Investors nearly exactly a year ago to the today, I released what would become my most watch StockTalk You-tube video to date.  It’s title, “The Trouble with Harry Dent, Robert Kiyosaki, and Nassim Taleb – Fear Sells- Crash of a Lifetime”.  Here’s a link to that video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPUrkEUQKGE  It has over 6500 views.  It’s message, Fear.  Yeap, you heard that right.  Fear, fear and the looming “crash of a lifetime for 2024” as this group of soothsayers called it in late 2023 and early 2024. The Trouble with Harry, which is a great Alfred Hitchcock black comedy, and unlike the horrific market calls of Harry Dent, is that fear sells.  Like clockwork, at the start of 2024, renowned, and I use that term carefully, demographic economist Harry Dent was out with his now near exact copy of his annual, end of the world is upon us, the stock market will crash forecast for 2024.  Last year’s remake was titled, Crash of a Lifetime, coming in 2024. And what did the S&P 500 stock index do in 2024? Well, it gained over +23% in price appreciation and near +25% in total return including dividends. Harry has been so confidently wrong for over a decade now that even in June of 2024, he quadrupled down on the looking crashing predicting a -98% CRASH IN NVDA, -92% DROP IN THE Nasdaq.  Well, the S&P 500 rose another +11% after his call, while NVDA gained about +15% post June into year end. Investors, why do we keep hearing the same thing from Mr. Dent or Rich Dad Poor Dad, or Mr. Black Swan, Nassin Taleb, or Jeremy, I’ve been wrong for 15 years and counting, Grantham, year after year?  Largely because, permabear stock market appearances on TV bring in baby boomer TV viewers which drive advertising dollars. Doomsday economic and black swan stock market calls bring in views on social media and clicks-throughs from nearly retired, semi-retired or just always fearful investors, driving?  Advertising dollars to social networks.  Investors, remember the lyrics to Don…

First off, Happy New Year and welcome to 2025 as this is the first stock talk of the new year. Over the last 8 weeks, our investment team has answered a myriad of questions into and out of the election in November. We laid out multiple scenarios to how 2025 could play out in the financial markets and our economy.  And those following along closely should already understand our outlook for the first half of 2025, but this is a brief video to wrap our first half outlook up with a neat bow. Our team has been discussing since well before the election why this bull market could remain alive in 2025 regardless of who was elected.  Without preempting all of our presentation for our 2025 market outlook summit that Oak Harvest hosts for clients and prospects, that will take place on January — at the Hotel Zaza here in Houston, we will drop some info in todays video. We believe the first half 2025 will continue 2024s economic soft landing that we have been experiencing in the US, however the first half of 2025 may usher in a bit more volatility than 1h2024 did while the stock market stays on its generally upward trajectory.  We covered 3 potential paths last week in our video, The Great, The Good, and The Ugly. We will drop a link to last week’s video below.  Our most likely path for 2025?  The Good. If one wants a historic “model” to the “Good path”, the Greenspan led 1995-97 soft landing seems to be the path we are mirroring.  Yes, it’s rare, and very few investment professionals outside of our OHFG investment team were anticipating a soft landing for 2024 back in the 4th quarter of 2023. However, here we sit, near 6000 on the S&P500.  Above even our optimistic 5800 projection back in late 4th quarter 2024, and already at our optimistic inaugural ball late January mark we referenced over 9 months ago. And after almost 2000 S&P500 points, and 14 months of a…

Three roads diverged in a yellow wood…oh wait, that’s not the poem. The OAK Harvest investment team gets often asked about scenario analysis and other potential outcomes for the stock, bond and financial markets. This makes sense as no ones crystal ball is perfect each in every year. Given its year end 2024, we already alluded to our best guess for now to where markets end 2025, 6660 currently, as well as the optimistic repeat of Trump 2.0, S&P 500 equals 7000, and everyone else’s 2025 outlooks have been posted, I figured I would leave our followers with 3 scenarios for 2025 along with historical precedents that one could follow along with if you want. Let’s call them, the Great, The Good, and The Ugly! First off, the Great scenario. We’ve discussed this one multiple times even back in the 3q of this year in front of Donald Trump winning reelection in early November. The Great for 2025 is Trump 2.0 in 2025 mirrors Trump 1.0 in 2017. Here’s the 3 overlays of the most important charts for that scenario. First the S&P500, then 10-year Treasury yields and finally the DXY dollar currency basket which I personally think will be the key to 2025. Recall 2017 turned out to be Goldilocks on steroids for investors and a nightmare for traders. Why? Because the great drawdowns throughout 2017 amounted to barely -3.5% and after the 1st quarter the max drawdowns in the S&P 500 ranged from 2.5% to only 1.5%. 2017 was glorious to bulls because earnings surprised to the upside on the back of a decent economy, long term interest rates declined on the back of a Fed that was raising rates and an economy who was slowing as well as inflation was gradually declining. Throw into the mix the Dollar went on a 12-month selloff that boosted other global assets and markets such as China, and if you were long most everything except energy, you made money. A repeat of all of these can get the S&P500 to 7000,…

First off, Merry early XMAS as this is the last stock talk before the holiday next week. Second, we’ve gotten a lot of great questions since the election on the outlook for the economy and the markets for 2025.  We have addressed the key issues we see affecting the markets in 2025, however there are many other topics and smaller issues that keep popping up in many of our viewers’ questions. Hopefully we touched on many of these topics last night during Troy, Charles and my recent livestream. While the focus of last night was recapping 2024, it’s our investment teams and financial planners’ goal at OHFG of focusing on the future, not dwelling on the past. The link to last night’s live stream is here. Check it out and subscribe to our original content. I’m keeping this one short, due to our prep for last night’s event, but I hope you pass it on to others and help me get my subscriber base above 1000 before 2025 begins.  Investors. We have been in a bull market for equities.  We have been since at least 2011 secularly, and cyclically since the October 2022 low as well as Oct 2023 pivot higher from 4150 on the S&P500. Our team has been discussing since well before the election why this bull could remain alive in 2025 regardless of who was elected.  Without preempting our 2025 market outlook summit that will take place on January — at the Hotel Zaza here in Houston, here is a list of those things that wee feel are most important to extending this bull market for another year.  And investors, these are listed in order of importance. S&P 500 earnings growth and growth rates continue to be strong. First and foremost, stocks follow earnings and marginal returns on invested capital over periods measured in years. Interest rates, both nominal, real growth rates, and inflation expectations. Lower trending rates at the long end of the Treasury curves, which are generally market based, is better for equities than higher…

We are nearing Xmas, other religious holidays, and the year end.  It’s that time of the year many people and investors make lists. Thery make Naughty and nice lists, new year’s resolution lists, top college football teams, top sports plays to watch from 2024 and top books to read lists. Investors as we’ve said for quite some time, cyclically since the October lows in 2022 and again in October 2023, we are in a bull market for US equity assets as defend by the S&P 500. A few months back and pre-2024 Presidential election, we shot a video where I postulated that the S&P500 could get to an optimistic 7000 by year end 2025 as a stretch goal.  That would be a continuation of the bull market in 2025 with the year in the markets and economy mirroring 2017 Trump 1.0. However, for now, my model gives 6660 as a likely high point for the markets in the coming year. I don’t like to revise targets, because the model I run doesn’t move around that much even way out in the future. With holidays here, I am making my own list for Oak Harvest and my followers. It’s a checklist of how things looked in 2016/17 and how they look into year end 2024 and what’s needed for the “Bull to remain alive and even thrive in 25”.  I’m not ranking these in order of importance right now, but you might be able to guess where our team would go based on previous videos and our commentary. Federal Reserve- In 2026 and 2017 the Fed was raising interest rates at the short end that they control. Today, they are in a rate cutting cycle which is biased to continue in 2025. Nominal 10-year market interest rates – In 2016 they were lower into mid summer and rose by about 1.25% into year end post-election where they stayed stable to lower in 2017. Year to date, 10-year rates were lower into mid-summer and have risen about 1% off their lows. Many…

First off, I have to thank my Mom who passed away a number of years ago, much too early in her life, and my Dad, who is still going strong and playing a few rounds of golf every week as he approaches 92 in Atlanta, and God for bringing me into this world 59 years ago. Today is my B-day, And yes, 59 is finally starting to sound a bit old to me. I’m keeping this one short, but I hope you pass it on to others and help me get my subscriber base above 1000 before 2025 begins.  Investors, we are in a bull market for equities.  We have been since at least 2011 secularly and cyclically since the October 2022 low as well as Oct 2023 pivot higher from 4150 on the S&P500. In the mid to late 4th quarter of last year, against many calls for a generational top or calls to play defense below line in the sand 4160 by a practitioner of EWT, I forecast that the markets as defined by the S&P 500 could get to an optimistic 5800 into yearend 2024 and 6000 into inauguration in Jan 2025. Yes, that was a move of up 1500 to 2000 points over 15 months or so. Most people looked at me and laughed.  And yes, I moved up that forecast to 6000-year end and 6200 into inaugural ball during the mid-summer selloff. So we are pretty much there on time and at those levels and the question is now what. Well go back about 2 months and pre-2024 Presidential election, we shot a video where I postulated that the S&P500 could get to 7000 by year end 2025.  It seems a few Wall Street statregists also heard that call and since the election the like of Tom Lee and a few others have moved their targets there. Now investors, I do not know if we can get there.  But I do know how it would be likely.  First off, frequent listeners know, over the last…

First off, Happy post-Thanksgiving and Black Friday Shopping Day. Hopefully you had a great Thanksgiving, have benefitted from the on-going bull market, and are in the economic position to get out there and splurge a little for yourself and others over the upcoming holiday weeks. IF not, my thoughts and prayers go out to you and your family during the holidays. I’m keeping this one short, but I hope you pass it on to others and help me get my subscriber base above 1000 before 2025 begins.  Investors, we are in a bull market for equities.  We have been since at least 2011 secularly and cyclically since the October 2022 low as well as the Oct 2023 pivot higher from 4150 on the S&P500. If you were watching and following doomers like Robert Prechter, Harry Dent, Robert Kiyosaki, Jeremy Grantham, and the long list of retired hedge fund billionaires, you’ve likely missed most if not all of the move higher in US stocks the last 2 to 15 years in the case of chronically wrong Harry Dent and Robert Prechter. Hopefully, it hasn’t permanently damaged your final plan. Give us a call before year end and one of our financial advisors can help you decide if another path is better for you and your money. So quickly. As I said, it’s a bull market.  And the funny thing is in 2024, particularly since late summer its been following a script we’ve seen relatively recently to a T.  What year? Yeap 2016.  The same year that then long-shot Donald Trump shocked the world and won his first term as our President. Pretty much ever since DJT was re-elected, many economists and commentators on the financial news networks like Bloomberg and CNBC have spent countless hours trying to convince their viewers how Trump 2.0 won’t be like Trump 1.0 for the economy and your wealth.  Well, so far it appears as they were pretty much wrong in 2016 and 2017, they have been wrong year to date in 2024. My question to…

Fearmongers do one thing better than everyone else I know.  What’s that? Spreading fear and conjuring up the latest and greatest rationale for US investors not investing in equities. Harry Dent, Robert Kiyosaki, Robert Prechter, and Jerry Grantham all noted doomers, all horrifically wrong on the outlook for US equities the last decade +. Since the Covid pandemic ended and the Ukrane/Russian war began one of their loudest arguments for anti-equity and anti-American investment more specifically ahs been something called De-Dollarization.  What is de-Dollarization and should you be losing sleep over it at night? The punch line answer is no do not loose sleep over it. Do not worry about it harming your domestic investments in the next few years, but yes keep an eye on it because it will create opportunities here and abroad. First off what is De-dollarization when financial folks discuss it? Well, it generally refers to seeing a significant reduction in the use of the U.S. dollar in world trade and financial transactions.  I’m going to refer to the DXY index as the dollar index in this piece as its probably the broadest and most common measurement of the US dollar versus our trading partners and other world powers. Here are the current weights in the DXY Index of the 6 currencies that make it up: And here is a 20 year chart of the DXY Index. In this chart, up and to the right is an indication of the dollar getting stronger versus these trading partners.  That is, our currency being more valuable in trade not less.  And remember investors, currencies are a relative value game whenever you look at them.  One country’s currency is strengthening at the expense of another. Given the trend in this chart, what makes doomers so loud and vehement about their so far very wrong prediction of the “dollar’s demise”?  Why are many economists and alarmists concerned about the trend away from the dollar into alternative currencies? First and foremost, a less dollar centered world might mean a redistribution of…

The voters voted, the votes are counted, there was no debate, arguments, or riots, and Donald Trump was re-elected as President. At the end of the day, as James Carville said in 1992, “It’s the economy stupid” and the voters voted that way.  They voted down Bidenomics and the Harris immigration stance the last 4 years and were less swayed than most thought on social issues. Troy, Charles and I will be doing a livestream on Thursday Nov 21st at 6pm focused largely on the potential outcomes in the financial markets and the economy of a second Trump presidency.  Theres a link in the description below in case you want to tune in live and ask questions.  It should be our normal fun time, and I think there will be lots of thoughtful discussion and  great information in it for investors, clients and OHFG prospects. I also suggest you go back and watch my last 3 videos particularly the two titled “Will 2024 echo 2016? What a Trump win could mean for the Stock Market and economy? I posted the Friday before the election, and a second titled, “Stock market hedging before the Election-Are you overpaying?”, which was done in late October as the media was touting end of the world scenarios for election day itself.  I think both proved rather prescient and show what our team looks at behind the scenes to gauge investor sentiment and positioning, trying to strip out emotions. Given the length of next week’s event, and our lunch and learn last Wednesday, I’m going to make this a quick video and mainly filled with many charts, historic data, and comparisons to late 2016 when Trump unexpectedly won.  I’m not going into much detail here as hopefully we will cover the verbal side of these charts next Thursday night.. First, the political makeup in DC is historically good for your money. A GOP sweep in DC is historically the second-best setup for stocks, only slightly behind a Dem President and a GOP Senate. The first 2…

I’m writing this on Sunday the 3rd and it was filmed Monday morning the 4th, pre-presidential election on the 5th. Hopefully by the time this hits YouTube on Friday November 8th, we have an undisputed President elect.  Last week I did a thought piece on potential stock market outcomes if DJT was re-elected. This was not a prediction or endorsement, but I did it given there were so many similarities in interest rates, volatility markets and public media outlets to now and 2016 when DJT was a surprise winner. As I write this, the data I’m seeing says it’s a very tight race, however the edge seems to be leaning toward VP Harris as the early voter counts in 7 swing states seems to be heavily skewed toward more female voters voting early and voting on social issues over economic ones.  As the data we presented last week showed, the VP had a large polling lead on social issues while DJT had a large lead along economic lines in swing states.  However, this poll did not narrow the dataset to weighing the top issues amongst “swing voters” in “swing states” which will likely determine this election. First off investors, this is another thought piece not an opinion piece. Just as I was not endorsing DJT last week, neither myself or OHFG is endorsing the VP for President in this weeks video.  What I am going to do is walk through what historically, the data and only the data says is best for your money and investment returns going forward over the next few years. First off investors, we are in a bull market, and until otherwise proven false, or be us hit by a black swan event, we should continue on this bull market path. The economy is growing between 2-4% in real terms.  Inflation rates have dropped back to between 2-3%.  Historically, this is the definition of Goldilocks in the stock markets, Historically, these are data points achieved in bull markets. Not to hot, or cold, just right. Historically…