Drill baby drill will definitely be a theme for the incoming administration. Any suggestions on how best to capitalize on that?

Fill up the tank and go for a drive?
Gas is under 3 bucks for the first time since we moved to the Phoenix metro eight years ago. Under the circumstances, why would they want to drill?

Exactly the point. Why don't the Saudis pump more? Why do they host summits to set limiting output figures? They're trying to keep prices up on the commodity. If the price drops, a lot of production becomes financially imprudent. Add to that, there is only so much refining capacity available; oil is of little use without refining. People have naive notions of what is helpful and what is not, and often overlook financial restraints.

Drill baby drill will definitely be a theme for the incoming administration. Any suggestions on how best to capitalize on that?

Fill up the tank and go for a drive?
Gas is under 3 bucks for the first time since we moved to the Phoenix metro eight years ago. Under the circumstances, why would they want to drill?

Drill baby drill will definitely be a theme for the incoming administration. Any suggestions on how best to capitalize on that?

I've owned midstream LP Energy Transfer for 2 or 3 years. Ticker = ET.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ET/

I may have had ATP for years, not sure and could well be wrong, and my trade frequency certainly has never hit it, but perhaps the criteria were different back when

Dunno...when you have yellen issuing multiplies of standard deviation of short term tbills to keep bond volatility and rates suppressed to allegedly get her gal elected, I said allegedly...and lots of government debt rolling off over the next few years into higher interest debt..along with our right fudging of employment, questionable inflation numbers...and now if the market dips we won't have ole yeller "becoming concerned" and thus juicing the markets at every slight down turn .. something about the tga and still very high liquidity...how can anyone think this is not command and control manipulation related to political chicanery? What's the old joke. The markets are not like a casino, in a casino you can lose money. Love the cray cry about the end of democracy...please. for sure with Biden and Harris we were going down that path. Talk to any cuban living in Miami or an elder who lived under Tito. They'll tell you Biden and Harris were following the same playbook....start with universities with the young people, control the media, assert control over the population, be divisive, state outrageous lies repeatedly...

”Since 2000, I invest based on what has worked lately.”

I suspect most people do. They just don’t like to admit it.
Sounds just a bit like the

”trend following” tactic discussed by Meb Faber in this week’s Barron’s. (Perhaps once known affectionately as “Student body left! Student body right!”)

I read Faber years ago; his funds have not done well; the devil is in the details. After years of tweaking, my conclusions are: a human must interfere to make the right decision; automatic trades don't work. Markets change all the time. You must be nimble, expect the worst, know when high risk is really elevated...and keep tweaking and looking in the back mirror.
Lastly, investing based on politics is really bad idea, especially when you have XXX.

Buffett has been increasing cash for 2 years already.
The stock Berkshire Hathaway performance is similar to the SP500 which is unique to B.
Most investors who invested a high % in cash lagged the SP500 by a lot.
What can I learn from him? not much...wait, I based my system on B rules but tweaked it to my goals and temperament, and it worked pretty well.
I'm invested at 99+%. I can sell or buy anytime everything, Buffet can't. That's what happens when you have so muchhhhhhhhhhh money, you lose flexibility.
I have an idea for B, buy the SP500 and stop worrying about valuations.

In the IRA: Flipped FDVV for DGRW. I think I have enough Fidelity stock-picking mojo between FMILX and FDSVX. DGRW has under-performed recently but is roughly equal over the last 3 and 5 year periods with lower volatility.
Flipped XMHQ for BIAVX. XMHQ has been too much fun for the IRA. I continue to hold XMHQ in the taxable. Here is the strategy for BIAVX:

The Fund seeks to invest in companies at discounts to their business value, which the managers consider to be the present value of sustainable free cash flow. To identify these investment opportunities, the portfolio managers employ a disciplined, bottom-up investment process highlighted by rigorous, internally generated fundamental research. Accordingly, the portfolio managers only make investments when the managers believe that there is a sufficient discount to business value to mitigate the loss of capital in the event of adverse circumstances.

Sold FBALX. Duration was too long, and it's too volatile for me. I have enough Fidelity stock picking to suit me. PRWCX is the one allocation fund to rule them all in my portfolio.
Bought FFRHX. Over the last five years it has done a lot better than all those steady Eddy intermediate core funds we're supposed to own.
Sold GLIFX. Nice fund, but since I'm trying to consolidate it seems like an easy one to do without. Proceeds will be divided between FSUTX and IYK.
In the taxable: I put down markers in FIW, AIRR, PAVE, and GRID. There was a lot less overlap between the last three than I expected.
I have plenty of dry powder in the taxable for future buying opportunities.

I like simple since I started trading in 2000.
Concentrated portfolio in top categories, disregarding all the noise("experts" advice, election, valuation, economic indicators)
Never alternative categories (gold, commodities, CEF,long-short,others).
Stocks:since 2010, US LC tilting growth.
Bonds: funds that do well regardless of rates for about 1.5-2 years already with low SD. CBLDX,RSIIX for longer hold. ICMUX and CLOZ more of a trade based on markets+trends.
See CLOZ chart for 1.5 years (https://schrts.co/hsMDDiQm).
I know I have been saying it for months because the trend is still the same, why mess up with a good trend?

We opened our Fidelity acct's in 1978 for buys/sells of mutual funds. A few years later we signed papers to have a 'brokerage' feature added to buy/sell stocks, etf's, etc. A bit after that, the separate acct. numbers were consolidated to just one number per acct. holder for a taxable, T-IRA or Roth. The brokerage feature simply became part of the account, with a standard choice of two mmkt(s) funds used for the buy/sells parking place. Our Fidelity accts. with this circumstance we don't have to shuffle monies from any separate 'sweep'. To the best of my knowledge, a new account opening with Fidelity is all inclusive with/to the brokerage feature.
SO, with periodic mentions here of 'sweep' accts.; what circumstance(s) force the use of a 'sweep' feature?
Managed accts., no choice, or the acct. is always linked to a bank???
Thank you.
Catch

BB,
The timing just felt helpless, so to speak, meaning things rocketing up for no good or even good reason, really. One might think my orange-menace hatred would modulate.
I will be back buying JQUA and TCAF at some point, I am sure. Combined they make it unnecessary to add QLTY, it appears.
I am done selling for now. The remaining bond funds are all significantly underwater. I am increasingly risk-averse at 77, sure --- we have enough to make it the next decade and more, even in Massachusetts --- but with grandchildren, I hear the greed call sometimes, and we also want to leave moneys to their parents as feasible. (I also have this newly rich friend who asked me for advice, so I have been rethinking many things; mentioned a few posts back.)
So I am now probably 85% in ~4.5% mm funds at the moment plus the several bond funds underwater for years now. Maybe more than 85%. (The bond funds represent a dumbass decision, although I did lots of study at the time, read smarties here and elsewhere, felt that interest factors were already baked in, blah blah.)
One droll thing that happened, not that you asked, is that 3-4 individual stocks, bought on rando tips here and from plutocrat friends (and again I researched, and so they dove soon after I bought them, natch), just went significantly above breakeven the last month; and therefore I sold them too. :)
FMSDX turned out not to do quite what I had expected ('a good idea until not', as the quip goes), and so I was waiting for it to get significantly above breakeven, and it did, and out it went. I woulda done better w oldies FBALX and FPURX. Or even as well, sometimes better, in AOR and AOA.

Remember the now-classic warning from Eisenhower (elected 1952) about the Military Industrial Complex?
Yes. It made the evening news that day. Remember it well. All the networks carried it. (Tuesday January 17, 1961). And we discussed it in our 8th grade Civics course the following day.
@Crash. War will always be a good investment. Look for SpaxeX to go public sometime in the next few years. Investors will rush to buy. It is deeply involved in military applications although most details are kept secret. A military outpost (perhaps an invincible “doomsday” command center) on the dark side of the moon sometimes in the next 10 years is not beyond the realm of possibilities. With the advent of remote drone warfare the location of a command center can be thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of miles distant. Fortunes will be made. (Poor Ike had no idea.)
I checked. It takes only 1.2 seconds for a radio wave to travel from moon to earth.

”Yes politics...politicians...they are very much the spoon that stirs the pot or sets out the punch bowl.”
Got me wondering. How have various Presidents / Administrations affected our investment fortunes over the time most of us have been investing? Keep in mind, please, that (political) decisions made today may have economic ramifications that last far longer (sometimes decades) beyond the tenure of the politicians that enact them (reasI oppose term limits for Congress.
What I remember about different administrations since I began watching the markets in the 1950s:
Eisenhower - Increased infrastructure spending. The interstate highway system we enjoy today was undertaken. Consider the effects on commerce. Also helped in the post WWII reconstruction of Japan and Europe. Costly of course.
JFK - Promised to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade (60’s). It was costly and so strained the budget. But we continue to enjoy the benefits of the progress made in using space for our betterment. (GPS for instance). Consider all the economic benefits. Also, JFK was leary about getting deeply entrenched in Vietnam. Imagine how history and economics might have evolved had we not.
LBJ - His legacy may well be our deepening involvement in Vietnam. Costly in lives as well as money. May have planted the seeds of the coming inflation - although demographics played a part. LBJ’s “Great Society” undertook increased Federal spending the country could ill afford at the time. This helped stoke the rising inflation.
Nixon - Wage and price controls. A placebo / bandaid approach to combating inflation which was still in the 4-5% range. Significant in that it awakened public interest in the issue. Also, under Nixon the U.S. largely withdrew from Vietnam. Also, under Nixon the fixed price of gold at $35 an ounce was ended by international agreement.
Ford - With the help of wife Betty, Ford introduced the “WIN” pin. (You can still buy one on eBay.) WIN stood for ”Whip Inflation Now” Another placebo approach. We Americans prefer easy solutions.
Carter - With inflation raging (double-digits) Carter appointed Paul Volker Federal Reserve Chair in 1979. The rest is history.
Regan - Increased defense spending sharply stoking inflation. But under Regan the steep Federal Reserve interest hikes led to a sharp recession beginning in 1981 - the worst downturn up to then since the Great Depression. Unemployment surged to 10.8% in 1982. But if you had money to invest you could pull 15% in a money market fund. Who needed stocks?
In August 1981 Regan fired striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) after they went on strike violating a federal law against strikes. My personal view is that was the leading edge of an attack on organized labor that lasted decades. Over many years pensions were gutted and wages fell as labor’s ability to negotiate benefits waned. But this probably was beneficial for stock investors. The loss of defined benefit retirement packages also helped propel the rise of the 401-K. Some think this investment vehicle has led to a “boom” for index investing - though that’s a far reach.
Also - In 1987 Regan appointed Alan Greenspan to Federal Reserve Chair. Under Greenspan equity markets surged. Greenspan’s tenure ended in 1986. Critics sight his monetary policy as too lax and stoking inflation in later years.
Bush 1 - Negotiated and signed NAFTA, expanding global trade. This has paradoxically been blamed by some for loss of jobs in the U.S. - although unemployment remains low. I think the ongoing political repercussions from NAFTA do reverberate through the economy today. But they are hard to quantify.
Clinton - We actually achieved a balanced budget under Clinton. But his personal problems partly overshadowed his accomplishments.
Bush 2 - In Bush’s term a global recession of great magnitude ensued which cost equity (index) investors around 50% before it ended 15 months later. Junk bonds were hit hard. The Fed undertook strong monetary stimulus. The effects of those Fed stimulative measures are likely still being felt today. Federal spending increased sharply. “President George W. Bush's economic policies added $6 trillion to the national debt by funding two wars and three tax cuts.” (from the balance money.com).
I’ll stop here. I think the effects of the last three Presidents are too recent to fully access, and very controversial, as all three continue to be actively involved in the politics of the day. Further - a global pandemic that began in 2020 greatly altered the stage. Any administration would have had trouble coping with the economic challenges. Fiscal and monetary emergency measures during the pandemic are seen as one cause of the recent inflation - along with the distortions created by the pandemic itself.
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Question: Would knowing in 1950 (err … pick your start date) what future politicians would do have affected the way you would have chosen to invest for the long term?

Yep. I called earlier today and Schwab is going to stick me with margin on my 11/11 trades. This is the cheap nickel and diming which I really detest.
I would have pulled the plug on Schwab and decamped to Fidelity years back if I could do so.

Since 2000, I invest based on what has worked lately, never predictions.
Buffet "only" missed 56+% in the last 2 years for his favorite advice, the SP500.
https://schrts.co/SNtMNdYU

Price-weighted DJIA (5/26/1896- ) has a long continuous history. It has been promoted heavily by Dow Jones, WSJ, Barron's, and for years the general media reported only DJIA (those old enough may remember Cronkite years at CBS). DJIA now formally belongs to SP Global/SPGI (3/4/2012- ) through S&P Dow Jones Indices (a joint venture by SPGI, CME, NWS).
Some of us are older than the market-cap weighted SP500 that started on 3/4/1957 (some variants existed 1923- ); any older data are just produced by backward simulation.
DJIA and SP500 have an average correlation of 95%.
And then there are copycats like Japan's price-weighted Nikkei 225 (9/7/1950- ). If the US is doing it, it must be good kind of thinking.
How many watch or know about TOPIX? TOPIX (7/1/1969- ) is market-cap weighted total market index; there are also TOPIX 30 (interesting number), TOPIX 70, TOPIX 100, TOPIX 500 (another interesting number), TOPIX 1000, and just TOPIX.
With the ETFs, customized indexes can be created at will, so there are now more ETFs (and indexes) than stocks.
But we can safely assume that DJIA would be around in our lifetimes.

Reportedly, Vanguard has about 20,000 employees; although not a concern, for quality of service, at this house, as we don't travel to Vanguard for our own investments.
I will take credit for about $8.5 million of Fidelity's asset base from many individual recommendations over 40 years. :)

I read it years ago, great book!
I see kids all over the internet getting started in investing, and having all kinds of questions.
I usually just post a list of about 5-6 books they should read, and this is one of them. But I don't think young people read many books, it's easier to just spam the internet up with basic fundamental questions. If they'd read a few of the classic books they'd be better off than going online and asking questions with zero knowledge.

Nice to see Meb Faber get some attention (Barron’s Interview). I’ve been binging on his podcasts dating back several years - mostly interviews with market players / fund managers. Accessing these through my Amazon Audible accounts- though they are available elsewhere. Quite entertaining and sometimes insightful - particularly if interested in mitigating portfolio risk. I was in the global allocation fund (GAA) for a month or so and then moved the $$ into his Trinity (TNTY) TRTY. It’s 15% of my diversified portfolio. I wouldn't overdo it, but I think the trend following approach has a small role to play in a broadly diversified portfolio. For TRTY the trend following approach comprises around 30% of the fund as I recall.
More broadly, Cambria has as many losers as it does winners. Certainly not the best shop in town. M* rates the firm “below average” in its stewardship section. (Reasons are a bit complex. Read it before investing with them.) And both funds I reference above receive only “neutral” medalist ratings - part of the reason being over-reliance on a single person (Faber).
One positive re the funds I mentioned is that they invest in a fairly large number of other etfs - some from other fund families. And fees are low.

Thanks for the reminder. Interesting take on Warren Buffet’s recent move.

Pg 18. Berkshire Hathaway (fwd P/E 23.4; P/B 1.6; P/E 19 on look-through earnings; WB owns/controls 14%). Stocks are rallying, but Warren Buffett (96) keeps selling, leaving billions on the table. His recent sales seem to be poorly timed. He has almost stopped buybacks. The cash (mostly T-Bills) is now $311 billion (31.1% of market-cap). BRK stock has done well (+28% YTD, and another near-trillion-dollar company) and its operational businesses will benefit from the economic boom. WB has been waiting for an elephant-size acquisition for years, but that $311 billion may just become a nice parting gift from WB to the next CEO, likely Greg Abel (62). A huge uncertainty is what the post-Buffett BRK will look like?

Is WB seeing something that we are not seeing in coming years? After all, he is 96 years old.