We all made it through another holiday weekend, I think.
I went to my cabin in New Mexico and was greeted with snow.
It puts a crimp on your plans to play golf. It’s amazing how hard it is to find a white ball in a patch of snow.
It reminded me, yet one more time, plans are great, but reality can really fool you and you have to adapt. I find that to be the case with investing.
We consume all of the news and data possible to give us confidence in investment strategies and actions.
We then have to deal with reality that can be different.
It reminds me of my old trading friend who told me his best investments were the ones he didn’t make.
Sort of protecting you from yourself.
That is all great, but I believe you have to take calculated risks to gain any return.
If you are able at this point to develop any real plan from all the news coming at you, I am amazed at your intellect.
We had the 50-day moving average fall below the 200-day moving average, which is termed the death cross.
By the moniker you can tell that is not a good thing. Tariff negotiations are just beginning.
There seems no real end to the fighting in the Middle East or in Ukraine.
Earnings reports have knee-capped companies like United Health.
The trade war with China is getting started with a Boeing jet being returned.
We will get earnings from Tesla this week that can’t be good.
Just last week, market leader Nvidia forecasted a slowing in earnings due to new exportation restrictions to China.
Housing sales have yet to pick up and this is when it usually all begins.
The negative news keeps coming.
I would suggest this is just a wall of worry to climb over, but it seems a bit different.
We have this 90-day window on tariff negotiations and no one knows how it will work out.
China is in this for the long haul as they declared long ago that they fully plan to win this economic war.
I am all for bringing back manufacturing to the US, but it will come at a cost that I am willing to pay.
Many, however, don’t have the resources I have.
I reflect back on parents who grew up in the depression. They learned never to waste.
It was one of the greatest lessons they taught me. There is far too much we want that we inherently don’t need.
Easy to say if you saved for the rainy day. That is not where most people find themselves.
So what is a person to do? At least the government will pay you more currently than inflation costs so cash is safe.
That is no real answer for the long term. You can start to look at foreign companies like Deutsche Telekom that owns 51% of T-Mobile or TEMSA, the Coca Cola Distributor for everything south of the Rio Grande.
My problem is these are not in the values for me.
You could get a bigger return buying individual company preferred stocks, but I would suggest a ETF that’s symbol in PFF paying over 6%.
I will sit on my cash and wait, but that hasn’t really worked yet.
Remember my trading friend and take some time before you act.
Not saying do nothing, but give it time to develop a clearer course.
