What is your plan ?

How are you going to get to your goal ? If you trade a short term move you give up the bigger move. If you go for the bigger move you will give up short term profits as you hold through pullbacks that never recover. There is no perfect plan. What is your plan ?

"When China sneezes, the whole world catches the flu."

 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Not something an investor should discount. 

Economic implications are pretty clear. Lower retail sales, home construction, fuel consumption. The lunar new year increases the risks of the virus spreading but it's also a holiday for many so in some ways the industrial and supply chain impacts are muted. If it keeps spreading, prevention efforts are going to get more intense and it's going to have a more meaningful impact on growth. The responses are similar to what they were a hundred years ago during the Spanish flu. Moreover, the better the control measures (curfews/travel bans/restrictions on public gatherings/limiting public transportation), the bigger the hit to growth. There are no easy choices.

This market is very vulnerable as the indexes rallied but the number of stocks that have been participating in this rally has been narrowing. Be careful out there, consider maintaining mostly breakeven stops on profitable positions and keeping risk very tight on new commitments.

Rotation continues, bulls are gaining interest in global and small cap equities.

ZIM

                                                paying over 18% in dividends

Just remember: by the time we get to where we want to go the journey will have already ended.

"Edison failed 10,000 times before perfecting the incandescent electric light bulb. Don’t worry if you fail once."

Arguably America’s greatest inventor, Thomas Edison had an extraordinarily positive perception of life that greatly enhanced his ability as an inventor. When others might have been hopelessly discouraged after failing thousands of times in an attempt to develop an electric light, the great Edison simply viewed each unsuccessful experiment as the elimination of a solution that wouldn’t work, thereby moving him that much closer to a successful solution. We could all take a lesson from Edison. Stories abound about inventors who quit trying and gave up too soon or miners who struck gold just a few feet beyond where someone else quit digging. There are few obstacles in life that will not succumb to consistent, sustained, intelligent, positive action. When you are discouraged after you’ve failed at something, remember Edison’s 10,000 failures before he arrived at the solution that forever changed the world.

Inflation is surging.

The inflation comparisons between November and February are very easy to beat - so inflation will surge further in these months. Nevertheless, inflation will most likely peak in Q1 22 - something to keep in mind and a reason to be stalking for buying opportunities in bonds.

Moreover, market participants seem to view this inflationary environment still as transitory. For example, the two-year breakeven -- which represents the market’s view on the annual pace of inflation over the next two years -- is currently 3.3%, while the 10-year rate is 2.7%. That suggests that traders expect price pressures to subside over time.

"The farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer except of course the pigs & the dogs."

"The secret to being productive is to work on the right thing—even if it's at a slow pace."

DBA

ACB - reporting earnings tomorrow

AG

"Discouragement"

What we do not see, what most of us never suspect of existing, is the silent but irresistible power which comes to the rescue of those who fight on in the face of discouragement.

It's not about being right all the time, it's about being right some of the time, and the other times it's about not staying wrong.

SBSW - paying around 10% in dividends.

 

"Imperfection."

Almost everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, scared, and yet designed for joy. Even (or especially) people who seem to have it more or less together are more like the rest of us than you would believe. I try not to compare my insides to their outsides, because this makes me much worse than I already am, and if I get to know them, they turn out to have plenty of irritability and shadow of their own. Besides, those few people who aren’t a mess are probably good for about twenty minutes of dinner conversation.

This is good news, that almost everyone is petty, narcissistic, secretly insecure, and in it for themselves, because a few of the funny ones may actually long to be friends with you and me. They can be real with us, the greatest relief. As we develop love, appreciation, and forgiveness for others over time, we may accidentally develop those things toward ourselves, too.

Both the 1997 Asian Currency crisis and the 1998 LTCM debacle happened early fall, September into October. Stock fell 10% in 1997 and 20% in 1998. In both instances the S&P-500 closed the year at a new ATH.

"You"

The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin—the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world.

Don’t shrink from new experiences and custom. Take the cold bath bravely. Enter into the spirit of your big bedroom. Enjoy what is and not pine for what is not.

Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself. Make yourself do unpleasant things, so as to gain the upper hand of your soul.

Time is free, but it's priceless.

 

All financial markets might be sideways into next week’s FOMC announcement.