Friday was horrible. One of my worst days ever for my stocks.
Some observers thought we were big-time “oversold” and said so on TV. We were headed up on Friday. They were big-time wrong.
I thought, naively that I had “organized” my portfolio into “downfall neutral” — a little energy, a little industrial, a little biotech/pharma, some memory, some chip makers, even a little retail.
Yesterday all that brilliant planning didn’t do me any good. As they say in Yiddish, it did me gornisch good. While a handful of stocks actually rose on the day, the bulk went outwith the bathwater. Plus some headscratchers — Like Micron and Nvidia who reported really strong sales, strong margins and brilliant earnings. And whose CEOs spoke charismatically on bubblevision. Did them non good.
My depression with my own stupidity turned mild as I realized it wasn’t my tiny brain. It was Mr. Trump who started a war with an insane goal (complete surrender), no alternate objective, no time plan. Just reign destruction from the sky. Killing replaceable nutcases (like one Ayatollah and replacing him with another worse one) and demolishing buildings ain’t going to cow a country that still have a million people in the military and the police and likes it own people less than we do.
I’m guessing that soon we’ll put boots on the ground in Kharg Island, Iran biggest oil port. This will kill Iran’s oil exports, making the country even less rich and allowing the powers that be to kill more people who protest their escalating misery — no lights, no food, no gas, etc.
The red dot is Kharg Island.
If we put our boots on their Kharg Island we’ll be stuck there, suffering the slings and arrows of Iran’s cheap, lethal drones. Our brilliant war economics: It costs us at least ten time as much to shoot down a drone as it costs Iran to build one. Not great economics unless you have pliant Congress ready to fund whatever whim our super-prescient president conjures up.
I give him A+ for Creativity — Greenland, Cuba. Venezuela. Iran, no voting for poor Democrats, lifting of sanctions on Russia, no peace for brown people, no high interest on credit cards and definitely no incriminating revelations from the Epstein files.
The good news for our plummeting stocks is that our president has a short attention span and appears to be sensitive to high US gas prices and escalating inflation (have you shopped recently?) He will probably call an end to his Persian excursion soon. Thus soon my stocks will resume their loftiness of earlier this year.
That’s hope — not a sound financial strategy. This weekend’s Wall Street Journal throws water on my optimism.
“Investors’ hopes for quick resolution to the Iran War are fading. All three major indexes fell for a fourth-straight week. The yield on the 10-year Treasury Note climbed to 4.39%, its highest level since July. Brent crude futures climbed to $112.19 a barrel.”
So, Monday (tomorrow), we’ll be out of Iran and the Dow will rise one thousand points.
Do I have any idea of what I’m talking about? No. Does it make any difference? No.
I am not going to be panicked into selling. I did that on Liberation Day. And it cost me.
This time, no.
Take yourself and your children to Ragtime
Your kids will learn more about American history in one evening than they ever will at school. I saw it on Friday night and loved every moment.
Here’s Google summarizing Ragtime. Read Google before you go. Click here.
New York City is a joy to visit and play tourist in. I’ll write more about our wonderful couple of days tomorrow.
Meantime, the Miami Open Tennis is on. Good tennis.
