Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)Once again, in a time of political and personal turmoil, I find myself Smaug-ing. Not in the "burning down villages of idiot peasants" sense, though that holds its temptations these days, but in crouching over my hoard of shiny things and gawking at them. (1/6)
And for all the mess, my portfolio is doing far better than I'd expected; the stock market seems entirely disconnected from the uproar. I don't know how much of that is real and how much is the coyote not looking down and seeing the absence of cliff under his feet yet. (2/6)
One of my asset groups has already passed where I expected it to be this December. Another is only short of that by the amount I will pay in this year. A third is short that and by the dividends it will pay out. The rest are at least 6 months ahead of plan. (3/6)
None of these are exotic funds; most are bog-standard index funds or portfolios of dividend stocks/ETFs. I'm not one of those investment guys hovering over a Bloomberg terminal for hours each day, just a hack amateur really.
And that worries me; see coyote-cliff line above. (4/6)
So I'm seriously planning on hitting a defensive crouch this spring because I can afford it. I'm looking at converting about half of my US equities to cash-equivalents gradually over the 2nd quarter to protect part of my gains of the past couple of years. (5/6)
Trump and his minions have said, far too often to ignore, that they want to crash the US economy. I have to take that seriously if I want to protect my retirement... even while hoping I'll end up with egg on my face & a couple of years of FOMO.
Just venting; not financial advice & all that. (6/6)
Addendum; the one stock in my portfolio that I picked up because of a tip, instead of playing smart & doing research, is now worth so little that selling it wouldn't cover the brokerage fee. It's not a huge loss, to be honest, as I knew it was going to be risky; the lesson it taught me was probably worth the price.
Well, the above thread aged like spilled milk; the NASDAQ's power dive after NVIDIA got shown up by Chinese AI developers, which is drawing down the Dow and TSX with it, means my hedging opportunity is probably already gone. Going to have to ride the current turbulence out and hope for a bit of a rebound.