I just added Move #4 to this Special Report today, November 1. I’ve added it to the full report that you can find in the Special Reports section of the site. Move #4: Change your Bear Market rally selling strategy now that the rally has moved to a new stage with industrial stocks leading the way and technology shares lagging. To me, it looks like leadership has shifted in this rally in the last week or so of October.
What now? I’ve been working to play defense in this Bear Market before there was even a Bear Market. Back in December, I added a drug stock, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY) to my Jubak Picks Portfolio because it looked like Big Pharma was getting dollars from investors and traders looking for safe havens.
In February I added oil and natural gas, ahead of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And since then I’ve added ETFs that track agricultural commodities. An ETF based on the U.S. dollar. And inverse ETFs that are designed to go up when prices in emerging markets or the small-cap sector of the U.S.market do down. And, of course, I’ve been selling: early on consumer stocks that looked vulnerable to inflation and recession and more recently technology stocks with exposure to China and the U.S./China trade war. But WHAT NOW? Here’s where I see investors and the market to be right now.
I expect the current Bear Market to go on for a while. To be clear, I’m looking for a bottom in late 2023 or 2024. Either of those dates is still a long way of. And I’m expecting that the bottom, whenever it arrives, will be significantly lower than the 3600 level on the Stanard & Poor’s 500 that has prevailed recently. I hear speculation about 3,000 on the S&P 500. That’s another 20% below the 3600 level. But I don’t expect that we’ll hit that bottom in a straight line. We’ll have significant Bear Market rallies that suck money off the sidelines just in time to catch another leg lower in the market, for example.
Bear Markets seem determined to inflict maximum pain. So it’s extremely important to play good defense. Sell your riskier positions. Take profits, when you have them, when you see signs that a portfolio favorite, even a long-term favorite, is seeing important negative trends in its business. Make sure that the stocks that you’ve decided to hold through the carnage are stocks you really, really believe in: it can be punishing to hold on and hold on, only to lose faith and sell near a low. Build up cash on the sidelines. Find low-risk cash-like positions to use as safe havens as the Bear continues to prowl. But as important as playing defense is in a Bear Market, there’s no reason to abandon altogether the search for profits. Even in a Bear Market, there will be narrow–and probably fleeting–opportunities to make a profit. And that’s what this Special Report is about–finding ways to make money–9 of them in this take–even in THIS Bear Market.
I’ve decided to hold my Special Report: 9 Picks to Make Money in This Bear Market until after tomorrow’s CPI inflation report.
Is there such a thing as a perfect stock? Depends. Not a chance, if you mean a stock that will be perfect in every market for every time period. No way, if you mean a stock that will go up steadily from the day you buy it. Nah, if you mean a “Buy and Hold Forever Stock.” But there are stocks that are “perfect” for a specific kind of market. And there are stocks that are “perfect” for a specific holding period. And there are stocks that are “perfect” for investors with a specific portfolio goal. And in this Special Report, I’m going to give you 10 of those Perfect Picks.
Today, October 1, I’ve gone back through this Special Report to update any parts of my calendar in light of what we’ve learned about the economy, about Federal Reserve interest rate policy, and about the global economy in the last few weeks. This update includes my take on the August jobs report and the September 21 meeting of the Fed. (It’s a complete revision of the original so changes are in the body of the original text.) It is different this time. And it’s likely to “be different this time” for the next five years or so. And you need an investment strategy for that period.
Luminar Technologies (LAZR) has pretty much all the characteristics the Bear Market hates most right now. The company went public via a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company), once the hottest “invention” on the stock market and currently one of the most scorned. The company has tiny revenue–just $37.11 million for the trailing 12 months. And big losses: the operating loss for the trailing 12 months is $327.88 million. (The company had $605 million in cash on hand on June 30, 2022.) No wonder the stock is down 56.4% for 2022 as of the close on September 23. The stock traded at $7.49 a share as of 3 p.m. New York time on September 26. But what puts Luminar on my list of Penny Stocks to Buy the Future is that this company is likely to be the largest pure-play supplier of LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging–think of it as radar that uses lasers and light instead of radio waves) for self-driving cars and for enhanced safety and driver assist technologies on more conventional cars.
I just added Veolia to my Special Report Water, Water Nowhere: 10 Water Picks for Our Drying World.
I’m going to start this Special Report “Water, Water Nowhere: 10 Water Stocks to Buy Now” with a look at the problem and the context surrounding that problem. Before I get to my 10 Water Stocks picks. Don’t we know what the problem is? And isn’t how to invest in water very, very obvious?
Today, September 5, I’ve gone back through this Special Report to update any parts of my calendar in light of what we’ve learned about the economy, about Federal Reserve interest rate policy, and about the global economy in the last few weeks. This update includes my take on the August jobs report and on recent Fed-speak from the Jackson Hole conference and after. It is different this time. And it’s likely to “be different this time” for the next five years or so. And you need an investment strategy for that period.
Special Report: Own the Future for Pennies with these 10 Penny Stock Picks. Pick No. 1: LNG startup Tellurian. Pick No. 2 Nel. No. 3 Tritium DCFC. Fourth Pick Vestas Wind, Fifth Pick Natura, Si.xth Pick Lynas Rare Earths Stay tuned for 4 more.
And there I thought the hard part was laying out my thoughts on the trends in the market over the next five years. Turns out that outlining investment specifics is even harder. So this is just the first 12 months of picks and positioning for the next five years.
