This is scary
I know it’s early yet. Only about 10 am and the market has been open for a half hour. But I did my usual check on the sector ETFs to see how things are going. Something I have never seen before.
- 1.45% Energy
- -1.22% Materials
- -0.11% Industrials
- -2.11% Consumer Discretionary
- -0.67% Consumer Staples
- -0.36% HealthCare
- -0.90% Finance
- -0.91% Communications
- -0.29% Utilities
- -0.37% Real Estate
- -0.30% Technology
Every sector shows a drop except Energy. Now let’s look at events. Over the weekend the U.S. attacked Iran, and all kinds of things have happened since, including retaliation strikes. I don’t claim to understand all the information about where everything is but I do understand that little area that all our oil tankers have to pass through that is basically in control of Iran. Now tanker ships are afraid to pass through, they are not going through, and 20 percent of oil production is sitting there with no place to go.
My guess is that the fact that we have begun this war (and they are calling it war, even though I don’t think it has been declared officially as one yet) that has driven the prices down. I did notice that the defense companies like Lockheed Martin and RTX have gone (way) up. So maybe there is some readjustment going on as people take money from where they had it in these other sectors and thrown it into those companies. Energy, which relies on the oil that is just sitting there waiting for a chance to slip through that little area (I can’t remember what it’s called) is going up.
We are expecting our gas prices here to go up because of it. They saying as much as 25 cents per gallon. I’m in wait and see mode. Mondays are typically kind of volatile with stocks and I rarely trade on Mondays because of it, even though I spent the weekend planning. So, I don’t expect to do much today, but I wanted to get this down here so I can record the war situation and what is happening in my life around it.
I heard that the inflation numbers were higher than expected but I don’t know what they were. Most of the news is surrounding the war, so it’s hard to find much else. But with rising inflation we might see interest rates going back up??? I don’t know. Things get so confusing.
But without a doubt, this war is going to have some effect on everything as shown by that list of changes in all the sectors. I don’t see the Iran regime backing down or giving up what they have, so this could drag out. Right now, it’s just the US and Isreal against Iran but other countries or at least groups are starting to get involved. The president said yesterday that it could go on for 2 to 4 weeks, but I’m afraid that if other countries start to get involved, it could expand into a large-scale war. I have no idea what that will mean for us.
