Stay with me…
Fact – Oil is under $30 a barrel…a level I like to say makes it cheaper to buy a barrel of oil than a barrel of Chobani yogurt.
Fact – Emerging Market Bond Indexes are breaking down below 2007 levels and we know what happened in 2008.
Fact – The S&P is trading below it’s 200 day moving average
Fact – The Royal Bank of Canada has a chart out there saying ‘bulls’ are at their lowest levels since the 1987 crash
Knowing all this and much more nonsense in my head after a long weekend….my Guess?
It’s a good time to invest some money. Pick your favorite brand and buy a little bit this week. Put 10-20 percent of your cash into a Vanguard S&P ETF. Be prepared for 10-30 percent lower prices in which you should be willing and able to add 5-6 more brands and 30-50 percent more of your cash into a Vanguard ETF.
You or I can’t be saved by any one piece of fundamental information or any technical indicator.
I have some stats, some history, a process, a network and my own psychology (risk tolerance). You can draft of those right here if you like as I write to help clear my head and organize my thoughts (but it’s impossible that our risk profiles and timeframes and balance sheets match up).
With all this horrible mood and data why would I ever say buy something?
As Brad Feld says when ‘Fear is in the Air‘:
Focus on what you can impact. Tune out the noise. Concentrate on things that matter. Have a long term view.
.
Amen.
The awesome Morgan Housel has a great post up entitled ‘Things I am Pretty Sure About‘. Read it. Here are a few fave tidbits:
Relative values are hard to deal with. We were just as shocked at how expensive $30 oil was in 2004 as we are shocked at how cheap it is today.
Investing is an epic battle between your goals, your temperament, and the self-interest of middlemen. Problems are easier solved when you break them down into those three groups.
Here is something I did not know from Morgan:
There are now almost twice as many hedge funds as there are Taco Bells, which explains why the quality of each product has reached parity.
The world probably does not need more Taco Bells or hedge funds, but we will get thousands more of them over the next ten years.
You are welcome.