Last week was great for your retirement account.
It was the best week since November 2020.
I am of the vintage that requires me to take a withdrawal from my IRA.
I will do that this week as last week’s run up in the stock market made up for my procrastination.
They moved the requirement age back to 72 which I hit this month.
I also would say that all investors might want to take a serious look at their portfolio and lighten up some.
It’s hard for me to believe that we can make significant movement north from this level.
Take into account that we have more interest rate increases coming from the Fed.
For the first time they were specific that they would move another six times.
That comes with the Fed moving away from easy money policies.
You have what is happening in Ukraine, not to mention Iran and China.
Moreover, it’s hard to ignore the Fed does a poor job of correcting inflation without some, if not a lot of pain, for the stock market.
Speaking of inflation, it is no fun these days to fill up the car or to go to the grocery store.
It is just a fact that things are going up.
It is good that salaries are rising, but they are not keeping up with rising prices for goods.
That is another tax on the public.
It would be easy to say for everyone to cut back, but many aren’t able to change their lifestyle.
With all of that said, we have come out of this pandemic and it seems we can get our lives back for some time to come. That energy to recapture what we missed is driving the economy, even if it costs more. People can only be held back for so long.
It was interesting this week to see Berkshire Hathaway announce the acquisition of insurance company Alleghany.
The insurance business has been one of the biggest profit centers for Berkshire Hathaway.
The recent changes in the markets moved Warren Buffet up the chart to become, once again, one of the richest people in the world.
With his move back into Occidental and the pipeline business, he is back to the basics.
His partner Charlie Munger made a large investment last week into troubled China stock Alibaba and was rewarded immediately.
I know there are all sorts of so called new visionaries and experts, but these two gentlemen have a long track record especially in troubling times.
I bring these two gentlemen up as they never stop looking for value and have capital to take advantage of when they see what they like. This is much like saying old money makes money in troubling times because they have money.
Here is hoping you still have money to work with too.
