#StockMarket #investing #BullMarket #MarketPredictions
Of late, the stock market has been, shall we say, volatile.
A decade ago was a big-time bust. The years hence have seen a boon.
Will that boon, soon, become a swoon?
The predictors have started to come out.
In an article for The New York Times, Alex Williams sites five popular doom-and-gloom scenarios, or situations, including the student debt problem, the situation with China, the end of easy money, Italy’s possible exit from the European Union and an anti-billionaire uprising across America.
Williams’ article was also published in the Dec. 23, 2018, edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Meanwhile Dr. Steve Sjuggerud, who says he’s had an extensive Wall Street career, says, “We are in the final stages of a massive bull market. And the biggest gains lie ahead.” His predictions were published by The Tennessean in Nashville Jan. 27, 2019.
His theory is that just before bull markets end, there’s a big run-up in stocks because people who listen to other doom-and-gloom predictions get out too early, leaving enough cash floating around to find bargains and profit.
Warning: investors should not panic over the impending end of the bull market. Markets go up and go down. Prices go up and come back down. A prudent investor has a strong plan, and stays with it.
What is a strong plan? It’s investing prudent amounts of money in a variety of vehicles. Some of those vehicles are designed for growth – in other words, you buy them at a fairly low price anticipating their value to become apparent to the market, and they rise in price.
Then, as the price goes up, you see a good number and sell enough shares to get your cost back, and let the rest continue to grow. That’s called playing with the house’s money.
But, a good plan also has vehicles that produce income, in the form of dividends, interest etc. Even if the share price of these vehicles drops suddenly, the dividends and interest keep coming. So, you have the comfort of letting their value ride out the downturn as your income keeps coming in. Of course, you need to watch whether the dividends and interest stay constant, or start to drop. If they drop, it may be time to cut your losses.
The point here is that a good plan can weather the ups and downs of the market. Sure, if the market drops, the overall value of one’s portfolio will drop with it. But that should not deter your strategy.
There are also scenarios in which you may decide that a stock, or other investment, isn’t doing what you thought it would. So you sell it to raise cash to use to find bargains in a down market.
If all this seems complicated, find a trusted adviser who can guide you through market ups and downs, and let him or her give you advice.
Don’t really have enough income to invest in stocks? There are many ways out there to pick up extra money by devoting a few part-time hours a week that doesn’t involve what you might see as a “second job,” and aren’t dependent on the markets. To check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
Recessions, market downturns etc. hurt. They don’t have to devastate you financially. Prudence and balance in your investments, and staying with your plan regardless of market gyrations, is the key. Markets may not go up in a straight line, but, over time, they most always go up.
Peter
Tag Archives: Wall Street
FINANCIERS BEHAVING BADLY, AND OTHER CONCERNS
#MenBehavingBadly #financiers #WallStreet
The book, “Straight to Hell,” by John LeFevre, describes the drunkenness and debauchery of financiers working in Citigroup’s Hong Kong office.
Regardless of what you think about those who work on Wall Street, and whether you believe that personal behavior may not affect professional behavior, this book might give you pause.
It was reviewed by Philip Delves Broughton in the July 21, 2015, edition of The Wall Street Journal.
It describes leud play and solicitation of prostitutes by those to whom we may entrust our wealth. Hopefully, they are not spending the money their clients entrust with them for their fun and games, but they probably make enough to afford such entertainment. It appears, from Delves Broughton’s review, that these guys’ maturity did not correspond with their wealth.
The deeper question Delves Broughton poses about the culture of financiers working away from home is whether deviant personal behavior and professional behavior are connected, and whether men behaving badly matters. Broughton says his hunch is that bankers are not so different from other male business tribes when on maneuvers. “They simply have the cash to do more of the nasty stuff,” writes Delves Broughton, author, most recently, of “The Art of the Sale: Learning From the Masters About the Business of Life.”
Let’s forget, for a moment, the nasty specifics of what these guys were doing. Let’s instead extrapolate the behavior(s) of your employer(s) toward you.
Let’s presume, too, that your employer is not getting too personal with you, i.e. sexual harassment. There are ways to deal with that that may be too complicated to address here.
Let’s take an example of your employer heading home for the evening, leaving you alone with tons of work on your desk, and knowing you won’t be able to go home at a reasonable hour.
Let’s also consider the example of your employer telling you that you cannot have the vacation time you want, or need, because you are too badly needed at that time. Yet, he never loses out on the vacation he wants.
Your employer is enjoying the gobs more money he’s making than you, while you are forced to put your life on hold for him.
Certainly, in this day and age, if you have a job that you need, you are fortunate. But how long can it go on? Will you one day walk in and be told your job is gone, after all the sacrifices you have made?
How would you feel if you worked for one of the men described in LeFevre’s book, and he came to you one day and told you, you were being laid off, despite your good behavior?
If you are feeling as if your current situation is not giving you the life you want, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. There, you may see the pure happiness, joy and prosperity to be found, simply by helping others succeed – a whole different milieu from the one LeFevre’s book describes.
Delves Broughton’s speculation about how businessmen behave when no one, but them and their friends, is looking, perhaps is true. But there are certainly good, kind, ethical and very professional business people out there, who would be a pleasure to work for.
They would never make you stay late when they weren’t, or deprive you of a vacation while they took theirs. But even good situations don’t always last. It might be best to plan now for the day when the goodness, or necessary evil, of a job disappears. You may even get to exit on your own terms.
Peter