Humbly, I don’t think this is a bottom.
For the first time in history we have 5 bubbles hitting us at once. Equities, Real Estate, Bonds, Commodities, and Crypto. Now maybe you can argue one or two or even 3 are overblown, but not all 5.
Combine that with rising rates, terrible (real) job numbers, supply chain nightmares, and historical inflation — and we have a perfect storm brewing.
Inflation’s kept the boat alive on the choppy seas, but only in appearance. That’s what happens when you print 40% of the total money supply in such a short time.
And even the bluest diehards are losing faith in the captain at the helm.
Thankfully, our society has a psychological imprint of the market always going up over time, that we’re conditioned to buy dips and we’re surviving. But in this one guy’s opinion, it feels like a Jenga Stack.
I don’t know what that one final piece will be. Could be a geopolitical event (Russia/Ukraine, El Salvador, CCP incursion, another variant) or one of the big FANG players taking a huge hit, who knows. Netflix in a vacuum didn’t seem like it, but seeing Shopify & Upstart drop 15% today looked a bit more like a trend than a 1-off.
I want T2K to be right. My portfolio certainly does, and I hate playing shorts. We’re already lost a ton of value (when you factor in where we could be with inflation). But I think the contrarian perspective is important to present.
At the end of the day, he’s also right that there aren’t many other places to put money right now — everything’s a bubble. So solid companies still may be the best way to play it. Like others have mentioned, I’ve also been focused on consumer goods, defense sector, and value buys. I also like silver & gold, but there are issues there too. Any other off-the-radar investment vehicles you looking at?
Point being I think this is new territory, where past studies of corrections/crashes may not apply. And having a forum like this where we really challenge each other is fantastic, because it can/has helped prepare for whatever is to come.
If I had to guess… I think a crypto crash will be what tanks the market. But in time, it’ll also lead all that dead money (particularly from whales) back into stocks. We’ll have to pay a nasty price for inflation, but it’ll also hopefully insulate our buying power as long as we stay in strong ones. Student loan crisis is a huge problem too, and may contribute a blow to the Housing Bubble — but right now we’re just kicking the can.
If we had better leadership, I’d have more faith. But so far our only solutions to 5 bubbles has been to make it worse by incomprehensible policy decisions or… to push giant stim packages that only buys you time, but makes the problem worse.
In the end, nothing would make me happier than to see the SPY keep going up these next few months and year, but the headwinds are strong (even after the last few bear months) and perhaps most troubling, they’re coming from many directions all at once…