HedgeHog's Account Talk

[HedgeHog]

A thousand mile journey begins with the first step. Discussing investment strategies and information/news in a public forum is a first step for me. As far as the journey (savings/investments) I have come fairly far along. That meaning I have fallen and gotten up a number of times in the past couple of decades. I guess Confucious and the Milk Man would be proud of me. The investment world is one in which one is able to say the more they learn the less they realize they know. My thought is now that I am associated with the synergy of many minds it may be a good time to develop and refine some investment and trading strategies and then make some formulas and procedures to execute those stategies. To emulate and listen to others is after all the highest compliment and I like listening to the likes of Warren Bufffet and Tom, Birch Tree, System Trader, Milk Man and many others on this site. With some I noticed I have to listen a little harder then others because it is like working a rubics cube and I guess one sometimes has to be a whiz to figure out what it all means. Enough rambling for now, more to come later. HH

 

[HedgeHog]

Its Sunday night and hanging out in the safe house of "G" for now. A few weeks of in and out of C, S, and I wore me down. With "I" a person can end up being an insomniac trying to keep up with the news around the world that can change the market. Only trading a total of 30% of my account lately and leave the rest in "G". Have been in the TSP since 1990 and am fairly conservative usually in "G". Used to trade individual stocks through brokerage acccounts in the 1985 to 1993 timeframe. Short term, figure the market has priced in the interest rate hike later this month, so that should not have much impact on the market from where we are now. (now that I said that something will happen so I will end up eating those words). As folks figure out and debate how these quarter point increments will effect the economy I imagine various reports that track inflation and coorporate profit and growth will be under a magnifying glass as they come out and the market will have good and bad days. My thoughts on the short term trend (July to August). What will the stock market do this summer? My thought is there is a lot of investment money out there, economy is good, inflation is being bird dogged and there is an election in the Fall. That all looks pretty good for the markets. Wild cards, International Politics and events, Korea, Iran, Oil Supply and at what point in time if ever will Fed debt undermine the dollar and summer is historically a slow time for the markets. The basics of supply and demand in the world has driven up natural resources prices and I am not sure how raising interest rates in the U.S. is going to dampen resources demand in China and India. As an example, if the U.S. doesn't by as much steel pipe with higher interest rates other expanding economys in the world will. The end result will still be high demand and high prices for steel that will be reflected as inflation in the U.S. and everywhere else in the world. U.S. influence to move natural resource prices are minimized a little bit more all the time as other world economies grow. A few months back I went to Sardinia, Italy and made a closedown plan for a fuel storage facility and pipeline to a pier. In looking things over, figured the weight of the piping on the pier and scrap valued it at around 300K U.S. A couple years earlier in a domolition project the metal wouldn't have even been figured in as an asset. Anyway, it would seem to be predictable that as world demand for various basic natural resources goes up that that prices will increase and that component of inflation will have pressure on it for some time to come. Speculative commodities markets have taken a hit recently but the underlying strong demand for many of these commodities is real and intact. I guess business where the product is knowledge will react differently to inflation pressures then businesses where the product is material. Example, software developement and other knowledge based products like MRI analysis moved overseas to India. Not much inflation pressure in that case. Time to call it a day. About 1230 AM here in the Islands. Good saving and investing. HH