But…but…wasn’t the economy going crash under a certain person if elected?
My 409K is doing just fine 
The “crash crowd” is working overtime on finding signals in the noise. Look hard enough
and you can find things that can scare you because you are looking for it. Hey, I was initially a part of the crash crowd and moved some amount of personal holdings to safer things. But What I left in the markets has blown away the conservative stuff.
Any way here is a kind of humorous article from Scientific American(2005) about our built in brain tendency to find clues and patterns. It’s called Turn Me On, Dead Man
Instead this was a fine example of the brain as a pattern-recognition machine that all too often finds nonexistent signals in the background noise of life.
It’s only a 3 minute read.
Not to say CRE and other sectors of the economy don’t have some real areas of concern,
but these are due to structural changes I think. Kind of like iconic Sears, the number one retailer for
years, going bust because they didn’t adapt to structural changes.
How old is this thread and how long have the same mouths on it been pitching bad news and impending doom?
A broken clock will eventually be right.
“How Old Is This Thread?”
This was originally started by @coachV in March of ’22:
When that thread veered down the climate change rabbit-hole, I started this thread in June '22 to return to the investment theme, esp. China:
“Impending Doom”
I’m fully invested right now but decades of investing experience tell me risks were & are high. I graduated from UH in ’77, studied Wall Street since the early 80s, and worked as an investment professional from ’87 to ’19. I’ve seen shite blow up over & over & over. I suspect some of the others in this thread also have decades of investing experience that tempers their perspectives, too.
Take Enron — I remember CEO Jeff Skilling coming to our offices in the fall of ’01 and confidently telling us to keep holding shares. A Value Line report on Enron written in September ’01 stated: “These neutrally ranked (Enron) shares have above-average appreciation potential.” Then on December 2nd, 2001, Enron filed Ch. 11. Shareholder Wipeout! As Enron went down, CNBC setup a large tent in front of Allen Center off Smith St. near Enron’s HQ. I would see CNBC anchors broadcasting from there as I drove home on winter evenings.
After seeing blowup after blowup, I realized they are a part of Wall Street and there will always be more of them. So, I remember these Warren Buffet investing rules — “The first rule of an investment is don’t lose money. And the second rule of an investment is don’t forget the first rule. And that’s all the rules there are.”
Other folks state this idea as: “Rule #1 — Keep your losses small. Rule #2 — Never forget Rule #1.” Example: It takes a 25% return to get back to breakeven from a 20% loss, but it takes a whopping 100% return to breakeven on a 50% loss.
And others state it as: “There are old traders and there are bold traders but there are no old & bold traders.”
“Bad News” & “Broken Clocks”
I agree that recent signals that foretold past recessions have not panned out. E.g., two quarters of negative GDP in ’22 did not lead to a recession.
If I had to guess why these indicators didn’t work, I would say they were overwhelmed by our gargantuan Federal spending — In 2024, the US deficit will be nearly $1.5 Trillion. We are currently adding ~$5.2 Billion of Federal debt per day. Federal debt service is poised to become the largest item in our budget — larger than Defense or Social Security spending.
China is another matter — see Pop Quiz, next.
Pop Quiz
Following a Hong Kong court order for the company’s liquidation, Evergrande bonds are currently trading at a penny on the dollar. https://x.com/FortuneMagazine/status/1755989707140329662
What rate of return will get the bondholders back to breakeven from their 99% loss? Answer at bottom.
my Tips
Back in June ’22 the economy was slowing and the stock market was down. Folks asked about 401K investing. Here was my reply:
Bonus Question Answer: Return to breakeven requires a 9900% return
Thanks for adding that context.
That’s funny. About to be two years of gloom and doom.
The sky is falling! 
I actually came to post this article…
Interesting bet from a Buffett protege. No idea what it means, if anything but certainly worthy of discussion.
The China economic meltdown is real. What is interesting is that instead of taking down the world economy it seems to be uncoupling the world economy and is actually helping the United States.
The Chinese stock market has crashed in 1929 fashion but the money that left China has been invested in the United States stock market.
Buffett is the world’s greatest vulture. He buys when stuff is in trouble. His last major move was Oxy when she got over her tips when buying Anadarko and Warren came to her “rescue”. Now the BH vultures are starting to pick at the bones of CRE,
How can they do this?
Warren Buffett sees so few worthwhile deals that Berkshire Hathaway’s cash pile just hit a record $157.2 billion
November 4, 2023 at 9:01 AM CDT
Just got off the phone with my bank consultant client. He finished an audit of the bank and sent the results to his boss. The boss said “you’re wrong”, “No. I’m not”. “There’s too many zeros in the number, it has to be wrong”. My guy said that when the regulators see the numbers not only will they shut the bank down, somebody is going to jail. The write off is over 50%.
He keeps telling me when all this is over, there will be only JP Morgan Chase left standing.
Any clue how long this may take , the regulator review , and when this would hit the press ? Guesstimate?
No, your client is wrong.
None. Since his boss has to present to the bank’s board, no time soon. Unless it’s time for the bank regulators to visit
I see 4 large banks in US based on current assets
(12/23).
| RANK | BANK NAME | TOTAL ASSETS | PREVIOUS RANK |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JPMorgan Chase | $3.39 trillion | 1 |
| 2 | Bank of America | $2.47 trillion | 2 |
| 3 | Wells Fargo | $1.70 trillion | 4 |
| 4 | Citigroup | $1.66 trillion | 3 |
| 5 | U.S. Bancorp | $657.2 billion | 5 |
| 6 | PNC Financial Services | $553.1 billion | 6 |
| 7 | Goldman Sachs | $538.1 billion | 8 |
| 8 | Truist Bank | $535 billion | 7 |
| 9 | Capital One Financial | $468.8 billion | 9 |
| 10 | TD Group US Holdings | $366.3 billion | 10 |
Of course, he was exaggerating about one bank standing. He doesn’t think Citi is well run although the new CEO is making some good moves. Whether that’s enough is hard to say.
Or another way to view it…
US Inflation Rate is at 3.09%, compared to 3.35% last month and 6.41% last year. This is lower than the long term average of 3.28%.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics 
Getting back to this…one of my first impressions when looking at the large bank
assets was … what for it…how small they are! That may sound a bit foolish, laugh if you like 
Stats
| Last Value | 23.26T |
|---|---|
| Latest Period | Jan 31 2024 |
| Last Updated | Feb 9 2024, 16:16 EST |
| Next Release | Feb 16 2024, 16:15 EST |
| Average Growth Rate | 6.90% |
| Value from Last Week | 23.32T |
|---|---|
| Change from Last Week | -0.29% |
| Value from 1 Year Ago | 22.99T |
| Change from 1 Year Ago | 1.18% |
| Frequency | Weekly |
| Unit | USD |
| Adjustment | Seasonally Adjusted |
So total assets of all banks is about 23 trillion, of which Chase has about 15%.
Top 5 collectively have 9.9 trillion , or about 43% of all assets.
Too big ?