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Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
  • Today’s Market Recap
    Foreign assets spiked about the time the U.S. markets began the late day sell off. There were unconfirmed reports the Fed was eyeing more rate cuts than earlier proposed (5 thru year end I think). That would weaken the dollar, but might serve to push up U.S. equities. This is beginning to make some sense.
  • Today’s Market Recap
    The S&P 500 was within 4 points or so of the 200 day simple moving average when it reversed.
  • Back-handed blessing? HK firm sells port facilities at Panama Canal to BlackRock. (news link.)
    The $22+B is for the 45 ports in 25 countries. Panama ports happen to be part of the portfolio BLK affiliates bought. A deal like this takes months to agree on, including on the ground extensive due diligence. I think it is a great deal for CK Hutchinson.
    More likely Larry Fink is having a sense of mortality. My guess is BX passed up the deal or it was never brought to it. They tend to do go after more high margin projects than BLK does.
  • Back-handed blessing? HK firm sells port facilities at Panama Canal to BlackRock. (news link.)
    Deal involves BlackRock/BLK (Larry Fink; NYC), BLK subsidiary GIP (Global Infrastructure Partners; NYC-based private-equity) that it bought just last year and GIP portfolio company TIL (Terminal Invest Ltd; Switzerland-based). So, it looks like Larry Fink's deal all the way. It seems that BLK and GIP are handling the financing aspects and Swiss TIL may be the Panama Canal port operator.
    An unusual deal for BlackRock. May be Blackstone/BX (Schwarzman) passed it up or had his hands full.
    Anyway, HK CK Hutchison that loved its Panama Canal port operations just in January 2025 was glad to cash out of this sudden hot potato at $22.8 billion. How things changed in 6-8 weeks.
    Open Links
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/blackrock-buys-hutchison-panama-ports-161538706.html
    https://apnews.com/article/hong-kong-panama-canal-beijing-hutchison-blackrock-rubio-d02a8439cc63d9e740e5154d4e0c56f6
    Subscription Link https://www.barrons.com/articles/blackrock-panama-canal-ports-trump-5fbfdc5f
  • Trump says US will impose tariffs on overseas agricultural goods within weeks
    This country does want illegal immigrants - if they can pay them at 50% off, deny them any and all benefits and if they'll do the work no natural born citizen will do. Hell, they're crying for them as we speak. They also like rich ones apparently but mostly only from certain countries with the right colors and religious beliefs. Forget all that "bring me your tired and poor" nonsense we used to treasure. Our doors now are being watched by massive idiots and backwards values.
  • American businesses reel as Trump tariffs start to bite
    Stock market drops like a rock, so of course he's going to backtrack. The stock market is his favorite indicator of 'popularity' remember....
    https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/2025/03/04/lutnick-says-trump-considering-some-mexico-canada-tariff-relief/
  • Today’s Market Recap
    Thanks guys. Good humor.
    Here’s a few snippets characterizing the day’s trading -
    Barron’s: “The stock market fell sharply on Tuesday, but some midday dip buying cut into the worst of the day’s declines. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 670 points, or 1.6%. The S&P 500 was down 1.2%. The Nasdaq Composite was down 0.4%. The Dow was down more than 800 points at its low, while the Nasdaq was down 2.1%.”
    The WSJ: “Trump's Tariffs Spark Retaliation, Whipsawing Markets
    Reuters News: ”Investors say it's time to take Trump seriously as markets recoil.”
    Bloomberg: ”Day One of Trump's Trade War Delivers Wild Ride for Wall Street”
    Bill Fleckenstein (Fleckenstein Capital .com): “Wild Volatility Continues to Rule”
    What was the news around 2:20 PM Central Eastern when the trapdoor opened?
    I’m not aware of any particular news. Markets seemed to claw back much of the day’s losses around 2:00. As you say, trap door opened. But the real carnage must have been in the last hour ISTM.
    I can’t recall this kind of volatility before. But, no doubt it has occurred. ”Recession Watch” I’d say. You can’t throw up 25% taxes everywhere (tariffs) and not brake the economy. *
    * brake as in “rapidly decelerate”
  • American businesses reel as Trump tariffs start to bite
    Following are edited excerpts from a current report in The Washington Post:
    China imposed tariffs of up to 15 percent on a raft of U.S. farm products and blacklisted more than 20 U.S. companies, marking a major escalation in a brewing battle between the world’s two largest economies. The move targets some of the United States’ most important exports to China, including soybeans, meat and grains. China is the largest market for American farm products, accounting for 17 percent of total U.S. agricultural exports in 2023, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
    China last year imported almost $20 billion in soybeans, corn, cotton and the other U.S. farm products that will be subject to the new tariffs, according to USDA data. Those products accounted for about 80 percent of all U.S. agricultural exports to China.
    By late afternoon, futures tied to wheat and corn had shed about 2 percent and 1 percent, respectively.
    The tariff news sent the U.S. major indexes reeling for a second day in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 670 points, or more than 1.5 percent, to close at 42,520.99. The S&P 500 shed 1.2 percent to settle at 5,778.15, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq dipped more than 0.3 percent to end at 18,285.16.
    The new U.S. measures will result in levies as high as 45 percent on some Chinese goods that were already targeted during Trump’s first term, including home appliances, electronics, clothing and machinery.
    Best Buy shares tumbled 13.3 percent after its chief executive said the Trump levies made price increases “highly likely” for Americans. Other consumer goods companies also slumped, including Wayfair and Whirlpool, which fell 8.1 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively. VF Corp., which lists Vans and Timberland among its labels, slumped 7.4 percent.
    In other news, Investopedia is reporting that Tesla shares fell Tuesday, with the stock losing about a third of its value since the start of 2025.
  • American businesses reel as Trump tariffs start to bite
    Following are edited excerpts from a current NPR report:
    It's not just American consumers who will feel the impact of tariffs — the tariffs will be costly to American businesses, too. Most will try to pass the cost of the tax on to consumers but many will likely have to absorb some of the cost themselves. And businesses have also been operating in a state of limbo, unsure of when or whether the import taxes would take hold.
    "Customers are pausing on new orders as a result of uncertainty regarding tariffs," one factory manager told the Institute for Supply Management for its monthly survey on manufacturing conditions.
    Randy Carr runs a business based in Ft. Lauderdale that makes embroidered emblems for sports teams and work uniforms. Much of the manufacturing is done in Mexico. Carr said he'll try to pass the new import tax along to customers by raising prices, but assumes he'll have to bear some of the cost himself. As a result, he's temporarily halted investment at his factories in Texas and Georgia. "We have a plan to deal with it, but honestly it's punitive to my staff and the growth of the business, because it's just another form of a tax," Carr said.
    Canada and China swiftly responded with tariffs of their own on U.S. exports. Mexico promised to do the same in the coming days. Those tariffs could hurt American producers. China, for example, imposed retaliatory tariffs on products including corn, cotton, soybeans and pork.
    Bob Hemesath, who raises corn and hogs in Decorah, Iowa, worries about the potential fallout for rural communities across the country: "There's a lot of jobs associated with agriculture and agricultural trade," he said. "Once you lose those export markets, it's awful hard to get them back." A trade war during Trump's first term in office hit agricultural exports so hard, the federal government ended up making farm relief payments of more than $60 billion — much of the money brought in by tariffs on imports from China. Trump's new tariffs could also drive up the cost of potash fertilizer, much of which comes from Canada.
    The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — which has welcomed much of Trump's pro-business agenda — urged the administration to backtrack quickly on the trade war: "Tariffs will only raise prices and increase the economic pain being felt by everyday Americans across the country," Neil Bradly, the chamber's chief policy officer, said in a statement. "We urge reconsideration of this policy and a swift end to these tariffs."
    Meanwhile, stocks tumbled Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling nearly 600 points as of midday. That followed a 650 point drop on Monday, after Trump said there was "no room left" for a deal to avoid the tariffs.
  • US consumers warned to brace for higher prices due to Trump’s tariffs
    Following are excerpts from a current report in The Guardian:
    Prices ‘highly likely’ to rise almost immediately, retailers say, after 25% duty hits exports from Mexico and Canada
    Americans have been warned to brace for higher prices within days of Donald Trump pulling the trigger on Monday, imposing US tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico and hiking tariffs on China.
    Global stock markets came under pressure again on Tuesday, with leading indices falling sharply – and the benchmark S&P 500 losing all its post-election gains – as Canada, Mexico and China vowed to retaliate, and investors balked at the prospect of an acrimonious trade war.
    US retail giants predicted that prices were “highly likely” to start rising on shelves almost immediately after a 25% duty came into effect on exports from Mexico to the US.
    Most Canadian exports to the US also now face a 25% duty, with a 10% rate for energy products. The Trump administration imposed a 10% levy on all Chinese exports to the US last month, which has now been doubled to 20%. With US retailers relying heavily on imports from Mexico and Canada to stock their shelves, top executives claimed they would have no choice but to increase prices.
    Target, for example, relies heavily on Mexican produce during the winter months, and fruit and vegetable prices in its stores could rise as soon as this week, according to Brian Cornell, its CEO: “The consumer will likely see price increases over the next couple of days”, pointing to produce including strawberries, avocados and bananas. “If there’s a 25% tariff, those prices will go up.”
    The consumer electronics retailer Best Buy said it expected the new tariffs to make their way along its supply chain. “We expect our vendors across our entire assortment will pass along some level of tariff costs to retailers, making price increases for American consumers highly likely,” CEO Corie Barry told investors.
    The US’s largest trading partners have already hit back. Canada retaliated overnight with its own tariffs on US exports worth C$30bn ($20.71bn), from orange juice to motorcycles, and threatened to impose tariffs on a further C$125bn ($86.29bn) wave of US goods later this month. China plans to hit US farm products including chicken, beef, wheat and corn with 15% tariffs from next week. Mexico pledged to lay out its response on Sunday.
    On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 1.22% and the Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.55%. The FTSE 100 retreated 1.27% in London.
  • The CFPB drops its case against payment app Zelle
    Following are excerpts from a current NPR report:
    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has dropped its lawsuit against the operator of payment platform Zelle and three of its parent banks, in the latest move by the Trump administration to undo actions of the bureau's prior leadership. The bureau had filed the lawsuit in late December against the operator of Zelle, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo "for failing to protect consumers from widespread fraud." Customers of the top three banks lost more than $870 million over seven years due to the banks' failures to protect them, according to the CFPB.
    "This is about financial institutions fulfilling their basic obligations to protect customers' money and help fraud victims recover their losses," then-CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said at the time. "These banks broke the law by running a payment system that made fraud easy, and then refusing to help the victims."
    However, that was then. On Tuesday the administration dropped its case against Zelle, according to a filing in U.S. District Court in Arizona.
    Zelle and its parent banks are just the latest enforcement target to be abandoned by the CFPB, which is currently led by acting director Russell Vought. Last week the bureau dropped cases it was litigating against five companies including Capital One, Rocket Homes and others. It had earlier dropped its case against online lending platform SoLo Funds.
    The CFPB has also been decimated in a matter of weeks, with agency's employees ordered to stop essentially all work, while some 150 employees have been fired. The bureau's D.C. headquarters has also been shuttered.
  • Trump says Mexico and Canada tariffs to take effect– Wall Street closes sharply lower
    I was looking to confirm the media reports of 20% Tariff on China vs 25% Tariff on Mexico and Canada and bumped into this source which I am yet to go through but it has a lot of data if you are interested -
    https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/trump-tariffs-trade-war/
    Is the 20% new or on top of existing tariffs? There is so much deliberate theatre and misinformation like the Hatians eating their neighbors' cats and dogs, I can not tell what is what without checking everything. (The media has been useless and probably harmful to our health.)
  • What will they break first: short treasury bonds or SHORT IG BONDS?
    ”I meant that when you decide to cash out, you will still be getting dollars.”
    Yes. I would hope so. After watching a cashier at Walmart try to count change for the $50 Bill I handed her yesterday, I shudder to think what she’d have done had I handed over a 1,000 Yen Note instead.
    ”The point would be to have other currencies as savings to protect against a dollar that could crash “
    I don’t know why that wouldn’t work if you just kept the money in the currency ETF until you needed to spend it. Settlement period (from sale to usable cash) is now only 1 day.
    Alternatively, you can go to a large bank / FX exchange inside the U.S. and trade dollars for a foreign currency. It might take a few days for them to fill the order and there would be a fee. For large orders there would be some government reporting as well. Wells Fargo will do it mail order. But, unless you flee the U.S. for a foreign country, spending the currency would seem problematic. If you do opt for paper currency you’ll want a good fireproof safe or bank vault. Not a big fan of gold at these prices, but it is often considered an alternative currency.
    Buying a new car or truck? I don’t think it would take more than 24 hours to convert your investment in a foreign currency ETF into Dollars and be able to write a check to the dealership. Fido is very helpful in matters of that sort. I had to move dollars from a different account into my cash management account for that purpose recently and Fido accomplished it in a matter of minutes. Albeit, selling an etf and having proceeds available to spend would likely take an extra day.
    * Gains from foreign currency investments are generally taxable as ordinary income. So it would be best to hold them in a tax-deferred / tax-except account.
  • Trump says Mexico and Canada tariffs to take effect– Wall Street closes sharply lower
    Howdy folks, and particularly Anna,
    Hope this finds you well.
    Things here have not yet changed that much as of yet. We have a very fluid border due to work commuters. That said, WTF knows what Washington will do with the borders or how this is going to play out with retaliation.
    I'm anticipating a depression and double digit inflation. Half of our farm workers are illegal and in California it's 75%. Oh, and the Chinese will target agricultural products so that's going to crush the farmers.
    I've pretty much gone to the mattresses. I've still got some stocks in various forms, but like most of the others, I've increased our cash and bond holdings. Where I'm still playing is with penny silver miners as usual.
    The next two years are going to be a schadenfreude multiple orgasm as he throws one voting block after another under the bus.
    Take care of yourself and stay safe,
    and so it goes,
    peace,
    rono
  • What will they break first: short treasury bonds or SHORT IG BONDS?
    At Hank. My point is that many here, not you, object to bringing up the government or government policy in an investment forum. This is the Boglehead model. I will admit it’s a slippery slope and partisan political remarks cross the line. That being said, we live in unprecedented times and it’s now impossible to ignore the impact of the government’s action on our portfolios. As for me I have no need to take risk except for sport and not much of that. I have not a bit of FOMO..I have been very content to have a portfolio of risk free 5+% stuff in the manner of DT CONROE, who used to discuss his investments here. The whole point of this thread was to discuss declining safety in areas that were safe but might not be much longer. Because of a reckless and destructive government out of control.
  • Trump says Mexico and Canada tariffs to take effect– Wall Street closes sharply lower
    US stock market is all RED today due to tariffs concern: DJIA -1.5%, NASDAQ, -2.6%, S&P500 -1.78%. What are these business people thinking ? American exceptionalism, really?
  • Market Concerns - are you hedging your portfolio, or is it business as usual?
    I"m in risk-off mode. Increasing cash stake to 15% in various accounts. I sold out of many International stock funds a week ago (actually, I was a bit overweight international and smid's, moving some of that to cash); keeping cash in asset allocation funds. Also, bought gold ETF for the first time ever a month ago (5% of portfolio).
    I am profoundly ashamed at what the US is doing right now under Trump and Musk.
    I wonder what the Boys of Pont du Hoc and other heros of hot and cold wars past would make of this moment.