Down goes the Dow

How about AMZN, GOOG, and FB?

Worst day for me in a long time.

Nearly wiped out the two big gains I had on Wed and Thursday and I end up in the hole for the month.

Not only did I get killed on my bets against the market -- particularly NASDAQ x 2 -- but my biggest stock (in oil) was well down (although a smaller oil holding did quite well).

Was back to even for the month at opening (oil up, markets down) but got smoked the rest of the day.

Insult to injury -- every time I check I am down more.

iBonds all over the news these last couple of days. Seems that a juicy 9.6% rate for the next 6 months is set to go down as of midnight ET last night, and i heard a couple of different stories mostly on the radio about how the TreasuryDirect website that administers them was crashing due to high volume of people trying to lock in the deal.

I tried to add some but sure enough, no luck, site crashes. Just a big waste of time.,

New rate in effect for any bought now will be something like 6.3% range,

I would bet that public interest in iBonds is particularly high because stock outlook is so uncertain and all the money taken out of the markets, besides the obvious appeal of the almost unprecedented rates of these no risk bonds Treasury bonds.

Anyone have better luck?

Already maxed for the year, gotta wait til 1/1/2023. Hoping they raise the fixed rate above zero but as far as I can tell there's no actual formula for setting for the fixed rate so who knows what they'll do.

yeah, same here, but there is this option to gift others, which can be done above and beyond one's own annual limit. Gifts are allowed to a spouse, child, etc.

Too late now:

Thank you for visiting the TreasuryDirect website.
TreasuryDirect will go into scheduled maintenance
from approximately 12:00AM ET Saturday, October 29 through 11:59PM ET
Sunday, October 30 to ensure continued operational integrity and
resiliency of the system. This maintenance period will also ensure we
are able to successfully process the unprecedented volume of I bond
purchases made in the past 24 hours. During this time the account
management system will be unavailable.
Customers who complete an I Bond purchase before
scheduled maintenance begins at 12:00AM ET Saturday, October 29 will
receive 9.62% for six months. Learn more.
As usual, TreasuryDirect will reopen for account
creation and purchases on Monday, October 31. Beginning Monday,
purchases will receive the rate that will be published on Tuesday,
November 1. This new rate will be applied for six months after
purchase.

yeah, i saw that this morning, though it was widely known about the deadline. And any extension would be a longshot because that wasn't part of the plan.

I crunched the numbers on the differential that the old more favorable rate will make as compared to the new (less favorable, 6.3%) rate will yield, and the difference was approx. $150 for the 6 month period, so no biggie, but wasting the time was unfortunate.

Pretty good bounce-back for me today (with the market down -- but making a rally the lst few minutes) but down slightly for the month due to the horrific Friday.

Lots of talk about this being the best month in the market in forever...which strikes me as odd as my major holdings are bets against the market and in theory I should have had a horrific month.....but I am down only a tad more than 0.3%?

Another Fed hike due this week.

Hopefully:

Helps sink market and we get some CDs/Bonds paying over 5%

:-)

JP Morgan issued a CD paying 4.70%.

Be careful, some of those JPM CDs have early call features.

Claim is that this October was the best monthly performance for the Dow since January of 1976!

Does it "feel" like that to anyone?

Source?

WSJ:

U.S. stocks slipped as the Federal Reserve prepared this week to discuss how much more to raise interest rates as it tries to calm inflation.
Despite Monday’s losses, the major indexes locked in gains for October, which traders spent weighing whether the end is in sight for the Fed’s most aggressive rate moves. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 14% for its best month since 1976. The S&P 500 and the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite both notched single-digit monthly gains.

I did not check the numbers but Marketwatch claimed the Dow was up @ 14% this month and that this ws the best since Jan 1976.

ho'smokes
Fed's initial estimate for 4Q real GDP:
A very strong +3.1%
Which suggests interest rates will go higher. Not great for stocks.

And also shows that the US economy can handle higher interest rates without much problem. 3% in 3Q and now estimated 3% in the 4Q. The US economy is a supertanker - hard to derail.

Probably a good time to remind ourselves that GDP growth does not mean higher stock prices. Look at european and asian stock prices...gone nowhere for a decade or two while they had growth.

atlantafed.org

GDPNow

@AtlantaFed

Provides a "nowcast" of the official GDP growth estimate prior to its first release.

Open link