Join Bill Gundersen as he navigates the complexities of the stock market on a particularly challenging day. With a close look at the NASDAQ’s performance over recent years, Bill shares insights into the reasons behind market volatility, including historical patterns and current technological innovations. Explore the potential impacts of U.S. politics on market behavior, and understand the importance of active management in uncertain times. With a focus on fundamental analysis and a bit of humor, Bill invites listeners to consider strategic investments amidst a backdrop of sector rotations and economic predictions.
SPEAKER 01 :
He’s been seen on CNBC, the Fox News Channel, and the Fox Business Channel. His articles can be found on MarketWatch, Seeking Alpha, thestreet.com, and many other places. He’s the author of the weekly Best Stocks Now newsletter and the inventor of the Best Stocks Now app. He’s president of Gundersen Capital Management. Here is professional money manager Bill Gundersen.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome to the Monday. It is the Monday live edition of the Best Stocks Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management. I’m here with my vice president. Jeff Webster, who will be adding a little color here after we get through our little introductory opening here to the market. We have a bah humbug day in the market. This is no way to celebrate the holidays. The NASDAQ right now is down, let’s see, 1.68%. That translates to 335 points. We’re clear down to 19,388. After we hit that 20,000 level here, big round number, sometimes that can be a big obstacle in the way of an advance. Valuation is also a big issue. I hope you read my newsletter over the weekend. The Dow is down 670 points. What kind of happy new year is that? That’s 1.6% drop. Big tech taking it on the chin again today. The Dow hit 45,000. Big round number. Valuations got high. Now we’re back to 42,308. The S&P down 1.5%. It’s down almost 100 points. Very light volume, though. That’s kind of hard to gauge. S&P is at 58.77. And even the bond market is selling off today. How about that? It’s down six basis points. So welcome to today’s Best Stocks Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management. And I’m here with my vice president, VP of all kinds of things, so I can stay focused on managing portfolios and looking at the markets, etc. I’m here with Jeff Webster. Barry Kite is traveling today. On another holiday-shortened week, tomorrow will be a half-day in the market. Hallelujah. And then we call it a wrap for 2024. I hate to end on a sour note. Maybe we’ll get some buying coming into the market here by the end of the day, Jeff. Maybe Jeff will open up his wallet and start doing some buying to get this market turned around. Okay, Jeff, can you do that for us?
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s crazy out there. First of all, good morning to everyone. I hope everyone’s having a great holiday season. with their families and friends. It is crazy.
SPEAKER 03 :
I mean, the last few days have been bonkers. Have you ever seen days in the market where it makes no sense? Well, yes. Many days, they just make no sense. I couldn’t figure out where the big update on Christmas Eve came from. I mean, that was only a half a day. And then really no rhyme or reason as to why the big sell-off happened on Friday and it’s following through today. Light volume always magnifies moves in the markets. It’s kind of hard to gauge. But, you know, I was really struck as I wrote my newsletter on Saturday. I really was struck by going back, Bill, and look at your nasdaq article that you wrote two years ago it’ll be two years ago uh in one week january 6 2023 when i wrote an article saying the nasdaq has bottomed and that came after a pretty big sell-off in the nasdaq you know in 2022 the nasdaq was down 30 percent and uh you know to call a bottom after that but pretty pretty sharp shooting there from gunderson And, of course, now we’re two years into that big uptrend in the NASDAQ. And along the way, we’ve seen some innovation. What can I say? You know, AI came out of nowhere and became a reality. You know, the driverless cars are still a thing. NVIDIA came along. A lot of advancements. have come along over the last couple years in the NASDAQ. But the bottom line that I found in going back and reviewing that article, and if you didn’t read the article in my newsletter on Saturday, you might want to read it. What I really noticed more than anything, when we started this NASDAQ run, and by the way, I haven’t rescinded my buy call on the NASDAQ since January of 2023, the NASDAQ had a P.E. ratio of 20%. 20 times earnings which is pretty that’s pretty cheap for the nasdaq actually and it had come down from about 37 times earnings you know during the covid years when there was all that money sloshing around in the market and all that speculation and all of that buying and all of the long duration stocks you went from 37 down to 20 okay so very cheap market The technicals backed that up. The technicals were bottoming in late December of 2022, finally bottomed in early January, and we went all in on the NASDAQ. We’ve been all in for the last two years. Guess where the P.E. ratio is now? Well, we’re back to that. I think we’re at 33 or 34. We’re not quite back to the 37 ratio. But now keep in mind that we also have a higher interest rate environment right now. So today’s 33 P.E. is probably equivalent to the P.E. of the NASDAQ two years ago. uh… and of course uh… we’ve come a long ways you know we had a two-year sell-off in the nasdaq and now we’ve had a two-year run in the nasdaq does the nasdaq run in two-year cycles i don’t know only time will tell uh… but uh… we have come back and i mean if you look at any valuation measure price to book value Price to sales, price to cash flow, price to earnings, price to forward earnings. We’re back where we were at the height of the NASDAQ four years ago. So that’s definitely a yellow flag, Jeff. You could argue, well, we’re in a much more innovative phase of the NASDAQ right now and new things are coming out at a faster pace. Well, they tried to make that argument back in 2000 about the dot-coms. Oh, we’re in a new paradigm was what I heard. And no, I mean, valuations did finally matter. at that point in time and you had a huge sell-off in the nasdaq now am i saying that the nasdaq peaked to 20 000 well it’s too early to tell but i mean the probabilities of a repeat in the nasdaq in 2025 of what we got last year uh is not very probable, I would say, number one. Number two, you could argue, well, Jeff, you know, Trump’s coming in, he’s pro-business, he’s going to roll back regulations, he’s going to do what he can to juice the economy. Well, that doesn’t change the valuation of the market. How much of that is already priced into the market? But as always, okay, there’s always opportunity in the market. And I think what I’m doing here is convincing myself once again and making a case for active management. Absolutely. Yeah, I think you’re going to see some sector rotation. I mean, it’s too early to tell. The only sector that’s up today is the oil and gas sector. Are we going to have a big year in oil and gas? I don’t know. At the same time, I’m seeing a lot of inverse. Inverse is a tool in your tackle box. that you’ve got to pull out sometime when things get a little bit rough. And, you know, I would also say this, Jeff. When I went back and visited the NASDAQ and I really looked into Granite shares, there has been a pretty big move towards these single-stock ETFs that are inverse ETFs. Okay, let’s say you have a huge position in Amazon. You consider it a core position. You don’t want to sell your Amazon. Well, you can now hedge that position by buying the inverse Amazon. You can neutralize that position, right? So if Amazon goes through a 20% correction, the inverse Amazon will go up 20%. And you’ve basically protected your position during a rocky time in the market. And you know, I mean, not many fee-based money managers. I mean, you have to kind of get into hedge funds and whatnot to get any hedging in your portfolios. But we’re big believers in hedging during volatile times in the market. And I do expect more volatility in 2025 than we had in 2024, although we had plenty of volatility. One thing that is certain in the market is volatility, Jeff. I’m sure you’ve seen that since you’ve been with us and are more focused on the market than probably ever before in your career. You’ve seen that volatility. So anyways, that’s where we begin a new year. It would be wise to read. I wrote a very simple, easy to understand article about And not only did I show a graph of the NASDAQ, I showed graphs of the valuation charts of the NASDAQ. And I’ve also submitted that article to Seeking Alpha. And if there’s anybody working this week at Seeking Alpha, we’ll find out. I mean, it’s… I submitted it like 12, 14 hours ago and haven’t heard a peep yet. But hopefully we’ll get that article out there for the general public on Seeking Alpha 2. Okay, when we come back, lots of predictions coming out on this year in the market.
SPEAKER 1 :
We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 03 :
And welcome back to the second quarter of today’s Best Stocks Now show on the second to last day. It’s the last full day of the year, trading year. Tomorrow will be a half day. I’m just trying to come up with ideas in my head, theories. Jeff, what all of a sudden turned the market really on Friday? It was Friday that you had the big sell-off, especially in tech.
SPEAKER 06 :
I mean, could it be, Bill, all the changes that we’re seeing out there with You know, we’re now seeing a big surge with quantum computing, with the AI stuff. Are people just saying, you know what, 2024 has been a great year. I’m going to take some profits. I’m going to do some tax harvesting on my losses and, you know, go into 2025 with a relatively, you know, clean slate.
SPEAKER 03 :
and and look for you know good opportunities is that a possibility i would buy into that except most people are going to wait to they don’t have many losses in 2024 it’s mostly gains and you know the the logic is that you wait until after the first of the year to do your selling of big gains and an ira obviously it doesn’t matter so you could be seeing some Some sector rotation in IRAs saying, yeah, you know, it’s been a good year. And a lot of times you’ll see a very speculative sector like quantum computing have a big rally. And that kind of is, okay, now that rally has extended to every single little nook and cranny in the tech sector. And now it’s time to begin the selling. Sometimes that’s the last little firework, you know, before things start to fall apart due to valuation. That’s one theory. Another theory is, you know, I think there’s going to be a lot of, there’s a lot of people in the country and the government around the world that aren’t happy that Trump’s going to be the president. Will they try to sabotage him and cause trouble? You know, there is the theory that they won’t, if they don’t elect Johnson as the Speaker of the House before January 20th, they can’t certify the election. Okay, that’s another one I’ve heard. And, of course, I’ve heard a couple of congressmen that absolutely are not going to vote for Johnson. And guess what? They can’t have one person. They can’t have one person jump ship. They need every one of those boats. So, I mean, that’s another theory that you get a little bit of chaos around the transition and everything. I think probably the most likely theory is that sector rotation taking place, selling off some of the red-hot sectors of 2024, but not in taxable accounts. That’ll come. Now, that’s the scary part. That could come after the first of the year when we come back to work on Thursday. You could see some heavy selling then from the taxable accounts. And, you know, which mostly have big gains in them. And, of course, they’re putting off their big gains until the 2025 tax year. So that’s another one. So anyways, you know, the Magnificent Seven are bleeding. Tesla’s bleeding right now. Palantir’s bleeding. Facebook, all of them, Microsoft, etc., And, you know, I mean, I’m thankful for, at this time of year, I’m thankful for inverse funds, and I have more at my fingertips than I’ve ever had before. I had some free time a little bit on, let’s see, Saturday, I guess. And I did add every single inverse fund that I could find. I added it to my database. And there’s a lot of new ones, okay, between GraniteShares and Direction. Direction has a lot of single stock inverse funds. Now, they have some that GraniteShares doesn’t have. GraniteShares has a lot that Direction doesn’t have. I found a Magnificent Seven inverse fund. Let’s say you own, which we do. We own a lot of those Magnificent Seven stocks. I could hedge the whole darn thing. The only issue is the liquidity. Some of those funds aren’t big enough, don’t have enough money in them. I have to look at the volume that they trade. It would be hard for me. But there are some very large inverse funds. NASDAQ, obviously, would be an obvious one. And NASDAQ two times inverse would be an obvious one. I don’t really like the three times inverses. If you look at the math on those things, I mean, they’re only good for a week or less maybe, and then it starts getting pretty fuzzy. Yes, it gets pretty fuzzy, the math. You would think, okay, so, you know, in theory, you would say, well, if over the next three months the NASDAQ goes down 20%, The three times inverse NASDAQ would go up 60%, but it doesn’t quite work that way, okay? Almost, but not quite. I mean, you might get 45%, and you could even get an adverse kind of a situation, depending on how the math works out, and especially how the volatility works out. But anyways, okay, we had another crash. It did happen to be a Boeing this time. Okay, the one in Russia was an Embraer, which are made in Brazil. And I don’t think it was the Embraer’s fault. I think a missile, an anti, you know, what do they call those? Defense, an air defense missile brought that thing down.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, it was filled with bullet holes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and bullet holes. Which almost makes, so they might have been fired from the ground, I guess. It looked like a machine gun. because you didn’t see really an f-35 or whatever what do you call mig a Russian mig pull up next to it and riddle it unless there was somebody very important on that on that plane now the South Korea plane was a Boeing 737 which is a little bit worrisome I’m just going to look at Boeing stock today was it a Boeing issue it was something with the landing gear I mean, they tried to blame bird strikes on the Russian one. And the Boeing one, okay, the South Korea crash, they don’t know what did it. And I will say this, that’s one of the big reasons that the Dow is down so much is Boeing is a big constituent of the Dow. Boeing’s down 4.2% today until they figure out. South Korea is going to inspect all of the Boeing 737s through the 800 series after the deadly crash. And really all we know is it looked like there was an issue with the… with the landing gear. Okay, and there was a bird strike of some sort that got jammed up in the landing gear and they couldn’t deploy the landing gear. But, you know, I don’t know. The pilot, he came down on that runway and he had no brakes at all. Didn’t he hit a wall? Yeah, and at the end of the landing strip there was a wall, which is really crazy that they have a wall there. So anyways, we’ll see. That wasn’t good. I don’t know how two of the crew survived. I mean, they must have maybe, who knows, jumped out on the run tarmac, opened the door. I don’t know how the two crew members survived, but that’ll be interesting. Okay, on a lighter note, now my grandkids went and saw Sonic the Hedgehog. They didn’t invite me. That took in $38 million. But the one that I’m really interested in, I want to see A Complete Unknown, which took in $11.6 million. That’s the story of Bob Dylan in his early years back in New York. And I’ve heard a review from my brother, who is a big Bob Dylan fan. He said it was fantastic. We’ll be right back. This is Bill Gunderson. Thank you for tuning in to today’s Best Stocks Now, Best Inverse Funds Now show. I put several hours of research in during the wee hours of the morning each day to bring you the very best cutting edge stories that I can. To get two free weeks of my newsletter, go to GundersonCapital.com. To talk to us about our fee-based only money management services, call us at 855-611-BEST. Now, back to the second half of the show.
SPEAKER 05 :
And welcome back here to the second half of today’s Best Docs Now show. One other theory.
SPEAKER 03 :
conspiracy theory no not really i mean there’s usually a reason there’s usually a reason catalyst of some sort behind buying or selling whether it be in an individual stock or whether it be in indexes the debt limit was suspended for two years okay that was they kicked the can down the road how many times have they kicked the can down the road well guess what that two-year And suspension, it will be over, let’s see, I saw this this morning because Janet Yellen says U.S. debt limit will be reached in mid-January. Okay, so the debt limit will kick back in and it’s going to come back in. at where it left off okay and we’re already over that so we’ve got the debt limit will be reached so they’ve got to extend the debt limit or everything comes to a screeching halt and that’s going to cause a lot it’s not going to be a smooth process Market doesn’t like things that are not smooth, that are rough. And, you know, obviously they’re going to have to extend the debt. They’re going to have to increase the debt limit. There’s no way around that. Because the budget that, you know, that is in place right now, the spending that is in place right now takes in $4 trillion and spends $6 trillion. So obviously you’ve got to increase the debt limit by $2 trillion every year until… you start cutting into that, right, trying to move towards a balanced budget, which is not an easy thing to do. And it takes time. So there’s going to be a massive fight on that. And that could also be an issue. You just see kind of we’re entering into a time, Jeff, with the new regime coming in. But, you know, look, Trump is a lightning rod. People either love him or they hate him. And they’re going to do what they can do to mess things up. Schumer’s not going to just go along and make things easy for Trump. And Trump tried to get the debt limit taken out of the budget negotiations there before they funded the government to avert a shutdown. But Schumer would have nothing to do with that. He wants the debt limit, raising the debt limit on Trump’s watch, not on the Democrats’ watch.
SPEAKER 06 :
As we talk about politics, I mean, of course, yesterday, former President Jimmy Carter passed away. He was 100 years old, the oldest living former president, whether you like his politics or not. He was the longest living president. You know, George Herbert Walker Bush was the second, followed by Ford Reagan, ironically, the fifth longest living president. was John Adams, who was the second president. All right.
SPEAKER 03 :
He’s still living?
SPEAKER 06 :
90 years of age. Still living?
SPEAKER 03 :
No. 90 years? No, no, not living.
SPEAKER 06 :
He was 90 years old when he received.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, that’s pretty good, too, because that time period, I mean, it was probably more in the mid-60s range or so.
SPEAKER 06 :
Exactly. He would have been 130 in dog years, if you will. John F. Kennedy, youngest president to die at age 46. Just a little bit of presidential trivia. There were eight U.S. presidents that died while serving in office.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, let’s hope Trump isn’t nine, you know, I mean, the way things are going. Anyways, we have what I was going to say. Carter actually became more popular after his presidency because when I think of his presidency, I remember I’m a little older than you, Jeff. I remember the long gas lines, number one. I remember the Iran hostage crisis, which Reagan solved within the first few weeks of his presidency. And I also remember 18-19% inflation and him having to bring in the big guy Volcker to put us into a recession.
SPEAKER 06 :
It was stagflation is what they called it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Stagflation. That’s what I remember Carter for. And then, of course, you know, he was a good Christian man with his Habitat for Humanity, and he taught his Sunday school and all this and that. But at the core, I think he was pretty much a social, leaned very heavily towards socialism.
SPEAKER 06 :
Definitely a social democrat. He actually established the U.S. Department of Energy and the Department of Education. I’m sure the DOE, Department of Education there, is in the crosshairs of Elon.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, absolutely. They want to get rid of it and give it back to the states, which I think is a good idea rather than having a federal government run the education of all of our people. children that i think it should go back to the states and that’s that’s my opinion on that okay now yeah so anyways yellen says u.s debt limit to be reached in mid-january okay that’s another problem you saw how much it was not easy getting that spending bill passed to keep the government uh open or open uh you know through i think they’re good till march now Okay, and we’re having some changes in the Federal Reserve. We’re getting three hawks and one dove, and a partridge in a pear tree. I don’t know how he’ll vote, but FOMC, three hawks. Okay, so you’re not going to see any rate cuts in January. You know, maybe May, June, we’ll just have to see, okay? All right, now… Tariffs, obviously, are out there on the horizon also, which is another thing to be worried about. China, I saw a prediction from, there’s a very well-known economist that works for Apollo. Apollo is a private company. equity like Blackstone or BlackRock or one of those. And their strategist is Torsten Slocke, who’s pretty well known. And I was looking at his outlooks for this coming year. He mentioned tariffs. He says NVIDIA’s earnings are going to disappoint. All right, we’ll see. He also says the U.S. economy will reaccelerate and animal spirits come back. Well, that’s fine. But the market’s at a very high level right now from a valuation point of view.
SPEAKER 06 :
Phil, ironically, NVIDIA is one of the few notable securities right now that’s in the green today.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, hey, okay, things are happening. That’s good. Okay, he also says that you could have an outright recession in China and an outright recession in Germany. And he gives the probability of a recession in the U.S. in 2025, 0%. How do you like that? I can’t see Trump putting us into a recession unless outside events should occur. Okay, what else do we got here? Well, you got this debate over the H-1B visas for foreign workers. You know, most of those H-1B, aren’t we talking India? Aren’t we talking software developers and whatnot, the Hewlett Packards of the world? You were in the software industry. My friend Douglas was in the software industry. He worked with many people. And you go to San Francisco, there’s Indian restaurants all over the place, right? What’s your thoughts on the H-1B visas? Do we have enough talent here in the U.S.? I mean, Indians start learning in India pretty much software development from birth, kind of like Dominican Republic and baseball. What are your thoughts on this H-1B visas?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I think I’ve worked with a lot of good people that held that status. I also spent some time with an organization that We provided, we placed people, and a number of those individuals held H-1B visas. And, of course, it can be very tenuous if they end up losing that visa. You know, they have to get out of Dodge. Unlike some other… folks from other countries, they would actually leave as opposed to, you know, try to hide under the covers. But, yeah, a lot of good, smart people. We do have a lot of great talent here in the U.S. The question is, are talented people willing to do that? Are there other things that they want to do? Certainly the H-1B visa holders are folks that say, hey, look, I’m happy to roll up my sleeves. I’m happy to contribute. And they do good work.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Well, the question is, it sounds like there’s a shortage. That’s the gist I get. Trump is for the H-1B. Musk is against it. But I think Trump will win out there. Musk himself worked out as an H-1B at one point in time in his career. So anyway, Google CEO asked employees to brace for challenging 2025. And he’s talking more on the regulatory front where you could, I don’t know. Look, there’s no way you can say that these companies aren’t monopolies, huge monopolies. Will they come after them? Could it be a crazy year in big tech? Could that be another reason? But I think Trump’s going to be more friendly to tech myself. Okay, when we come back, we’re going to take a look underneath the surface of the market. I left my snorkel and mask somewhere in my office. You’ve got to go where you want to go.
SPEAKER 04 :
Do what you want to do. And then whoever you want to pay for.
SPEAKER 03 :
And welcome back here to the final segment of today’s Best Stocks Now show. Well, I would like to say that the market’s improved. It’s improved a little, not much. The Dow is still down 625, and the NASDAQ is down 320 points. We came up with a few theories. I think the overvalued theory is probably the best one. That’s the one I put forth. on Friday, on Saturday, when I stopped, paused, thought about it, reflected on it, and I said, you know, it’s been two years since I wrote that NASDAQ article. I went back and referred to it, read it, and most importantly, I compared the valuations of the NASDAQ two years ago to where they are today, and it was quite telling. And, you know, I didn’t sleep on Saturday night. No, I’m just kidding. But, you know, look, The NASDAQ could go higher from here. It could go a lot higher from here. You can’t measure momentum and exuberance. And here you’ve got this guy from Apollo saying that exuberance is going to come back into the American economy. And what do they call it? Animal spirits is going to come back. Well, that would also bring animal spirits to the market, too, although we’ve had a fair share of that in 2024. But, you know, valuation does matter. I’m a guy who was there in 2000. I remember visiting the Bay Area, you know, during the frothy days of the NASDAQ in the late 90s. I’ve called on several hedge fund managers that were all tech. They were all tech. One of the guys was Apodaca. His dad was the governor of New Mexico at one point in time, Jerry Apodaca, and his son was a hedge fund manager. Man, they were all tech, and they had tech guys working for them. They were buying innovative disruptors back then. I’ve always kind of leaned in that direction, obviously. And then I saw it all come tumbling down like Humpty Dumpty who sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty fell. The NASDAQ went down 79%. They put Humpty Dumpty back together again. And now he’s 20,000 after getting way down below 2,000, way below 2,000. I want to say the low in the NASDAQ, oh, it was 1,200, something like that. And now you are, again, at a very lofty level in the NASDAQ. And I will never forget that experience. You know how some things are emblazoned in your memory? I rode a horse one time when I was a little kid, and a dog came barking out in the street, barking at the horse. This was in Montana. And the horse dragged me for a couple of blocks, and I skinned up my knees and everything. And I’ve always been a little leery of getting on a horse ever since then. And the NASDAQ, I’ve always had that in the back of my mind, is the valuation of those tech stocks. Okay, if we look at the, you’re right, I mean, the Dow, that’s the only stock up in the Dow is NVIDIA. Go figure. Volume is really light today. And that’s another thing. I can’t really make a good judgment call on the NASDAQ until we really get back to full strength next Monday. Okay. I think the first several days of January could kind of be telling. And I think the first five days actually could be a little bit on the rough side because I think people have been putting off, putting off, putting off, taking those capital gains until the new tax year. Okay, so NVIDIA is up. The biggest loser in the Dow right now is poor Boeing. Boeing has just had a rough year. And yet, you know, I drove by Boeing’s plant yesterday. Yesterday or Saturday? Saturday. Saturday. It’s loaded with planes ready for delivery, Jeff. I mean, we’re talking 20 planes there in their parking lot?
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s always one of my favorite things to do when I go to the airport is to see which airline from which foreign country has something there in that parking spot closest to the street. And I’m thinking, okay, they’re getting new interiors. Yeah, Lufthansa’s there right now.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, so Boeing is down 3.3. Nike, which has had a terrible year. I don’t like consumer discretionary right now. In fact, that chart on consumer discretionary, it had a good year, consumer discretionary. It’s fallen off a cliff right now. Nike’s down 2% on the Dell. Now, as we go to the S&P 500 and look inside that index, I just wouldn’t be an index investor this year, although maybe, I don’t know, maybe it’ll smooth out the ride a little bit. There’s just a lot of bad stocks in that S&P 500. That’s my issue with it. The biggest loser there, solar, Enphase, down 5.7%. Lee Jeans, which I believe is VF Corp., down 4.8%. They do other things. They do uniforms, etc. Kohl’s is down 4.4%. There’s that consumer discretionary. There is an inverse fund on consumer discretionary, SCC. And I actually have a small position, inverse consumer discretionary. Haynes Brands, another consumer discretionary, down 3.6. Macy’s down 3.5. Well, at least it’s more consumer discretionary than it is tech that’s bringing down the market today. On the upside, Really, the only up sector, and I wrote this in my newsletter on Friday. I said, you know, the one that’s putting in a bottom is the energy sector. And those are the stocks that are up today in the S&P. EQT is up, Devon Energy, APA, which used to be Apache, Diamondback Energy, Occidental Petroleum. My only issue with the energy patch is the weakness in China, which is dampening demand. But we’ll see. The worst sector in the market today is retail. in the best sector in the market today is oil and gas very light boy
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, most of the retailers will be reporting at the end of January.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER 06 :
Or not reporting, but that’s when their fiscal years will end so they can kind of take all that holiday coverage. And so they typically delay their fiscal year by a month.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 06 :
They don’t delay it, but they offset it.
SPEAKER 03 :
They want to include their returns, too, in January. Return-a-wary. They call it return-a-wary.
SPEAKER 06 :
It will be interesting to see what happens with those guys.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, yeah, okay. But suffice it to say, it’s not going to get any better for bricks and mortar in 2025. You’re going to continue to see more companies go belly up. All right, well, we’re out of time. I’m just amazed at the response we’ve gotten from the four free weeks of… of the live trading. People from all over the world are joining me on a daily basis and we’re having nothing but fun. I just did a buy here and sent it out during the show. Join us, won’t you? Go to GundersenCapital.com GundersenCapital.com or make an appointment with one of my staff here to talk about your portfolio. 855-611-BEST 855-611-BEST Have a great day, everybody.
SPEAKER 02 :
This show is not a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. Bill Gunderson or clients of Gunderson Capital Management may have long or short positions in stocks mentioned during the show. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Gunderson Capital Management is a fee-based registered investment advisory firm. All accounts are held at Charles Schwab. Schwab is a member of SIBC and FINRA.