MidSouth Week in Review
January 19, 2024

Weekly Update from Fund Manager Buzz Heidtke, MidSouth Investment Fund

Today the S&P made a new high and was up 1.1% for the week.  The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond rose to 4.17% vs. 3.50% earlier in the month.  Bitcoin declined to $40,343 from $46,700 earlier in the month.  The Dollar rose to 103 from 99 recently.  Because of a recent 8 inches of snowfall, Nashville has received no newspapers in 5 days.  Sources:  Wall Street Journal and New York Times

The S&P 500 – ended 2023 with a 24% gain.  Just seven companies – Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta and Tesla – accounted for two-thirds of the gains – THE WEEK

Airport Guns – Passengers bringing guns to airports hit 6,737 in 2023 with 93% found to be loaded.  That compares to just 1,123 in 2010 – Transportation Security Administration

$4,000 – A Pittsburg couple was forced to undertake is messy retrieval operation.  Their dog ate $4,000 in cash they left on a kitchen counter.  They waited for him to poop and washed the cash scraps and retrieved all but $450 – Carrie Law

Covered Call Strategies – have been the most popular factors over the past few years.  However traditions of cover-call strategies face a tradeoff:  They forfeit potential upside in exchange for current income – ProShares

Autos – China’s overseas auto sales exceeded Japan’s in 2023.  Some 5.26 million Chinese-made cars were sold abroad vs. 4 million for Japan in the first 11 months of 2023 – Wall Street Journal

Cher – has several tricks for staying youthful:  not drinking, not smoking and dating a man 40 years her junior.  Cher is 77 – Daily Mail

Small Town Municipal Bonds – usually carry a higher interest rate than their big-city equivalents.  Because they are small, rating companies don’t bother to evaluate them.  But in most cases the issues are just as safe as the rated bonds.

General Motors – Their sales increased 14.1% last year to represent the automakers best year since 2019 – CNBC

Covid – is surging once again with hospitalizations spiking 20% after Christmas to about 26,000 people and deaths rose by 12.5% - Wall Street Journal

The Office Market – hasn’t seen the worst yet.  The vacancy rate hit 19.6% in the 4Q.  Look for vacancies to peak at nearly 21% later this year – The Kiplinger Letter

Homicides – were down about 15% last year in the nation’s 10 largest cities.  FBI stats show that violent crime was down 8.2%, including a 15.6% decline in murders – Wall Street Journal

EV Autos – A Chinese automaker has passed Tesla as the world’s bestselling EV maker, delivering 526,000 autos for the quarter vs. only 484,000 for Tesla – Axios

Gradual Retirement – More than half of Americans want to retire gradually by reducing their hours over time and about two thirds of members of Gen X report preference for this approach – ThinkAdvisor

Heart Disease – People who score highly on tests of optimism live 5 to 15 percent longer than those who are more pessimistic and have a lower risk of heart disease – New York Times

Last Year – was the warmest on record and likely the hottest in 100,000 years.  In Europe in 2023 temperatures were 2.66 degrees higher than they were in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period – New York Times

Hourly Workers – Nearly half of them are looking for a new job in the hopes of higher pay, better benefits, flexible schedules and more workplace transparency – Human Resource Management

Remote Workers – were promoted 31% less frequently than those who worked in the office – Live Data Technologies

Business Starters – 50% of business starters had parents who owned a business. 

Narrowest City In The World - https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0oRpNSuese/?igsh=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA==

Ouch! - https://www.instagram.com/reel/C18YQOWMkcz/?igsh=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA==

Very Important Advice From Billionaires - https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0PPR9VPp_9/?igsh=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA==

360 Degree Swing - https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2ASKv3MRGJ/?igsh=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA==

Actors Aging - https://www.instagram.com/reel/C17lcs-qoTr/?igsh=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA==

The material was prepared by MidSouth Investment Management LLC, and does not necessarily represent the views of the presenting party, nor their affiliates.  This information has been derived from sources believed to be accurate.  Please note – investing involves risk, and past performance is no guarantee of future results.  The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional services.  If assistance is needed, the reader is advised to engage the services of a competent professional.  This information should not be construed as investment, tax or legal advice and may not be relied on for the purpose of avoiding any Federal tax penalty.  This is neither a solicitation nor recommendation to purchase or sell any investment or insurance product or service, and should not be relied upon as such.  This material represents an assessment of the market environment at a specific point in time and is not intended to be a forecast of future events, or a guarantee of future results.  Investments will fluctuate and when redeemed may be worth more or less than when originally invested.  All economic and performance data is historical and not indicative of future results.  Market indices discussed are unmanaged.  Investors cannot invest in unmanaged indices.