Stock of the Year!

As you know, we had quite a year with this stock market. So I've gone bargain shopping for stocks lately. As Warren Buffet said, "Be greedy when others are fearful and be fearful when others are greedy". With careful analysis, I bring you my stock pick of the year:

NEW CENTURY FINANCIAL (SYMBOL: NEWC.PK)

What does New Century do?
What Does This Company Do? New Century is a subprime mortgage lender. In 2006, according to Inside Mortgage Finance an industry publication, it was the fourth-largest nonprime originator, with origination volume of $53.6 billion. New Century primarily sells the loans it originates to third parties, but the company is organized as a REIT and also managed a $14 billion portfolio of loans as of Sept. 30. The company is authorized to lend in all 50 states and has relationships with 47,000 independent mortgage brokers.

I mean people need to buy houses right? You need to live, and if you want to buy a house, you need a mortgage. I mean non-prime lender just mean they lend to people with less then steller credit score/history. Who has a good credit history in this country anyway? Everyone has credit card bills to pay. Look at our government, they are running on like trillion dollar deficit and their debt is "risk-free" and probably rated at AAA by S&P and Moody's. If I have $3000 credit card balance, my rating must be like AAAAAAA.

So New Century lend money to AVERAGE JOE, like you and me who has credit card debt but not as much as our government. I mean only rich people can afford to have a perfect credit record because they have so much money they would never default on any loan.

Here's the chart:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid=%7B01DEA338-1967-4F48-8A4B-C8EF19A722BA%7D&dist=rss

Well, if the smart guy at Bear Stern upgraded the stock at $15, the stock is now trading at $1, it must be SCREAMING BUY! I mean, if the stock does trade back up to $15, that will be a return of 1400%! And if the stock trades back to its 52 weeks high- $52- that's a return of 5000%!

Talk about value!


If the Bear Stern guy isn't convincing enough, check out NEW CENTURY on morningstar.com:

Stock	Industry	S&P 500	Stock's 5Yr Average*
Price/Earnings	0.2	17.1	20.3	5.5
Price/Book	0.0	3.4	4.1	1.6
Price/Sales	0.1	4.7	2.9	1.5
Price/Cash Flow	---	19.2	14.7	---
Dividend Yield %	439.8	2.3	1.8	---

A dividend yield of almost 440%! Dividend doesn't lie! 440%! How can I lose?! This is VALUE !! I think VALUE is an understatement. Let me put it this way: It is a Ferrari for sale at the price of a Honda. Look at "the market" dividend yield...what a joke! And a P/E of 0.2 vs S&P 17! So I'm only paying 20 cents for every dollar of earning vs paying $17 for every dollar of earning in the other 500 companies. S&P 500 is ripping me off!

http://quicktake.morningstar.com/stocknet/StockValuation.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=NEW&stocktab=valuation

I mean if 400%+ DIVIDEND return doesn't sound convincing. Check out New Century's headquarters at Irvine, California:


I mean with the recent run-up in real estate price in CALIFORNIA, this beautiful glass building must at least worth millions and millions of dollar. I mean a two family house probably cost over $ 1mil. in California. Imagine how much this beautiful tall glass building is worth!

At last, the share price! It's $1 a share! How can you lose?! I mean one share of Google is like $450 and they don't even have tall glass building. And with $450 you can get 450 shares of NEW CENTURY FINANCIAL! 1 share vs 450 share! $10 move in GOOGLE share price will give you $10 profit. $10 move in NEW CENTURY share price will give you $4500! Why would you buy expensive stock like GOOGLE? I mean, can you even call up GOOGLE? Google is a WEBSITE for god sake, its not a REAL business like NEW CENTURY. And we know what happen to dot com stock...remember the year 2000? I mean remember Amazon trading at $400? Where is it now?! If you pay $1 for something, and it goes down to like $0.05, so what? you lost $0.95- you can't do anything with 95 cents anyway. I can't even get like candy in New York for 95 cents. But if you buy something like GOOGLE @ $450 and it trades down like Amazon did. You lose like $410! I mean you can buy a lot with $410! Especially when you have credit card bills to pay!

Guys, this is what VALUE investing is ALL ABOUT! P/E of 0.2 and a dividend yield of 400+%! Does any stock get any cheaper?! This is a diamond in the rough, get in before its too late!





















DISCLAIMER: APRIL FOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Weekly Wrap

Last Update: 30-Mar-07 16:45 ET

The fundamentals were almost entirely bearish this week. It is no surprise that all the major indices were lower. In fact, it is a bit surprising that the sell-off was not more severe.

Oil prices were up sharply, the Fed Chairman as much as said that rate cuts are unlikely any time soon, the economic data were mixed at best, and a key inflation measure was higher than expected. There wasn't any significant corporate news to offset the bearish macro-economic issues.

The Fed Chairman's testimony before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress on Wednesday ranked as the most important event of the week. Fed Chairman Bernanke said that inflation remains the predominant concern. He made that absolutely clear.

He did not express significant concern about economic growth, and while recognizing the risk from the housing sector, he also suggested that the impact from the problems in the subprime mortgage market would be contained.

Bernanke's testimony implied that it will take a while for the current level of interest rates to bring inflation down. That means market hopes for a rate cut by the end of the summer are overly optimistic. The S&P lost 11 points on the day of his testimony.

The economic data this week brought mixed news. New home sales for February were down 3.9% despite expectations of a bounce from a sharp drop in January. Consumer confidence in March posted the first drop in five months. February durable goods new orders were up a smaller than expected 2.5% after a 9.3% plunge in January. The housing and manufacturing sectors remain drags on the economy.

More positively, initial claims for unemployment remained at low levels, reflecting a strong labor market. Fourth quarter real GDP growth was revised modestly higher to a 2.5% annual rate from 2.2%. The March Chicago PMI index jumped sharply higher to a strong 61.7 from 47.9 in February, raising hopes of a manufacturing rebound. And February personal consumption expenditures rose a stronger than expected 0.6%, showing that consumer spending remains strong.

The most important economic release, however, was the clearly bearish 0.3% increase in the February core personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price deflator.

This is the Fed's favorite inflation measure. The gain was larger than an expected 0.2%, and follows a 0.1% increase in December and a 0.2% gain in January. It raised the year-over-year increase to 2.4% from 2.2% in January. The Fed's forecast calls for this to get below 2.0% in 2008. It is going in the wrong direction.

This is just one month of data and it shouldn't be over-emphasized. If the core PCE continues at even a 0.2% rate in upcoming months, however, it will keep the Fed in an aggressive inflation fighting mood. Higher inflation is always bad for the financial markets.

Adding to inflation concerns is the fact that oil prices rose to about $66 a barrel this week from $62 last week and $57 the week before. The Iran situation was a factor, but there are concerns that oil prices will remain higher regardless of how that plays out.

The macro economic news therefore amounts to rising inflationary pressures, a tough stance from the Fed, and continued sluggish economic indicators. There isn't a lot of good news. The market could have sold off more following the solid gains last week.

The biggest corporate news this week was that Dell is delaying its 10-K report due to an ongoing investigation into its accounting, but that news didn't hit the stock market very hard since it is a company-specific issue.

The first quarter ended with the S&P nearly flat for the year. It was an up and down quarter with excessive optimism followed by excessive fears. The market has filtered through it all and has assessed that stable interest rates and significantly slower earnings growth warrant little net change.

The market is likely to remain extremely sensitive to economic releases, but an increased focus to corporate news will develop as first quarter earnings reports in mid-April approach.

Index	Started Week	Ended Week	Change	% Change	YTD
DJIA	12481.01	12354.35	-126.66	-1.0 %	-0.9 %
Nasdaq	2456.18	2421.64	-34.54	-1.4 %	0.3 %
S&P 500	1436.11	1420.86	-15.25	-1.1 %	0.2 %
Russell 2000	808.05	800.71	-7.34	-0.9 %	1.7 %

Choppy weak. Not much going on before earning season. Stay tune for stock of the year!

Weekly recap

Briefing:

Weekly Wrap

Last Update: 23-Mar-07 16:35 ET

It was an amazing week. The broader indices were all up more than 3%. The Dow Jones Industrial average was up every day. The S&P 500 index was up every day except Thursday, when it fell 0.50 points

The tone has dramatically improved as bearish factors such as the Shanghai market plunge, the unwinding of yen-carry trades, and even subprime mortgage problems had little impact this week.

The focus remained on the macro issues. There was very little corporate news of broad impact. The underlying concern about the strength of the economy and whether factors such as housing weakness would lead to a recession remained the main concern. This week, the news was good.

The most important event was the Fed policy statement on Wednesday. The market rallied in advance of the report in anticipation of a softer, gentler stance on the part of the Fed. The market rallied even more after it got exactly that.

The Fed dropped the bias towards tightening that had been in previous policy statements. The phrase that "the extent and timing of any additional firming..." was removed and replaced with "(F)uture policy adjustments will depend on the evolution of the outlook for both inflation and economic growth."

This change in attitude can certainly be considered good news, but it has to be noted that virtually no one expected any Fed rate hike. The removal of tightening bias that no one believed in the first place hardly seems a reason for a major rally. Nevertheless, there is now a stronger expectation that the Fed is likely to lower the fed funds target by 1/4% by the end of the summer.

The economic data this week helped dispel recession fears. On Tuesday it was reported that housing starts rose 9.0% in February after a 14.3% drop in January. February starts were about equal to the average in the fourth quarter of last year. More good housing news came on Friday in the form of a 3.9% increase in February existing home sales. This followed a 2.7% increase in January. At a 6.99 million annual rate, existing home sales are well above the levels of 6.25 to 6.27 posted October through December. The housing market seems to be at least stabilizing.

The only other economic release this week was a reported drop in new claims for unemployment for the week ended March 17. Claims dropped to 316,000 from 320,000 the week before, and levels above 330,000 for a number of weeks before that. The labor market remains strong.

The earnings news was mostly good. Oracle had an outstanding report. Morgan Stanley easily beat earnings expectations. FedEx and General Mills had good reports. Motorola warned of lower than expected profits and revenue. The earnings reports and corporate news overall were of modest impact, however.

Bond yields rose slightly to 4.60% from 4.55% last week due to the good economic news. Oil prices quietly rose to $62.28 a barrel from $57.11 last week.

The market rally was very surprising in both its degree and depth. The nervousness from recent weeks has not been completely eliminated, and could arise again quickly, but was virtually absent this week.

The focus now will shift to some degree to upcoming first quarter earnings reports. Those will start in mid-April. Earnings expectations for the S&P 500 in aggregated have fallen to about 4% from 7% two months ago. Second and third quarter forecasts are close to 5%. The earnings slowdown is here.

Index	Started Week	Ended Week	Change	% Change	YTD
DJIA	12110.41	12481.01	370.60	3.1 %	0.1 %
Nasdaq	2372.66	2456.18	83.52	3.5 %	1.7 %
S&P 500	1386.95	1436.11	49.16	3.5 %	1.3 %
Russell 2000	778.77	808.05	29.28	3.8 %	2.6 %

To sum it up real quick:

Strong earnings from Oracle, a giant software company, which means businesses are spending. Fed kept rate steady, which took uncertainty out of the market for the time being. The housing number isn't as bad as it looks (existing home sales up but prices are down- buyers' market!). Stock market continues to carry a bullish sentiment- the sentiment is important! When market is bullish, they will buy on negative news! All and all, this seem to reaffirm my belief that this bull market is not yet over.

Weekly Recap

Weekly Wrap

This week the S&P 500 index lost everything it had gained the week before, leaving it down 1 point over the two-week period. The reason for the decline this week was simple. Concerns remain about the economic outlook. The focal point of these concerns is the risk that troubles in the sub-prime mortgage sector will have a broader economic impact.

The market started the week fine. The S&P gained 4 points on Monday despite a warning from Countrywide Financial that its earnings would be hurt by problems in the non-prime sector.

The problems erupted on Tuesday. The MBA said that delinquencies on sup-prime mortgage loans hit 13.3%. That is the highest since the third quarter of 2002. Countrywide's CEO used the term "liquidity crisis" in reference to the sub-prime issue. A mini-panic set in. The S&P plunged 29 points.

Stability returned through the end of the week. The S&P recovered 10 points on Wednesday and 5 on Thursday. On Friday, the index lost 5 points, but that was due more to concerns about weekend risk than any specific sub-prime issues.

It is possible that some of the fears about the risks associated with the sub-prime issue eased as the week progressed, but it is also possible that these fears could erupt again in the near future. It is also possible that other reasons for selling arise, and that sub-prime gets pulled into the fray. The sub-prime issue persists.

The negativity associated with sub-prime mortgages was evident in a Wall Street Journal survey on Friday. The headlines said "Subprime Mortgage Woes are Likely to Spread" but the specifics belied the headline. Only 19% of economists said that it was very likely that the issue would have an impact on the prime market. And economists had only lowered their first quarter real GDP forecasts to a 2.3% annual rate of growth from 2.5% a month ago. That isn't much of a reduction, and it certainly isn't a recession. Earnings forecasts have yet to be broadly lowered either, but that doesn't mean the sub-prime issue will go away.

There were only a few earnings releases this week. Goldman Sachs had another great report. Lehman Brothers and Bear Sterns posted decent numbers. General Motors disappointed, but at least posted a profit.

The economic releases were also mixed. February retail sales were up a modest 0.1% due in part to cold weather. February industrial production rose 1.0% as the key manufacturing component was up a solid 0.4%. The core PPI for February was up a stronger than expected 0.4%, but the core CPI for February was in line with expectations at +0.2%.

The mix of data did little to alter economic perceptions. Economic growth is sluggish, and there are concerns that the housing sector will become an increasing problem. The modest core CPI increase eased inflation fears that briefly arose with the PPI data. Inflation is widely expected to hold steady of ease in the months ahead due to weak economic demand.

Market risks are believed to lie more with the economy than with inflation.

That is reflected in Fed policy expectations. The fed funds rate futures currently reflect expectations of a 1/4% rate cut by August.

Oil prices ended the week at $57.11 a barrel, down a bit for the week but hardly a focus. The 10-year note yield dipped slightly to 4.55%.

Market sentiment remains dicey. Reaction to any signs of economic weakness could be exagerrated. Any negative news from the sub-prime mortgage market will undoubtedly be the top talking point that day. But the fundamentals have been steady in terms of the economic, earnings, inflation, and interest rate outlooks.

Index	Started Week	Ended Week	Change	% Change	YTD
DJIA	12276.32	12110.41	-165.91	-1.4 %	-2.8 %
Nasdaq	2387.55	2372.66	-14.89	-0.6 %	-1.8 %
S&P 500	1402.85	1386.95	-15.90	-1.1 %	-2.2 %
Russell 2000	785.12	778.77	-6.35	-0.8 %	-1.1 %

How to Make Really 'Big Money'

-Howard Schultz- CEO of Starbucks (Feed the addict's habit)

Net worth: ~$1.1 billion

Pick up an interesting (somewhat funny but SAD) article from Yahoo:Finance:
http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/bigmoney_1.html

It takes money to make money. And the income gap is getting wider. The spending habit of the "middle" class isn't exactly helping neither. Oh well.

Save, stash, and invest people!

"I'm NOT a technician, BUT **pull out a chart**..."

Another big sell off today. Blame it on those sub-prime mortgage guys...it's THEIR faults the market sold-off. Look at the chart for the S&P 500. The sell off began two weeks ago was nothing but a blip on the chart and it doesn't seem like its out of the pattern there.

Ok, so you not that big of a chartist/technician. What about the WEAK 0.1% in retail sales vs 0.4% expected? What about the sub-prime blow up? Isn't it cause for concern?

O sure, like we didn't know the retail sale is going to be weak because of the weather. Like we didn't know that sub-prime mortgage lenders are going to blow after the housing slow-down (I refused to call it a bubble burst because the price here in New York hasn't fell nearly as hard as the rest of the nation- its NOT a bubble- look at the Nasdaq 10 year chart then come back to me).

So fine, we didn't know who held those risky MBS papers or the sub-prime lenders sold it out at all. But you sure know that as interest rate rises + housing price fall = sub prime disaster right?

So you don't know about that until today. Fine. How about the people who has the buying power to move the market? The mutual funds, the hedge funds, the institutions and alike...you think they ought to know these stuffs because they are messing around with billion of dollars.

My point is that everyone knew about the overbought market in China, the sub prime disaster and the weaker (Goldilocks) economy. And these factors didn't just pop out of no where overnight (except for the China sold off- but when you have a market that was up 103% in one year, do you expect anyone to take profit? I guess not.), these factors have been creeping in the economy for MONTHS.

So the sell off is nothing but a breather IMHO. It's nothing more but a blip on the chart. Hey, look at that, the P/E ratio of the S&P wasn't going UP for the last 2 years...What?!

So this wasn't like 2000 when we had crazy valuation on stocks. U.S. equities are trading at a relatively cheap valuation when compared to the year 1999 and 2000. So IF the market does turn BEAR on us...it wouldn't be because stocks are expensive. I think sub-prime will not cause the market to go berserk, but Iran might just do.

P.S.: Anyone look at Goldman's earning today? Seem fine to me. I would buy GS on any dip. Just my humble opinion.

Weekly Recap

Briefing:
"Weekly Wrap

The stock market rebounded 1.1% and stabilized this week. The presumed catalyst for much of the gains was an improvement in Asian stock markets. To a large extent, however, the market was buffeted by rapidly shifting sentiment that settled down over time.

The S&P is down a net 3.3% over the past two weeks. That represents a reasonable consolidation from the point where many analysts have said the market had gotten ahead of itself. The S&P is down 1.1% for the year to date.

The week opened poorly. On Monday, the S&P lost 13 points. Strangely, it was widely attributed to a decline in Asian markets. In fact, those markets were simply catching up to the losses on Friday in US markets. Regardless, sentiment was poor and the Asian weakness was for many a good excuse to sell.

The markets rocketed higher on Tuesday. The S&P gained 21 points. Again, the presumed catalyst was the Asian financial markets. It is hard to rationalize such a huge swing in the market value of US corporations based on a move in Asian stock prices, particularly Shaghai stocks, but the market was running on emotion more than reason.

The S&P eased back 3 points on Wednesday. That was not surprising given the huge gain the day before. On Thursday, however, the S&P gained a surprising 10 points even though February same store sales were fairly weak. The gain that day seemed to provide underlying support to the market and to stabilize sentiment.

Friday brought some truly relevant news. February nonfarm payrolls were reported up 97,000. This was close to an expected 100,000 increase. More importantly, it was not below 50,000, as many had feared. A weak number on that magnitude could have rekindled recession fears.

The good news was bolstered by the fact that the January and December payroll gains were revised a net 55,000 higher. Furthermore, construction employment fell a sharp 71,000 in February due in part to cold weather. It may bounce back next month. Finally, hourly earnings were up a stronger than expected 0.4%, leaving the year-over-year gain at 4.1%. With CPI up just 2.1% the past year, real wage gains are picking up.

The data were solid overall and very much consistent with expectations of real GDP growth at 2% to 2.5% for the first half of this year. There was nothing to suggest even a hint of recession. The S&P held its gains for the week and was up 1 point on Friday.

There was very little news of significance this past week other than the employment release. The February ISM services index was a bit weaker than expected at 54.3, but that still reflects growth. Factory orders for January were weaker than expected as well. Neither release had a large impact. The February same store sales noted above were weaker than expected overall but cold weather was undoubtedly a factor.

The earnings calendar was very light. Costco reported profits in line with expectations, and there were a handful of other retailers that reported, but all were quickly dismissed.

Instead, it was all about sorting through sentiment this week. Factors such as the recently noted increase in delinquencies on sub-prime mortgages continued to provide fodder for recession talk even though there is no evidence that overall mortgage demand is weak.

Also persisting as a bearish talk point through the week (on days when stocks were down) was the perceived threat of further unwinding of hedge fund positions as the yen strengthened against the dollar. And the swings in the Asian stock markets were closely followed.

Yet, none of these presumably bearish factors have altered economic or earnings projects. The interest rate outlook still calls for little, if any, change in rates. The bearish issues reflected the prevailing sentiment swings and provided a rationale for selling.

Now, with the market up 1.1% this week, there is a good argument that sentiment is settling down. The S&P is down a net 5.0% from its highs. The excessive optimism from a month ago is gone.

The recent pessimism about a possible recession has now also faded. Perhaps the recent volatility will ease.

If so, investors may look at the market with some optimism, but plenty of caution as well. Earnings growth is slowing. Economic growth is sluggish. There are plenty or risks. Valuation provides some support, however, as the S&P is trading at just 17.1 times trailing earnings.

There certainly will be more volatility ahead, and there remain risks on the downside; but the market may soon return to normalcy with a reasonably priced market and only a moderately favorable outlook.

Index	Started Week	Ended Week	Change	% Change	YTD
DJIA	12114.10	12276.32	162.22	1.3 %	-1.5 %
Nasdaq	2368.00	2387.55	19.55	0.8 %	-1.1 %
S&P 500	1387.17	1402.85	15.68	1.1 %	-1.1 %
Russell 2000	775.44	785.12	9.68	1.2 %	-0.3 %

"

Looks like the Friday's employment report helps to keep the market gain through the week. We will see if the market continues to stabilize here. Coming up...Barron's bullish picks.

Surprise me, homebuilders!

Toll Cancellations Drop; Horton to Miss Projections (Update6)

By Brian Louis and Sharon L. Crenson

March 7 (Bloomberg) -- Toll Brothers Inc., the biggest U.S. luxury-home builder, said customer cancellations are falling and it's offering fewer sales incentives. D.R. Horton Inc., the second-largest builder by revenue, said it will miss its projections for closings this year.

D.R. Horton said closings will likely drop below last year's 53,000 and it will probably continue writing down land through 2008.

``I don't want to be too sophisticated here, but 2007 is going to suck, all 12 months of the calendar year,'' D.R. Horton Chief Executive Officer Donald Tomnitz said at a Citigroup Inc. conference in New York. ``Our future is not as bright as what we would like it to be.''

A yearlong U.S. housing slump has left homebuilders with a glut of unsold homes as customers have abandoned deals or held off making purchases. Sales in 2006 fell 17 percent, the most since 1990, cutting profit at home construction companies and spurring them to write off lost deposits and land purchases.

At Toll, the cancellation level has dropped to 16 percent in the last five weeks from a high of 36 percent, CEO Robert Toll said today at the conference.

Burning Off Inventory

``We're now running at half the pace of inventory that we had three or four months ago,'' Toll said. ``So I would guess, and that's all it is, it'll be another four or five months before you finally burn off inventory in most of the markets.

After predicting that the home market was nearing a ``bottom'' in December, Toll last month reversed course as deposits failed to live up to expectations. Today, he tempered his comments by saying the market ``is still beset by speculation'' and that it may take longer in some areas to pare the number of unsold properties.

``We believe that as soon as the market turns, and I'll speak about it, we think it'll turn with a vengeance,'' Toll said. ``The incentives are coming down.''

It's ``remarkable that we still have speculative investment going on,'' he said.

Horsham, Pennsylvania-based Toll Brothers has raised prices in 15 of its communities and has trimmed incentives, Toll said.

Shares of Toll Brothers rose 44 cents to $29.24 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock slid 12 percent in the year through yesterday. Fort Worth, Texas-based D.R. Horton rose 30 cents to $24.86. The stock dropped 24 percent in the year through yesterday.

The Federal Reserve today said ``almost all districts reported that housing markets remained weak,'' according to the regional survey known as the Beige Book for the color of its cover.

The only exceptions were New York and New Jersey, which reported ``some stabilization in the market for new homes,'' and New York City's apartment market, which saw ``strong demand,'' said the report, based on information collected through Feb. 26.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZYONcrN26wQ&refer=home

No comment, just a big LOL at D R Horton CEO. CNBC said the market sold off because of his comment. Another big LOL from me.

Subprime Subprime Subprime

From Briefing:

"When we look back on the mortgage market ten years from now, New Century Financial (NEW 14.65) is going to be held out as a glaring example of the risks involved with sub-prime mortgage lending. Whether the company itself still exists ten years from now is another question. Right now, it doesn't look good."

Thanks, Sherlock.

Why did subprime loans get so popular? Subprime loans made up 12.75% of the $10.2 trillion mortgage market in 2006, up from 8.5% in 2001, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. The homeownership rate has grown to 69% from 65% over the past decade, about half of which came from subprime lending, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Everyone expect the housing downturn to spread through the rest of the economy. Housing sales had crashed. Housing prices had came down. Sub-prime loans are blowing up. Yet, we still have +2.2% GDP and the stock market up double digits last year.