy during the war.

St. Mary Help of Christians, my parochial elementary school, matched the ethnic make up of Woodside. There were some Italian kids in my class, but the majority was Irish. I still remember Richie Moylan, John Regan, Tom Fay, Charley Dunphy, and top student Pat Ryan who would go on to become a Jesuit priest and get a doctorate from Harvard in Islamic studies. His father was a saloon keeper. 

Most of the nuns were of Irish ancestry. They were of the order of St. Dominic and their formidable black and white habits helped them keep almost perfect order in classes sometimes numbering over 50 students. Only years later did I come to find out that many of them were barely out of their teens and still attending college.

It seemed natural for me to follow cousin Pete to Power Memorial high school in Manhattan. Power was a Catholic school for boys run by the Irish Christian Brothers whose most famous graduate would be Lou Alcindor, who would later call himself Kareem Abdul Jabbar. I still remember some of the Irish brothers with great affection and respect. There was Brother Hehir, my first home room teacher, a saintly innocent old man who was the butt of innumerable pranks and jokes by us “dirty little stinkers.” No one fooled around with wise old Brother Gleason, however. He was the Latin teacher with a passionate love of ancient Rome. Only years later did I discover that it was the Irish who had saved Western Civilization during the Dark Ages when monks in the mold of Brother Gleason preserved and later revived the lore and wisdom of antiquity. Finally, I remember Brother Conefrey who ran our honors class and exposed us modern barbarians to the wonders of English literature. 

Monastery Iona*

For some reason that still remains unclear to me I went to college at Fordham University, a famed Jesuit school in the Bronx. The Jesuits had been founded in the sixteenth century by Ignatius of Loyola, a young soldier from the Basque country in what is now northwestern Spain, but the Jesuit fathers at Fordham seemed to be largely of Irish ancestry. Nevertheless, in 1957 they taught and revered an old curriculum based on a model devised during the Renaissance. We studied Western philosophy, theology, history (eight credits in medieval history were required), rhetoric, literature, and language under scholars named O’ Sullivan, O’Callaghan, Mc Nally, Walsh and Clark. 

Three cheers for the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. 

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* Iona photo courtesy of David Orme.