Black Monday?
I think a lot of people were thinking that today would be a Black Monday. I think the most famous one was the start of the big market crash in 1929. It seems that a lot of black days have been attributed to October dates. So I guess it would not be surprising if today was to follow the pattern.
After all, last week was horrible, especially for the Nasdaq and all the Tech Stocks. I lost a lot of money last week. Well, a lot for me. Fortunately, I don’t have a lot of money, so I don’t have a lot to lose! But still, my tech stocks got eaten alive last week.
I didn’t panic, I didn’t sell, I just let it sit for a minute. Today, the tech stocks are going back up. AMD was up about 25 dollars when I checked earlier. Maybe after a few days, I will be back to normal. The problem is that other stocks which went up last week are now coming down. Go figure!
Midterms
I was reading today that Midterm years are historically good for the stock market. Maybe it’s all the spending on political advertisements. I can’t seem to get away from them. They are on every TV channel and I’m even getting texts on my phone!
Here we are, more than half way through October, and I can’t say that this is a historical October. I attribute more success to the AI build out than the Midterms. But if you thought the stock market was changing all the time, just look at the voting polls. Seems like they keep saying the races are tight, but then I hear that one group or the other is 39% below the other. That doesn’t sound tight to me.
But if you thought that I was no expert in the stock market, I am even worse on political elections. All I want is someone in office that will do the right things to make life better for everyone. Why is that so hard to find?
I was listening to Bernie Sanders this morning and I know he has a certain agenda that probably won’t work here in the US (too many greedy corporations already) but at least he has some idea of a plan. It may not work, but it’s a plan rather than a promise.
Anyway, I don’t know what will happen for the rest of this month. I know that I have made my own plans. That’s all I can do.
This Morning
I made a few changes today in my portfolio. I added a little money to a couple of my ETFs. I like to add a little to a couple of them now and then so I added 50 dollars to SCHD and ICLN. SCHD is probably the most famous ETF around and I think everybody has some shares of it. ICLN is my alternative energy ETF which I hope will be worth something when we get some people in power that believe in Solar and Wind energy.
I also bought some starter shares of two more ETFs. I got JEPQ and RSPA. RSPA is a equal weight S&P 500 ETF and JEPQ is a high yield S&P 500 index fund. I’ve been wanting an equal weight S&P ETF for a while now. and JEPQ looks pretty much like any other S&P index stock if you just look at the top 10 holdings. Heavy tech, but lots of others too working with options a lot so maybe it will actually make some money.
So that’s where I am on this Monday morning. Now I have chores to run. Life never stops. I thought when I retired, I could take more naps! Silly me!
