People Do Not Care About Principles

People of the world definitely do not care about principles, they only care about what they already know.

When there was a shooting in Paris, 'the world cried', 'jes suis paris' and all that solidarity stuff.  When ten times as many people were being slaughtered or enslaved in africa at the same time hardly anyone said a word about it.

Recently there was a shooting at a homosexual night club in Orlando, Florida on 'latin night'.  It was in the news a lot for a couple weeks.  Just now a shooting at an airport in Turkey resulted in almost triple the amount of dead/wounded but with little coverage.  It was significantly worse than what happened in Orlando.  Orlando has a good reputation, its fun.  They even opened up the airport the next day.  Just a busy day for police, paramedics and custodians, back to work!

People don't care about violence so much, only violence that is near them or near something they consider special.

Many people do not check their 401k's that often but lately they have been because Brexit was in the news.  Many people made trades to change their portfolios when the market only went down a percent or so.  People were scared, but hardly anything happened.  It has only been a few trading days since and market averages are almost back to where they were.  But people were scared just because it was in the news.  They were scared because they consider the United Kingdom a special place.  If Denmark or Estonia or Poland left the EU, noone would say much because they dont have nice reputations like the UK.  In the UK there is a royal family and old clock towers and bridges.  James Bond, Elton John, The Beatles, Adelle, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Jaguar, Land Rover, Triumph, Robin Hood, Winston Churchill, fish n chips, chef Gordon Ramsey and the list goes on.  The UK has a reputation where they have stuff and its a 'good' country.  These ignorant investors I share breathable air with may not be able to  locate Britain on a map or tell me why leaving the EU is a good or bad thing, but they were scared.

Of course I did nothing.  I am in long term trades so one hiccup in the markets does not matter.  Even if I was in short term trades, I would have let them run there course or at the most, avoided trading going into the vote.  I am just so great it hurts.  Humility is for the runner up.

I just feel like everyone is confirming for the millionth time that they are clueless about what is happening in the stock market and their retirement accounts.  But now I am wondering, what changes did people make?  Apparently nothing too drastic.  The market has gone back to where it was.  The gap down from brexit has almost filled as of now.  I am still buying Dfemx, still buying China.  Speaking of China, Hong Kong is in a recession.  That island's economy has been touch and go for a while. 

Well, at least Brexit happened.  That is something.  It is really boring when there is nothing going on.  You can always count on the British to try things.  They do stuff when they are bored.  I think they have too much knowledge and expertise for there own good.  It has to get real boring being an island on the west side of Europe.  Someone should let the British run Europe instead of Europe running Britain.

Is this it?

Brexit caused a big down day in equities.  2 trillion $  in value is now gone. It looks like an all time high was reached the night before, then americans woke up to a big gap down as the votes were counted in merry old england.  The s & p was down over 3%.  Im liking it.  Maybe this is the first step in the equity selloff.  Of course, i would prefer a non-energy sell off rather than an all out equity sell off.  I dont have control over that.  China cant go much lower so my china trade may push up as the west goes down.  My oil trade is still thinking but i know eventually it will disconnect with the rest of the market.  Soon it may be considered a safe haven.

We'll see.

The British Exit

So British citizens voted to completely leave the EU by a small margin.  I think actual sentiment barely leaned toward remaining inside the EU but those people were not as diligent about getting out to vote.  It is the aspect of voting people forget about and polls don't really show it.  There is not too much action going on outside of some reshuffling between currencies, stocks and the like.  There are fake rumors about layoffs and relocating.

The exit itself doesn't mean much other than some technical changes will occur, mostly British will govern themselves.  For now it probably is better that they leave the EU.  When you become a state of a larger entity, it should be because it is mutually beneficial.  The state should be above average compared to the existing states, which Britain was.  The larger entity overall should be better than the state overall which it is not.  And that is the problem.  It really wont be worth it for Britain or any developed nation to join the EU until the EU has uniform policies like a real nation.  Right now its just a big bag of mixed treaties and recommended fiscal policies.  There is little accountability and in the end Germany is the real beneficiary.  The financial crisis of 2008 left several countries with a much smaller economy, strike one.  The migrant crisis  has caused violence, vandalism, no-go zones and has pissed off taxpayers, strike two.  I guess they will trudge along until they fail at another crisis, which would be strike three.

The most important thing I got out of this whole European bureacratic squabbling is that the former mayor of London who helped the Brexit campaign has really cool hair.  A big, randomly combed, mop of hair.

Financial Farmer

Lately I have been thinking about how I like to enter fairly long trades which may last a few years or so.  To me it is like growing trees.  I plant a seed or branch and wait.  I may water and nourish it for a while to get it going but at some point it will look like it is growing well.  This is like the period when Im buying low.  Eventually i may dig it up and sell the whole tree but if I have several trees growing they will be sold at different times.  This is like me having several trades going.  That is basically my diversification and it would create a fairly stable capital gain income. I want to plant a row of trees and eventually I will expect to sell a different one each year.  Right now I only have two trades going but I may enter a third trade next year depending on if China starts moving up.  If China does go up overall, then I will stop buying DFEMX and just wait to sell it.  At that time I could buy something else that is down.  I have heard of a trader comparing their style to being a farmer.  I am not sure if it exactly how I am looking at it.  Over time I will look forward to adding more and more trades.  I should get to the point where I am always about to enter something new and exit something old.  I am not there yet.  I am still just buying more and more of one thing until I am forced to buy something else.  That probably won't happen again.  I have two trees on my farm.  My choice of seeds are limited but I may look into opening a Traditional IRA if it would let me buy a better variety of seeds/industries.  I will worry about that a little later.  It will be a nice problem to have.

Brexit vote on June 23

By William James, Freya Berry and Patrick Graham

LONDON (Reuters) - The world's biggest banks including Citi and Goldman Sachs will draft in senior traders to work through the night following Britain's referendum on EU membership, set to be among the most volatile 24 hours for markets in a quarter of a century.

A vote to leave the European Union on June 23 would spook investors by undermining post-World War Two attempts at European integration and placing a question mark over the future of the United Kingdom and its $2.9 trillion economy.

Its the superbowl of british financial assets.  One day people poll to remain, then a week later it goes the other way.

It is a big deal because people want to be ready to move in the right direction.  They are not sure what will happen.  Some might be stressing out over it.  I would think positive.  There are very few potential outcomes in price movement.  Up, down, and nowhere.  Brexit wont have a big impact on me but even if it did , all i would do to prepare is the usual. In My longer term trades, brexit wont change final outcomes but it could change short term movement.  Short term movement means very little to me. 

Auto Sales

Financing for the average new car is longer than ever.  The avg cost is over 30k which is high.

Today i saw a guy in a new small BMW.  He used to drive a small Infiniti which was possibly 5 years old.  I guess it was getting too old and worn out for him.  He could be leasing a new $35k car every few years or buying one every several years.  Either way he is getting a bad deal.  Maybe he is having tons of fun driving through traffic, you never know.  Im assuming he would say that he loves his new little BMW.  He probably used to love the Infiniti.  If you really love a car you would keep it for 15 or 20 years and occasionally fix what breaks.  I would not pay about $700 a month for something i dont plan to keep for a long time. 

People seem vulnerable to a downturn.  Average folks are riding high.  Nothing to worry about.