Here’s the simple story: Everybody and their uncle is forecasting a recession. There isn’t a business that isn’t suffering. And there isn’t a consumer/investor (including me) who isn’t confused, and reluctant to commit their hard-won cash.
Today, Nasdaq is up. But it has recorded 32 daily falls of more than 2% since January. And it’s down 26% this year.
The operative word is volatility. Which means one day up big and one day down big, though the trend is clearly downwards.
Now is NOT the time to jump in big-time.
There was a theory that the high-momentum, high P/E stocks so much in favor last year are now thoroughly out of favor. Yet, look today at Nvidia. It sports a P/E of 42.30. Today it’s up nearly 7%. Salesforce (CRM) sports a P/E of 162.5. Yet today it’s up 4.6%.
The top six P/Es in my Watch List — CRM, TSLA, AMZN, NVDA, and ZTS — are all up today.
My major holdings remain fourfold: a handful of individual stocks — AAPL, MSFT, NVDA and TSM, two big investments in two ETFS — VGT and VTI, assorted investments in real estate syndications — residential and office and finally treasuries — one and two year duration.
This afternoon I’m going to investigate buying and selling options — puts and calls. In this volatile market friends are doing well with options.
Some reading:
+ What past market crashes have looked like
“Capitulation”, the last phase of a rout, can seem like a sort of mania.
Click here.
+ The World Economy Is Imperiled by a Force Hiding in Plain Sight
Well more than two years into the worst pandemic in a century, the accompanying economic shock continues to assault global fortunes.
Click here.
Inflation is one of our biggest problems. This chart shows where it’s coming from — largely from energy. If we can pump more, perhaps we can bring the price down:
The kids are visiting
They have a long time-frame. Hence they’re ideal for Dollar Cost Averaging.
$100 a month would be great education.
To start, buy them some ETFs, e.g. VGT and VTI.
And get them the stock of companies whose products they use, e.g. Apple, Microsoft, Nike.
Get them an online Fidelity account. I love their free add-on called Active Trader Pro.
I-Bonds are paying 9.62%
From the Fed govt:
+ The initial interest rate on new Series I savings bonds is 9.62 percent. You can buy I bonds at that rate through October 2022.
But you are limited to buying $10,000 of them every calendar year. Click here.
There are also TIPS, which are Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. You can buy oodles of them.
TIPS are issued in terms of 5, 10, and 30 years.
TIPS can be held until maturity or sold before maturity.
TIPS seem to be yielding 6.6%, but their value — i.e. price on the market — has been steadily declining as interest rates have risen. Last November they were as high as $131. Now they’re $114. That’s a loss of 13% — in less than a year. Which is high for a fixed income security.
For more on TIPS, click here.
Airline travel tips
Assume the worst. You won’t be disappointed.
+ Don’t check luggage.
+ Take the earliest flight of the day.
+ Allow plenty of time for arriving and transferring (if you must)
+ Use your airline’s phone app or website.
+ Don’t buy discount fares. Buy directly from the airline.
The misery that is crypto
I can’t keep up with the accelerating misery in the crypto space.
Three crypto exchanges have gone broke. Coinbase fired 1,100 employees, cut its commission rates by 90%,
Thousands of crypto investors can’t get their money out. Wait there’s more. From the Atlantic:
For its many flaws, the world of cryptocurrency has bequeathed to the English language a vivid new verb: rug-pulling. As its idiom-derived name suggests, rug-pulling is when a crypto developer hypes up a new coin or new project, gets ordinary people to invest in it, and then—all at once—shuts it down in such a way that they take all of their investors’ cash with them. It is a spectacular act of bad faith, a breach of trust so severe that it casts doubt on the entire cryptocurrency community, so-called.
Good reasons not to “upgrade” to Windows 11
These words popped up on my Windows 10 laptop. I give Microsoft top marks for their honesty and zero for their thoughtlessness. I can name at least three important softwares I use that don’t work on Windows 11. Go figure.
Everyone is getting Covid
Everyone’s getting it. I’m now negative, after taking a five day regimen of Paxlovid, which seems to work. But depressingly, this morning I read this on CNN:
Nearly two-and-a-half years since the Covid-19 pandemic began, the most infectious and transmissible variant yet has arrived. The latest version of the shape-shifting BA.5 variant, an offshoot of Omicron, is fueling a global surge in cases — illustrating how the virus has evolved and can evade immunity provided by previous Covid-19 vaccines. In the US, BA.5 accounted for 65% of new infections last week, according to the CDC. The variant is also on the march in China, raising the fear that major cities there may soon reinstate strict lockdown measures that were recently lifted. As for how to manage the new wave, Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s Covid-19 response coordinator, urged Americans aged 50 and older to get second booster shots. US health officials are urgently working on a plan to allow second Covid-19 boosters for all adults.
In short, get boostered. Wear a mask in bad places. Don’t go to bad places. Keep away from anybody and anyone. I had it. It’s horrible.
This is really boring.
Ivana Trump, 73, dies of stair falling
One report says she fell down stairs.
Friends are emailing me. They’ve also fallen — not only on the dangerous last step going down. But on all steps.
Please be careful. Several of my older friends have “face planted.”
What a funny language.
There’s the word hike. Let’s go for a hike. And there’s Nike.
I’ll go for a hike in my Nike sneakers.
Should you buy the Apple Watch Series 7
A reader tells me I’m nuts pushing the latest Apple Series 7 Watch, when a new version will be out in September.
Personally, I find the present series 7 watch so useful I wouldn’t wait for the newer one.
Power corrupts . Absolute power power corrupts absolutely
Russia, Egypt, Turkey, China, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon….
They’re really depressing and all places never to invest in.
In 1966 I left Australia in 1966 to travel overland from Sydney Australia to London and then onto the U.S.
I went through all these countries (except Syria and Russia). It was fun in 1966.
I wouldn’t go near any of these places today, though all of them have gorgeous vistas.
You can read almost daily articles on horrible things happening to citizens of these dictator-run countries, e.g.
+ Egypt’s Revolving Jailhouse Door: One Pretrial Detention After Another. Click here.
+ An anatomy of erasure. How a free and open Hong Kong became a police state. Click here.
Getting arrested on trumped up bogus charges doesn’t appeal. Being used as a bargaining chip appeals even less.
I’d rather play tennis in the good-old U.S.A.
Love these
I highlight only really interesting articles. Read the four above, please.
See you soon. — Harry Newton
