The easy money has been made

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While working on a report, I received a call from a dear friend who was in a very foul mood. Like some others, he bailed out of all his stocks after Trump was elected. After all, Trump was supposed to puke the stock markets around the world. “Why the hell are stocks still going up?” I calmed him down and told him that well, in a bull market, it does not matter if the news is good or bad, stocks rise. In the bear market, they fall whether news is good or bad.

I have learned that markets will always do whatever they have to do to screw most people. For this decade, that meant markets rising when the gloom and doomers believed another crash was on the horizon. The market is always right, even if all the prices appear wrong. It must all be punishment for sins committed in our previous life.

So, is it better to just turn off the TV and read some novel? Do I know something that the big boys who probably read, write and speak better than me, do not? Clearly, my investors know where I stand on the markets from the big picture perspective.

The bulls and bears can argue till they are blue in the face. For a few years now, I have been avoiding betting on really bad things happening something like another crash similar to 2008. Many times in my work, I have warned against alarmist forecasts which we see and hear from a number of self-destructing financial gurus. 

I have been stuck in the stock market bull camp for a few years now. Still, I have never favored buying blindly or chase short-term performance. No one is going to get fired for avoiding doing stupid things. Investors should invest when optimism is low, not high.

To the leveraged traders, three months sounds like a lifetime. To the long-term and boring guys who do not usually move in and out of positions easily, it is mere seconds. As a cheapskate, I am looking for more protection in the current environment where emerging market investors are groping for more risk.

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