Yes I saw the article. What amazes me is that they knew what the level was to start the selling. How did they know that? Had to be somebody giving BofA insider info.

I did a serious study of solar about 2 years ago. There are lots of homes where I live that have it. Everybody seems to be pleased but the bad stories are starting to come out. Most issues are because the installing company will not respond to panels not working. Panels and inverters do fail along the 20yr life path.

For me it boiled down to a 25 year loan for $35,000, a monthly savings initially of about $30-40, and a $10,500 tax credit. The tax credit would cover my total electric cost for 5 years as I spend about $2,000 a year. The theory is that in 5 years the cost of electricity will have gone up enough that the saving would be closer to $100 a month.

I choose not to do it for several reasons.
* The savings was not higher than what I spend on Happy Hour each week, which is another way of saying, electricity is really not that much of a burden on my monthly cost of living.
* Every time I needed to redo my roof I was looking at $8K to take the panels off and then re-install them.
* There was no guarantee that the power company would continue buying the excess electricity at the rates quoted. That was a major part of the cost savings. Big cuts happening in Calif now.
* Almost everyone selling their homes is having to pay off the loan before closing. I don't plan on moving, but a big issue for my estate.
* What happens when the company putting in the panels and operating the system goes belly up as is happening in California. What will be the cost with the next company to run and maintain the system. Bankruptcy of the installing company would be very costly and probably negate any cost savings.
* I didn't want to put the added stress on my roof. What if it started to sag, big oops.
* Somebody has to get up on the roof at least every 6 months and clean off the panels. The going rate is just under $100. There goes more of the savings.
* I really don't think the panel and equipment will last 25 years. What will be the cost to take the equipment off the roof and dispose of it. There are no recycling centers and I am pretty sure the trash dumps will not take them, so then what? This is already a big issue in Calif as solar systems installed 20 years ago are all dying. Many people are just throwing them into the backyard, I have seen pictures.

This should be interesting in California. They have all their solar power, which can not be fully used during the day, but all the Tesla owners need to charge at night when the state has to buy power from other states. Almost half of the Tesla's in the US are in California. I know AZ sells them power along with others and they are not going to get any deals. Calif is paying almost 30 cents per kwh while in AZ we are paying 15 cents. Expect the gap to get bigger. Also expect the brown outs to get worse along with more regional power shutdowns. Welcome to the same service as most 3rd world counties enjoy.

What happens if Red states start restricting immigration from those fleeing blue states? Could it happen, probably not but here is what is happening. Florida is full and residents are now fleeing to the states just to the north, i.e. Tenn. If you can't get into a restaurant for dinner, that is a very serious problem and requires action.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/daytime-solar-power-glut-california-rooftop-sales-plunge-90

I think the only thing that saved the market (and me) is that Israel said they were not going to counterattack immediately. But the market is fading fast.

Unless there is a real change in the market before the close, I am finally going to cash tonight. Israel now says they are ready to attach. I hope they hold off for 4 hours.

I am glad you see things so positive.

Be interested in seeing what back testing looks like.

Very well written article, but not the first time I have read of what I call the dumbing down of America. It is true and it is here and it is causing all kinds of issues and accidents. I am starting to believe that flying is not so safe. I for one intend to fly as little as possible. I am not loyal to American brands because they are junk, but that has been going on for a long time.

If I knew what I know today and I was ready to start college, I am not sure I would go. I see plenty of white and brown (hate the word, but that is what Mexicans are called now) guys who are wildly successful. People are do desperate for reliable workers, that anyone who will do a quality job, when they say they will do it, and a little or even a lot above a fair price will not be able to handle all the work.

Let me give you an example. My neighbor is having a pool built. His electricity feed from the transformer ran diagonally across his property, so he had to reroute it around the edge of the yard. He paid one guy $1000 to come out with a back hoe, dig a 30" deep trench, and then come back a couple of weeks later after inspection and cover it up. He had a max of 3 hours into the job plus travel time. I actually thought that was pretty fair.

Our electric company requires that the electrical conduct be pre-installed. All they will do is pull new wires through your installed conduit and hook up the ends. So he paid a guy $1700 to bring out 3 brown guys to dig down and find the hot wires at the end of the trench. Nice guys I talked to them. I am sure he paid them well for about 90 minutes of work. Next the hired guy has to go get the conduct and one Sunday morning he spent all of 1 hour gluing the pipe together. Now that $1700 was way above a fair price. Turns out the guy (white) was the electrical supervisor for the construction company that was doing his remodel, and he did odd jobs like this on the weekend where there was no one to do it. He said he made more on the weekends than he did with his regular job. This is how you get ahead. I would guess he pulls in at least $75K a year doing stuff like this.

I have been in the same situation like above many times and what did I do, go buy the pipe and glue it together. Nobody can do anything anymore. Our homes are all older here in Sun City and a few sewer line from the house to the street are failing. The going price to replace is $10,000. If it happens to me I will go rent a backhoe and dig the trench myself and then call one of several good workers I have collected from talking with them and seeing their work.

So the American dream is still alive in this country as far as I can see, just different than before. Anybody willing to work and do a good job can make a very good living. Construction bosses in this town drive new black jacked up monster diesel trucks.

By the way I don't remember the last time I saw a black guy doing any kind of construction, repair, or yard job. Welfare is plenty good enough to get by with drug sales on the side. But bad times are coming.

I had a different definition for CTA, but when I googled CTA your definition is all I could find.

Since I am using Stock Charts, events like splits and dividends are non-events for me. All history gets corrected very quickly.

Been a long time. Thanks for checking in on us.

I found this article very interesting. First the government is proposing to eliminate treasury holdings from the SLR (Supplemental Liquidity Ratio) calculation. The new SLR rule change could allow banks to be an endless buyer of treasury debt since they don't need to set aside cash in reserve. This is going to be very critical for point #2 coming up. Somebody has to buy all the debt that the government needs.

Point two, I had no idea that the vast majority of treasuries issued is bills, that is one year or less. T-notes are about 10-11%, and bonds look to be less than 2%. This is simply amazing and shocking. That means that roughly 87-88% of Treasury sells are T-bills. 1 year bills are currently selling for 5.03% and 6month 5.34%. By my calculation our interest rate on current holdings is running between 3.0% and 3.4%. At the rate of issuing $7T in new debt a quarter, that means that for the next two quarters we will replace 41% of our debt with something in the range of 5% vs 3%. By Year End (Sept) our interest payment will hit $1.4T annualized which will be 31% of our revenue, up from the current 23%. If we go into a recession, revenue will go down for next year, but interest cost will continue to climb, ugly for sure for whoever is the next president.

So if by 2026 our interest hits 50% of revenue, will that be enough for congress to do something to rein in spending? I would say it is now too late for simple action, what's coming is going to amaze everyone. Huge spending cuts, big new taxes and special assessments will have to get really ugly. Let's go back to a 90% top income tax bracket, Bernie and Warren will love it.

This is going to be fun to watch. I am glad for the rule change for the banks because there are going to be plenty of people bailing on the market and wanting to put their money in MMF's. Banks can now really get in on the action.

I can't wait to see the March numbers in about a week.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/treasury-debt-pristine-collateral-or-red-flag

CPI data comes out tomorrow. I would think that the consensus by now is that inflation numbers will be up. So the question does the market already have this priced in or will it be a big surprise. I have no clue, logic doesn't work anymore.

Interest rates have been going up all week, with little effect on the market. Good for the banks with a lot of credit card accounts, but bad for all the bonds they are holding. Have you bought any gasoline this week, wow!

I am going to guess the market will start off in shock as it did today and recover much by day's end.

I will be very surprised if we don't see a price breakdown tomorrow.

well said

This is a very scary article. I hope he is wrong, but it all makes perfect sense to me. Our world leaders are power hungry and will stop at nothing to keep that power and add more. Our borders are gone, our entire education system is a disgrace, and we are now a forever war charging nation always looking for the next war we can start. The deep state is so deep and common sense so lost that I don't see much hope. I would say the Next Great Depression is almost here. By summer 20-year interest rates could again be over 5% and for sure by year end, our debt payments will be running $1.6T at year and that is on a $4.4T revenue base.

I have no debt, I have no major amounts of money in any banks that I think could fail. Chase is probably the saved bank around because there is no way they can fail. I have some cash on hand, but I need to get a lot more. Of course when all this comes about, I will be surely in cash and not etf's, so I have to hope that all those short-term treasury bills get paid. I can't imagine the government defaulting on the 3mo T-bills first. I do expect some kind of one-time tax on our IRA's since confiscating our gold is off the table and there isn't that much they could go after. Retirement funds is a much better way to completely destroy anybody with any money and totally demoralize everyone into submission. Covid was a great training period, they now know we are all just sheep and they are welcome to destroy our fortunes and long-term outlook without any issue.

I heard terrible stories about the 30's depression from my grandparents. Most of them were farmers so they survived the depression pretty well. They could trade their egg and meat ration coupons for flour, sugar, coffee, and other things since they had the farm. My ex-wife's grandfather had a small grocery store/gas station and decided to sell it and buy a farm. He put the money in the bank the night of the sale intending to buy the farm the next day. That night the bank failed. Their survival story is one I sure hope I don't see repeated in my family again. If you think the government cares about, you are sadly mistaken. I am an old white male, I am to be hated.

Good to know they exist but doubt I will use them. As you said, at this casino 1x is enough. I have started using BITO only.

The same here. Can never stop learning.

you too

Yday's pattern was an engulfing candle, but it really was not the bearish pattern because we were not in a real uptrend. By the same token todays inside candle really doesn't mean much either, imho.

As you just posted, as the news keeps filtering in hour by hour either good or bad (more bad lately), the market just reacts day to day. Don't know if we are going to make it through this rough patch of not without breaking down.

I am getting very close to sells, but still hanging in there. I have pulled back my investment level and shifted to a much higher allocation to SPY.

The way I got to the TOS web was not easy. The easy way, log on to Charles Schwab, hit "Trade". Under "Trading Platforms" select "thinkorswim Web".

The good part about doing it this way is that you logged in to both sights but only had to log in once.

I just opened up the web based version of TOS. After just minutes of using it, this is the way I am going to go. Very easy to navigate and large numbers.

They say it is a stripped down version of TOS which I would assume applies to not being able to write code for the charts. Don't intend to do that, so not a problem. I also don't care about level II quotes (I think that is what it is called).

Hopefully I erased all personal info. I did leave the cash position, ha.

35years for Japan. I was in Japan when the crash came. It was crazy.

This is not a good look for the Q's. The fantastic channel appears to be ending with an ascending triangle. Major resistance just under 450 that could not be broken so the only other direction is down.

Here is what I have to say to all those Buy & Holders that Varney marches through his program everyday. It much have felt pretty good in 1929 with 45 new ATH's being made. 2017 did a lot better with 62 and 2021 killed it with 70.

But then came the hangover. It took 25 years until 1954 to get back to the last high of 1929. That is a long time to sit and watch your holdings try to dig out of the hole that was made. I lived through the 13 years from 2000 to 2013, I know firsthand what it feels like. Lucky for me it was only 13, not 25.

I remember my Dad playing the market in the 70's. That didn't work out for him very well and from that point he was always negative about the market. In the 90's when I was rolling in the money, he was always telling me to get out while I could.

He also fell for the option game and that didn't work out well either. I still have the manuals that he bought. They are good option techniques that are still being used today, but here is what I tell my friends, if you can't make money buying one share of stock, don't expect options to make you money. You have to know the direction the market is going to go to ever make money. The number of people who can't make money buying shares of stock amaze me that they think they can make money with options.

So will 2024 be the new 1929, or maybe we can hold it off to 2025. But I have a bad feeling we are going to see another 20+ years with no market gains. I have not issue giving up a bit to the market to not get caught riding it down. Debt took the Romans down and it will do the same for us.

A lot of articles now coming out about how bad of shape we are in concerning our debt. The Senate passed a resolution saying our debt was affecting our national security and then immediately passed a $1.2T spending bill. Nobody gets how bad the situation is. Recent auctions refunding have been 85% T- bills, debt of 1 year or less. That is frighting because they have the higher interest rates.

March data coming out in a couple of weeks will be very telling. 2023 interest cost was $880M, for the 5 months of 2024, the interest annualized has been rock solid at $1T every month. One recent article stated we would be at an interest cost of $1.6T by year end but gave no figures to back up that claim.

Interest rates made a sharp jump up yday, a trend I think we are going to see continue. Of course this will make our dollar stronger, yea.

For the 5 months of 2024 (Oct-Feb) here are the ytd numbers
1,856M Receipts
2,684B Outlays
828B Deficit, easily on target for a $2T year.

Some key spending numbers ytd:
593B SS
433B Interest (350 reported, but it does not match detail numbers)
369B Health
363B National Defense
354B Medicare
273B Income Security (I love this term, allows able people not to work)
122B Vets
86B Education (this could be cut to zero real easy)

So how soon until Interest overtakes SS and becomes the biggest expenditure subtotal?
So when the end game comes, what will be cut? SS is broke, how about there, that will start a real commotion.

My generation is lucky, most seniors live in a small home paid for, so they are able to live on the $1,000 or so amount they receive each month. What happens when that gets cut to $700. What gets cut first, cell phone, medical, dental. I can't even imagine where we are headed.

With no bail, no police available, plenty of fresh "newcomers" who hate America, and plenty of drugs, I can't wait. Movies, concerts, and eating out will be a thing of the past. Even if you could go on vacation, you better think twice as a squatter will take over while you are gone.

Red bars are the T-bills
________________________________________________________________________________________________________

How to do you see TFLO vs FLOT?

In my chart I showed the APR% for each month. 4.96% Jan 5.77% Feb and 5.60% for Mar.

Let me show how a ytd APR would be calculated.

The close Fri was 100.71. The close for Dec 29 was when adjusted 99.408.

That is a gain of 1.013097537 if I don't subtract the 1 and get the actual yield of 1.3097537%.

I now want to calculate the daily interest rate. From Dec 29 to Fri is exactly 90 days, the formula would be

1.013097537 ^ (1/90) = 1.000144594 ( again the actual gain would need the 1 subtracted to get .000144594%
Note: most calculators have either a "shift" or "2nd" button to make it each to just take the 90th root of the ytd gain (with the 1 still included).

Now that I have the daily rate, all I have to do is raise it to the 365th power to get the annual rate.
1.000144594 ^ 365 = 1.054190254
So the YTD APR is 5.42%

These formulas would be written out as
daily interest = (1 + ytd gain) ^1/(number of days in period) - 1
APR % = (1 + daily interest) ^ 365 - 1

It took me a while to figure out how dividends are used to adjust past closes some years ago. Yahoo used to do a good job of it, but no more.

Stock Charts allows us to see the raw numbers (data reported each close of the day) and the number adjusted to take into account the dividends.

On Fri SGOV closed at 100.71. After the dividend is paid Monday that number will be adjusted to 100.26. The formula used for adjusting back data is the following.

Previous Close (Fri) - Dividend (Monday) divided by Previous close
100.71 - .449911 / 100.71 = .995533
So Fri will be adjusted 100.71 * .995533 = 100.26.

All previous data will get multiplied by the same factor. As you go back in time, the factor grows smaller as each new factor is multiplied by factor from previous dividend payments.

As the data stands right now the Dec 29 adjusted close according to SC is 99.408. I also have 99.408.

As on Monday my Dec 29th adjusted number will change to 98.964

Below are two charts from Stock Charts showing adjusted numbers and then unadjusted or raw numbers. They I show my worksheet.

Excellent, thanks. And 6 significant figures to boot.

This can be thought of in many ways. I found mine.

Here is the best thing I have found on TOS. Under Account Statement, I can see an actual ledger with each trade and its effect on balance of cash. I had this with Fidelity, and it proved to be very useful at time. Neither Schwab Web, SSE or IB did this.

Error when I tried to play

I will watch it. I am making trades but I am not impressed. Just a little entry bar at the bottom.

Using 3

Don't have a way yet to look at premarket numbers. I decided to transition to TOS last night. I ordered the transfer about 6pm and they said the transfer would happen overnight. I have now downloaded TOS and have it running. About to set up my watch list. I managed to set up SSE (Street Smart Edge) with no help, I figured how hard could it be. I did watch an 18 min video. I think it will be an easy transition. Will know here in a minute.

Thanks, I did figure out their numbers were screwed up, but didn't know what they were.

Current short term money yields, will be pretty close to month numbers.

I have seen nothing about the explosion of 2yr yields. This should have made the headlines. Could be a mistake.


iHub screwing up again.

insert-text-here

Last Wed I posted that NVDA was close to breaking out of an descending triangle. The breakout did occur and NVDA is continuing its growth even in face of short term weakness. SPY and QQQ almost gave 60m buy signals today, so maybe tomorrow and then I can see some real growth. NVDA is very close to breaking the ATH.

I choose to buy intraday rather than wait for the close, which was costly. I am up 3.5% but would have been up 4.8% if I had waited for EOD.