Maserati wrote:
Maserati wrote:
I will bite my tongue on the concept of a "noisy GDP".
As a former engineer and filter network designer, I just hurl when I hear Yellen say something like that.
Let's talk distortion, or signal processing.
The published GDP number is a political tool, and a political tool only. It doesn't reflect any particular or consistent economic condition or activity, it represents a statement of policy direction, and that is ALL it represents.
It burns me that everything has shifted from investment to speculation. I'm right at the point in life where I want precisely the opposite. I will play along, for a bit, because there have been some gains to be made, but I am already looking to take the recent gains out of the country and ultimately beyond US jurisdiction.
I will be honest, the whole market situation scares the crap out of me. I have seen what is going on, and I have articulated some of my speculative reasons for the recent activity--but my reasons may not be correct at all, and activity can change rather quickly.
I'm nearly at the point where I would just dump the majority into conservative holdings--one of those "wealth preservers" I have been talking about. Nearly, but not quite, which pisses me off.
This will be a year where I will "sell in May and go away". While I'm confident that many others are confident, I will admit that I personally am scared.
I am happy to report that I massively reduced my equity holdings before yesterday's drawdown. While it may very well recover and set new highs, I'm out for probably the rest of the year. On this round, I did what I feel is "only OK", having gotten in around DJIA 20k and exited at around 21k. I actually did a bit better than that, but not much.
And I will be happy with those gains this year. I'm still smarting from having missed the post-election run-up to 20k, but I don't regret what I was doing at the time. My currencies are serving me well, but my oil bet isn't going that well. Also I missed a RE opportunity, which may turn out to be a good thing.
Because I'm conservative and both enter too late and exit too early, I fully expect the DJIA to break 21k this year--but it won't bother me. In the short term I will be funding individuals and small businesses in secured short-term loans instead of being in the markets.
Anyway the upshot is that because I'm out, one probably shouldn't worry about the recent small drops, because I have always gotten out a little bit too early and left some gains on the table.
ol' Maserati was probably out in March, 17% below these levels, in March '17
But who wants to bet he'll show up at some point and say 1) he actually got back in and 2) his money outside the markets did far better than the stock market, so it's cool