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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.
  • "Experts" Forecast Stock and Bond Returns: 2025 Edition
    I tend to regard AI as having gone through three cycles:
    1. Late 1950s - 1960s. Think ELIZA
    https://www.livescience.com/technology/eliza-the-worlds-1st-chatbot-was-just-resurrected-from-60-year-old-computer-code
    2. Mid 1980s-1990s. Expert systems, machine learning/reasoning. Memory intensive for the time. The academic response was that we'll just wheel in another memory bank.
    3. Now. Generative AI. Power hungry. We'll just bring another nuclear reactor online.
    https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/26/1104516/three-mile-island-microsoft/
  • 10 consecutive days down (12/5-12/18)
    @WABAC,
    You know the guy likes to work the crowd (requires hyperbole). If Hollywood producers offered him to play the President on the screen, he could not have cared less for the responsibilities of the real one.
    I do not think he really has any agenda (other than Numero Uno and he is transparent about it) which allows him to change his mind constantly. I do not think he would object if the industry told him "let us not screw up the National Preserves" but we know that is not going to happen. Luckily, we have a Coalition of Single Issue Voters which means there should be a lot of internal conflicts and counterbalances within that coalition. That may save us from extreme outcomes. His new multi-billionaire tech buddies may push him to go full on into Nuclear. We (future Americans) will clean up later any damage done.
    I am thinking may be invest in Nuclear in the taxable accounts (long term view) and good old energy stuff in the IRA (for trading).
    The nice thing about a fund like GRID is that it doesn't depend on the energy source. Like a lot of things, it's pretty expensive right now.
    I generally agree with the rest of your comments. I was indulging my peculiar sense of humor. :)
  • 10 consecutive days down (12/5-12/18)
    @WABAC,
    You know the guy likes to work the crowd (requires hyperbole). If Hollywood producers offered him to play the President on the screen, he could not have cared less for the responsibilities of the real one.
    I do not think he really has any agenda (other than Numero Uno and he is transparent about it) which allows him to change his mind constantly. I do not think he would object if the industry told him "let us not screw up the National Preserves" but we know that is not going to happen. Luckily, we have a Coalition of Single Issue Voters which means there should be a lot of internal conflicts and counterbalances within that coalition. That may save us from extreme outcomes. His new multi-billionaire tech buddies may push him to go full on into Nuclear. We (future Americans) will clean up later any damage done.
    I am thinking may be invest in Nuclear in the taxable accounts (long term view) and good old energy stuff in the IRA (for trading).
  • GASFX... Other NG Funds May Power AI
    Interview with Evercore's James West:
    Evercore ISI senior managing director James West speaks more about whether fears of Trump's impact on the industry are overblown.
    "The fact remains that the IRA bill, which is the largest investment in climate and clean tech that the world has ever seen, is largely going to remain intact because 80% of the job creation and the capital spending is going to red states, or red districts, if not higher now that more states have flipped red," West tells Yahoo Finance.
    Clean energy producers and even nuclear energy developers have been posed as the solution to AI data center's energy demands.
    natural-gas-big-winner-powers Manufacturing and New Tech (AI)
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    Berkshire sold its BYD stake down to 5% from more than 20%, after holding it since 2008 (bought initially for approx $1 a share). That made me think may be battery technology does not have as much a future as is needed for non-nuclear renewable energy or may be he sold because he thought as a Chinese company, it could face headwinds in the global markets. OR both reasons. Obviously, I do not take his official reasoning on its face value. He bought and sold TSM quickly on questionable US-China relations, which I understood.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    I also own NLR CCJ and GRID. I am a bit suspicious of SMR as their first project sorta died. It seems obvious if this country has run small nuclear reactors on submarines and large surface ships, we can design and rum small reactors for Data farms etc
    I think infrastructure and Grid enhancements the "picks and shovels" of Climate change and AI are better bets than stocks selling for 34 times Sales, ie NVDA
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    last week I bought a few thousand SMR and OKLO to increase my nuclear energy investments.
    WOW up 75%!!! Unfortunately the "few thousand " was dollars, not shares
    SMRs will allow decentralized infrastructure, increasing national security, lower Grid costs, etc. lots of benefits and practical.
    If SMR (Small modular reactors) take off, then what is the future for all the EV car companies, which is really a play on innovations in battery technology. E.g., Tesla, BYD, etc.?
    I am waiting Berkshire Energy to get into SMRs.
    Disclosure: I own NLR.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    last week I bought a few thousand SMR and OKLO to increase my nuclear energy investments.
    WOW up 75%!!! Unfortunately the "few thousand " was dollars, not shares
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    "Bottom line is it will be impossible to contain global warming and meet power needs without nuclear, which may still be cleaner than coal and the environmental damage from fracking etc."
    Yes, my thought also. It's going to take wind, solar, and (unfortunately) also nuclear to get where we need to go. Best of some bad choices.
    There could be solar on every roof and parking lot in the Phoenix metro, but our utilities haven't figured out how to get richer on it.
    Here's something California ought to be thinking about. Dinky linky.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    @sma3 …the reason UTES is up >42% is due to their holdings in Vistra and Constellation, and the renaissance of modern nuclear energy generation.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    "Bottom line is it will be impossible to contain global warming and meet power needs without nuclear, which may still be cleaner than coal and the environmental damage from fracking etc."
    Yes, my thought also. It's going to take wind, solar, and (unfortunately) also nuclear to get where we need to go. Best of some bad choices.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    NYT has a "nuclear power is a disaster" article harking back to Three Mile Island, which I remember well. I saw "China Syndrome" the day before three mile Island cratered. Talk about life imitating fiction!
    The New Yorker had a three part article ( remember those?) about what went wrong. It was basically operator stupidity. You would think AI and better computerization wol fix this.
    Bottom line is it will be impossible to contain global warming and meet power needs without nuclear, which may still be cleaner than coal and the environmental damage from fracking etc.
    I can't imagine restarting Three Mile ISland will be easy or cheap.
    Other ideas worth considering are NLR, URanium ( has had a huge move up) and even SMR ( modular nuclear reactors which have yet to have a successful installation and even Sam Altman backed OKLO. Both of the later two are rising from the dead
  • Duke premier notes
    Any fresh thoughts re investing a few bucks here?
    A number of companies package up variable rate demand notes into bank account-like accounts. Features may vary slightly (e.g. min required, check writing ability, min transaction amount) but the underlying investments are similar as are the way these accounts work.
    Companies that offer these accounts seem to be rated BBB or A and are using these accounts as a relatively cheap way to get cash. Some BBBs: Duke, Dominion, GM, and Ford. Some As: Toyota, Mercedes-Benz (only accredited investors), and Caterpillar
    A couple of webpages from 2021 on these types of investments:
    MyMoneyBlog: https://www.mymoneyblog.com/big-list-of-car-demand-notes-non-fdic.html
    Bogleheads thread: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=340088
    And a 2021 WSJ article cited in the Bogleheads thread (subscription or library card required):
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/car-maker-notes-attract-investors-seeking-short-term-yield-11605781801
    Called "variable denomination floating rate demand notes," the securities are basically unsecured bonds, paid by the company's cash from operations. There is no public market and investors can typically withdraw their money at will. Rates can be changed at any time by the company, which can call the securities at its discretion.
    What's the risk?
    For my money (pun intended), I'd rather go with a Treasury MMF yielding around 5.1%; since it's state tax exempt that's not much different from 5.5% fully taxable and a whole lot safer.
    https://olui2.fs.ml.com/Publish/Content/application/pdf/GWMOL/ICCRateSheet.pdf
    If I had to go with a single issuer, I'd look at the A rated companies.
    A nuclear accident that bankrupts the company?
    Not likely.
    [The] Price-Anderson [Act has since 1957 freed] nuclear plant operators and all firms involved in nuclear construction and maintenance of any liability for offsite accident damage. The only chance for additional compensation lies in the act’s declaration that if accident damages exceed the legal limit “Congress will thoroughly review the particular incident” and will “take whatever action is determined to be necessary” to provide full compensation to the public. In short, a Fukushima-level accident would toss the costs of compensation and cleanup unto the lap of Congress.
    https://thebulletin.org/2020/02/the-us-government-insurance-scheme-for-nuclear-power-plant-accidents-no-longer-makes-sense/
    This was recently extended (for another 40 years) and expanded with little publicity. It's a sizeable and relatively unknown industry subsidy.
    What was publicized were billions of dollars allocated in the Inflation Reduction Act for maintaining existing nuclear plants and building new ones.
    https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/inflation-reduction-act-keeps-momentum-building-nuclear-power
  • Duke premier notes
    Any fresh thoughts re investing a few bucks here?
    Interest rates are pretty sharp
    What's the risk? A nuclear accident that bankrupts the company?
    Thoughts?
  • Rotation City. U.S. equity and bonds
    Bumping the thread.
    Why is everything Nuclear I follow getting hammered today? Renewable energy stocks are doing well today. No middle ground for this market?
    Good to see Bitcoin diverge from equities and from tech equities in particular.
  • Trump Sits Down With Businessweek
    First of all….sorry @hank…..I oftentimes get you and @Crash mixed up in my brain for some reason reason. It was Crash’s post that he since deleted. So sorry!!! @Crash, your post DID have some good investing stuff in it, you’re right.
    Second of all, I think many of us can be disappointed that the parties we have so long known no longer exist, as they have been taken over by individuals or families and dominated (Clinton’s and Obamas of Democratic Party, and Bush’s and now Trump’s of Republican Party). Most of us vote for the party that upholds the core handful of things that we believe in, with the other stuff that we DONT believe in being not enough to make us vote for “the other guy” (and hopefully, “girl” someday soon!). Last piece of politicking, I promise :)
    I don’t know how de-globalization, stopping the mass border crossings (a supply of cheap, “pay under the table,” labor) and “making things with that beautiful ‘Made in America’ stamp” aren’t inflationary. Combined with pressure put on the Fed to lower interest rates, where will that leave our economy?
    I watch way too much CNBC (it’s usually on as background noise), but Cramer was saying how the Russell 2K can’t handle billions and trillions rotating out of tech/growth because the market cap of the entire index is a mere percentage of a single Mag 7 stock. So they cannot be market leaders by themselves. LC value could be….maybe betting on the next trillion dollar market cap stock? LLY, BRK, JPM are close (above $500 billion).
    @BaluBalu, what do you mean “Energy Services” stocks? SLB and HAL (sorry for the ignorance), or pipelines/drilling stocks? Good point that increased supply will mean lower prices (good for consumer, arguably, but less good for energy stocks). Maybe energy transportation stocks, as the US would likely be exporting more energy (especially LNG). I have held in the past OKE (but sold about $20 lower price! *face palm*), ENB, WMB, KMI. Pipeline companies trade more correlated to oil than they probably should. But these are NOT K-1 issuing companies.
    I think defense stocks would do ok, even with the ending of war, as munition stocks would be replenished from the drawdowns from supplying Ukraine, and continued high military spending; maybe an increase in supplying Israel with military “stuff.”
    Utilities have been a mixed bag the last week or so, as the winners of the AI-linked energy supply, such as VST or CEG (and NEE, but that’s more green energy) have gone down as much or more than big tech. And I believe these are some of the more nuclear utility companies; you would think the new administration would be ok with nuclear power (maybe it’s “down with everything that’s considered alternative energy”).
    As far as fixed income, I’m not playing a drop in rates yet (as the market moves interest rates more than the Fed does anyways), other than potentially getting out of money markets. I continue to use preferreds (several that are floating rate, such as mREIT preferreds) and baby bonds, CLO ETFs (JAAA, JBBB, CLOZ…..thanks to multiple posters here for teaching me about them), and the low volatility mutual funds that @junkster and @FD1000 and others like (RSIVX, RCRFX/RCRIX, and a few others) that either don’t move or go up a penny every 5-10 days or so. I have been burned by income CEFs too many times to count; their yield is great, and if they traded like their NAV, then they would be amazing investments, but alas, their prices swing wildly. If I want to lose money, I would be better off swing trading the 3x tech ETPs hahaha. So I’m staying mostly away from bond CEFs and core/core-plus/multisector bond OEFs too.
    For my wife’s 401(a) she DCAs into once a month, her two biggest holdings are DODGX and HACAX (Harbor’s LCG). They’re about an equal allocation, and they take turns going up (or down) more than the other. I got her out of her small cap value holding there about 2 weeks before the meteoric rise over the last 7-10 days (“I’m an excellent market timer”), and I also have a workplace retirement account from my current employer that I cant add to, and is limited to OEFs only. In that account I am WAY overweight LC growth and tech (I am 47, though so I can be, hopefully?) and only hold a tracking amount of @stillers favorite AUERX as my only SC holding. I WILL talk up a fund that MFO has talked about in the past: FAMEX, a MC blend/value fund that is a long term winner, and is the number 2 holding in that account (a distant 2nd to PRWCX; can’t believe my good fortune that I got into that fund before it closed!).
    Apologies for the last paragraph: it went off topic for this thread.
    I will continue to favor big tech for longer term returns, and the high quality of the companies. Most even pay a dividend now (even if a pittance). Maybe an equal weight in both LC growth and LC value would be a good way to play the next several months, rather than holding the S&P 500 index (which is basically LCG)? Or a quality fund, like @davidrmoran and several others like (including me; I own GQEPX and some accounts I manage have QLTY).
    Apologies for the length of my post….sheesh. And apologies for the kerfluffle from my earlier post (AND FOR MISTAKEN IDENTITY!)!!
  • Trump Sits Down With Businessweek
    I agree with the general notion of industrials being favored.
    China will be put in the penalty box. But a lot of Asian businesses are run by Chinese and so our suppliers in those other countries can easily be China proxies, except in India, Korea, and Japan. Are we going to impose Tariffs on stuff imported from Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, etc.? I will have to see how far we are willing to go to bring manufacturing back to the US.
    I only see deficits till the end of the horizon, which means long end of the curve is going to stay elevated. So, again, I agree with @WABAC to sit in the short end of the curve for now.
    Short end of the curve likely will be kept low artificially, which will benefit a lot of small businesses / caps and low end consumers.
    Two track regulations / laws: one for Big businesses and another for small businesses.
    Big businesses will be subject to a lot of regulation (I think @Graust mentioned this). Cap weighted indices can come under pressure. Active funds may take back some business lost to cap weighted passive investing.
    With a good term premium, financials should do well. Big financials may be required to bear some of the burden of rebuilding America, which may dent some of the profits they would otherwise make from steeper curve.
    So, all in all, Big caps likely to lose some, small caps likely to gain some - @Graust thesis! I see Lina Khan coming back and winning more cases in a Republican Govt - no respite for Big caps.
    I do not see Energy producers and midstream benefitting because oil prices are likely to stay low from excessive drilling or when Nuclear comes into vogue. I would rather invest in Energy services companies.
    I am surprised why defense contractors are doing well if we are less likely to engage in wars. I was going to fade defense contractors but need to watch.
    I would like some discussion on what happens to inflation. I am not able to imagine ever getting back to 2% without tanking the economy.
  • Investing in 'Rule of Law' countries
    If I thought is would do any good, I would post a line by line refutation of @Baseball_Fan long list of "fake news" above.
    Clearly, as he has already decided that the falling major crime statistics in a lot of cities are due to intentional underreporting, any data I post will written off.
    A response to two: The Iran nuclear deal was reducing Iran's uranium enrichment until Trump canceled it. The Department of Education completely failed to rein in predatory for profit colleges ( one owned by Betsy Devoes who tried to pass a law that would have dramatically increased it's profit) who saddled many poor students with ridiculous loans, promising unbelievable future salaries.
    Doesn't our government have some responsibility for this failure?
    In the distant past the GOP and right wing had a few "derangement syndromes" (Commies taking over the state department for example) but in general they were thoughtful and principled conservatives who could and would engage in intellectual debate. Not anymore.
    The quotes from McConnell and others above show how far the GOP has sunk even in their support of the rule of law since January 6th.
    I have relatives who suffer from "Wokeism" and who also refuse to listen to any facts or figures that indicate high taxes stifle growth, the government should not be eliminating ICEs or gas stoves etc. But the left has always felt government is the only thing that can accomplish anything, so you expect that I guess.
    What is mind boggling is how quickly the GOP and conservatives have changed their minds about "Big Government" and are now willing to use it to clobber all of their opponents by banning books, freedom of choice, and enabling a man with no moral compass to do anything he wants etc.
  • Serious bright RED/down at 1:30 EST in many sectors
    @junkster,
    In my universe of watch lists, managed futures ETFs, MMM, SNAP, HC, and utilities are doing alright today. Even nuclear based stuff is seeing big red.
    Two years ago, I would not have expected floating rate stuff to do well for this long. JBBB and JAAA are green today.