Pundits Everywhere
Mother's Little Helper portfolio was UP today +1,112.12 (+0.94%)
Overall GAIN/LOSS YTD: +$1,698.33 (+1.45%)
Our benchmark index, the S&P 500 is UP Year-To-Date (+8.35%)
"Waiting helps you as an investor and a lot of people just can’t stand to wait.
If you didn’t get the deferred-gratification gene,
you’ve got to work very hard to overcome that.”
-Charlie Munger
I made my buys for the year on December 28, 2017, see the new portfolio here (Click Here).
Melting Up
In general the portfolio seems to be melting up, but today we got a nearly 1% gain. Kind of feels like we're in the middle of a long dark tunnel and someone just gave us new batteries for the flash light.
Pundits are Everywhere
If you're a bear spewing doom and gloom you've been slaughtered; last year, this year, in fact you got clocked the last 6 years. The pundits are everywhere and I think they are driven by motivations that the rest of us can ignore; file their comments under noise, not news.
Yes, eventually the market will decline, the pundits will get book deals and talk show appearances, but the decline will be for good reason, a recession, interest rates rising too fast, lack of earnings, a structural failure in our financial system, a major environmental or regulatory event, or some unforeseen geo-political event. Bull markets don't end because of old age. Right now, none of these factors are looming over the market in 2018.
I hate the phrase, "It's different this time", honestly the only thing different this time is that we cannot compare the current bull market to any other time in history, no matter how hard the pundits want to believe its the 1990's all over again. Interest rates have never been this low while organic growth was this high and labor this tight with wages still working to increase. Too many factors are in place to fuel further growth, and as I discussed in previous posts there is still more coming to extend this bull market.
With thanks to Jon Boorman (@jonboorman) lets take a look at the most notable bear market, gloom and doom predictions. At the risk of getting a little too jubulant over the markets performance, Boorman plotted comments from well known bears on a chart of the S&P 500 from 2012-2018. Use you're browsers zoom feature to enlarge the type.
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Keep Me Honest
I am attempting to keep track of my calls and predictions by logging them at the bottom of every post.
Bond prices will decline as a result of rising rates and a Dollar Shortage.
Invest in China stocks. NetEase, YY, JD, Baidu, Alibaba, mobile phone services and makers, and China BioTech
Invest in Whirlpool (see Whirlpool caveats above), Kohl’s, Costco Wholesale, Home Depot, Dollar General and Casey’s, Ingersoll-Rand, Illinois Tool works, Paccar, Honeywell, and DowDupont, PayPal, Square, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Bank of America, JP Morgan, DBC, Apple, Microsoft and Caterpillar.
Goldman Sachs slides to around $210/share
Proctor & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Merck and Pfizer will go lower as rates rise.
The Chinese yuan will replace the dollar in international trade. Not this year, but it will happen in coming years.
The DOW will close the year with 9-10% gain.
The S&P 500 will close the year at 2900-3000.
The portfolio will generate about $2,065 in dividends.
M&A of drug companies will increase over the next 24 months.
Healthcare, technology, industrial's and financials should outperform through the remainder of the year and into the high of next year.
JP Morgan, SunTrust, KeyBank and Visa perform well through remainder of 2018.
Stay Invested,
Clay Baker
Disclosure: I am personally invested long in some or all of these funds that appear in the Mother's Little Helper portfolio or manage these investments for my Mother's portfolio and may purchase or sell shares within the next 72 hours. I am also invested in other stocks and funds that do not appear in the MLH portfolio but may be mentioned or related to this article. It is not my intention to advise or encourage the purchase or sale of any security. Since I may on occasion discuss Bitcoin and other cryto currencies I disclose here that I personally own investments in the cryto-currencies listed here: AMZN, DBC, VTI, VWO, VEA, VIG, XLE, MUB, TBT, GLD, Bitcoin, LiteCoin
I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. This article is not intended to offer investing advice, guarantee 100% accurate predictions, or to be interpreted as providing a personal recommendation.
