A lot of talk of Trump “blinking” at the moment. The US markets were up on Friday as the Trump administration softens its stance on tariffs. The S&P 500 rose 1.8% and the Nasdaq was up 2%.
The ASX/SPI Futures are indicating a small increase today of 0.2%
Investors now expect to see exemptions come into play for smartphones and computer chips. If no one can afford an iPhone how on earth are they going to be able to download Truth Social???
What we’re watching this week
In the shortened week we’ll be keeping an eye on US tech, Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) in particular. With the market baking in expectations of tariff exemptions, let’s all hope they actually come through. Markets are forward looking and investors will put these expectations in the share prices of these companies before Trump confirms it. If he doesn’t and digs his heels in, we’re in for another bumpy week. Tech investors will be reading into everything he says this week.
What does this mean for investors domestically? ETFs like Betashares Nasdaq 100 ETF (ASX:NDQ) and Global X FANG+ (ASX:FANG) are incredibly popular amongst our community and local investors. Holders of these ETFs should also have a keen eye on any market manipulation from Truth. This is a great time to buy (not investment advice)!
My worst investments ever
Today I’ll be heading into the office to record a podcast with Owen. He’s asked me to think about my worst investments ever, this series could run for as long as A Country Practice. I ended up categorising my mistakes into two areas, young dumb and confident dumb. The two aren’t mutually exclusive either.
I’ll tell you about my first share purchases here because Owen can’t cut me off here like he can in a pod. My first job in the investment world came doing customer service and sales for a share valuation platform called StockVal at an Australian value investing fund manager called Clime Asset Management. StockVal went on to change names to MyClime and I think it is now called Clime Direct. It was a great job, with a really fun little team.
One end of financial year I moved a lot of – and I mean a lot – of MyClime. The commission was huge for 23 year old me and made the notoriously tight CFO wince. I was really good mates with the analyst team and still are to this day, so we went for lunch and I asked them what should I invest in. Later I put in my first trades for Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX:CBA), BHP Group Limited (ASX:BHP) and Brickworks Limited (ASX:BKW).
Not exactly the most scintillating of stocks for a 20-something year old and hard to see how you could blow yourself up with them as well. I can’t remember the fad at the time but these stalwarts are definitely no medical cannabis or 3D printing. I blew myself up on something far worse. Young dumb me didn’t have an emergency fund. It is step one for self directed investors, have an emergency fund so you don’t have to interrupt your compounding. Instead of an emergency fund I did the opposite of what a sensible person should do and got a credit card to help me out….we can all guess how that ended up. It set me back years, it was awful and one of my biggest financial regrets.
Have you missed the boat?
One more thing I will be looking for this week is investors reactions to a potential rising market. What I don’t want to hear is people saying “I’ve missed the boat”. THERE IS NO BOAT!! Steep and sudden market pullbacks do provide a great opportunity to buy lower but do your absolute best to not get caught up in the psychological traps of market timing.
Buying the dip can be seen as a character trait of a positive long-term investor but waiting for it is market timing. Let’s all get back to following our long-term plan of investing in a diversified portfolio and dollar cost averaging over the long-term. Executing your plan consistently over decades is the real boat if there has to be a boat in this story.
Finally, here’s to hopefully a calm week. Last week was a lot. If you’d like to connect with me you can jump across to the Rask Community, Rask Invest or use the chat function in the bottom right corner.
