Have you ever noticed that in life everything is always just fine until suddenly it’s not? There is some problem…some issue…perhaps even some emergency that just pops up and you have to deal with it. Unless you lead a fairy tale life it’s sort of an obligatory component of being. The old saying applies: Life always gets in the way of the best of plans - or something like that or something very similar to that. Take the stock market for example:
There you are - just poking around, looking here and there, listening to the current and never ending market chatter and following your chosen market guru(s) and…you know…just looking here and there for a good, great …no wonderful investment; just like you do all the time, when suddenly, out of the blue, you find it. It’s a high growth beauty…the right pedigree and industry, sky high potential written all over it.
Note One: This is just like poking around the 20 acres or so of the plowed Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas looking for a shiny big rock…although they ain’t shiny and they blend in with billions (or so) tiny pebbles, gravel and rocks - the ad hoc worthless flotsam just waiting for you to stumble upon them. People do…you know: every so often you read where so and so from Buck Snort Tennessee found a 4 carrot stone worth…well…something. Anyway…
It’s just what you’ve been looking for… albeit; not very specifically, and then just…well…there it is. So you take a position - it’s just like a honey moon period of happiness and joy: you add a bit here and there and before you know it…it’s a major investment. It’s reporting well… growth, margin, cash flow and customer retention - all just fine with the price consistently climbing. Everything is just fine. I mean really, really fine. Well…until that is.
Look…so far we sharp, savvy investors have had a decent year and it’s an election year so most of us have figured that the incumbent and his merry band of sidekicks aren’t going to let things flag to much going in. You know what I mean - so, all things considered, especially after a really decent first half of 2024, the next few months I expect to be good. And therein lies the rub. Historically for example, the Mighty 500 has ‘run up’ going into an election only to underperform the following year. Of course there are generally multitudes of ancillary competing factors involved that tend to skew, complicate and further lobotomize ones thinking and assessment on this.
Just think of it like this scene from It’s A Wonderful Life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ0Yp-sZrKU
Do you see what I am getting at? Do you see how one moment things are just fine and then suddenly they’re not? Be prepared - have a plan to weather any storms that might occur - which, regarding investing, your money and your families financial health and well being, just maintain a cash fund to bridge the ‘Everything’s just swell’ times. Simple as that.
All the Best,
BDH Investing
but it was an interesting couple of hours.