Focused Investing Perspectives #51

Silver skies offer their own beauty.

I’m back after my illness; the market is just sideways.

But I’m also determined not to feel self-imposed pressure to do one of these every week. One problem is that I really like sharing the photos….

Still, when I switched from the newsletter to Perspectives part of the idea was to be less regular in publishing it. That was a good idea and still is.

As we bump and roll through earnings season, various individual stocks are seeing strong reactions. But rarely has that produced immediate compelling buys.

Instead, we ride the Trump rollercoaster with the broad markets. Here are the cap-weighted and equal-weight S&P 500 index ETFs since the inauguration:

There was a decline related perhaps to early DOGE. Then on “Liberation Day,” the markets panicked in response to the massive and incomprehensible tariffs. A few days later, after the pause, the markets came up some.

But then Trump threatened to (somehow) fire Fed-chair Powell and the market panicked again. Then Trump dialed that back and the market came up near where it is now. The MegaCap Techs have reacted more strongly, seen in the SPY curve dropping below that for the RSP.

This was all rather disappointing. The market did not fall far enough to open up some really good opportunities. I had raised some cash but deployed little of it.

So what now? Somehow I have trouble with a vision of placid markets going forward. With this president, something is bound to happen that will disturb things again.

So steady as she goes for now.

Updates Ahead

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