Well, the kids are back in school, and I don’t know about you, but as far as I’m concerned, they can stay in school forever. There. I said it. One thing I’ve learned in just the last week since school started is that I love being back in a structured environment. I love being back in my office and not having children call me to ask me when I’m coming home, what’s for lunch, could I drive them over to a friend’s house – none of that is going on anymore.
I know many of you opened your statements on June 30 at the end of the second quarter and probably wished you hadn’t. You may or may not have burned them. That said, July was a good month as equities and bonds recovered from their lows. During this same period of time, we also had a hot inflation number we hadn’t seen since the early ‘80s of 9.1 percent. We also saw the Fed raise rates another .75 percent.
How low can it go? That’s the question. I’ve heard from many of you with questions along the lines of when will the market recover, when will the bleeding stop. I’ve also heard others who have called to let me know their 401(k) is a 301(k), that they never should have invested in stocks, this terrible market is due to the current (pick a bad guy): president / fed chairman / supply chain / Russia / inflation – and that this will never improve. It’s only down from here.
World War Three. There, I said it. People have nightmares about this stuff. People make movies about this stuff. People write fiction and sci-fi about this stuff. People look at the First World War, they look at the Second World War, and say, “No, we’ll never have World War Three because now we have so many nukes between the US and Russia, our mutual destruction would be guaranteed.”
Before I start on my comments about what’s been going on, I want you to know that I’ve been working on what to say for the last 30 days. Now that we’re a month into the year, I can add some color to what we’re seeing.
With the passing of summer and the kids fully back in the swing of the school year, social season for adults is back on our calendars. This last week we enjoyed our first UK tailgate in quite some time, and got to see many faces we hadn’t seen in many months. The Cats even pulled off the win over Florida! Who would have thought we’d be undefeated five weeks into the season?
So, what is a short, you’re wondering? A short is when a share of stock is sold with the intention of buying it back at a cheaper price. It’s akin to selling your house to someone who’ll pay full market value because you think it’s overvalued, and you planning to buy it back after the market plunges.
Well, we have a new president! And given that this is day two, I’m assuming the world hasn’t ended, and that you’re not about to sell everything off and go into hiding (please, don’t!).
My, it’s been a busy 10 days! One for the record books, I’d say, but we have a winner – or do we? Regardless, someone will be sworn in come January. I think.
A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the recent stock splits from Apple and Tesla, and since then, a number of you have asked why there’s no Apple stock in our Envestnet accounts. We all use Apple products on a daily basis, right? Whether an iPhone, iPad, MacBook or even an old iPod, it’s hard to escape Apple. So, why don’t we own a company we all use on a daily basis?
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