Friday File: Panic! … or maybe Don’t Panic!
by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | October 12, 2018 4:00 pm
What am I thinking after this week's jolt ... and what are the buys and sells in the Real Money Portfolio?
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Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2018/10/friday-file-panic-or-maybe-dont-panic/
Brilliant summary of the week’s action. However, I say this only because your thinking about the market happens to be somewhat like mine. “Do as little as possible” in a week like this is sound, as are your suggestions about imprecise stop-losses. And your portfolio is very similar to ours. You will help reassure my wife, who wants 100% index funds and no “wise man’s gambling”.
She may beat us all, but thank you nevertheless.
Travis, Very useful and wise words. Thanks! It looks like the ‘big’ crash/correction is still not there (apparently).
Which brokerage do you use to sync with Tradestops? I use IB (Interactive Brokers) and it looks like they aren’t on TS’
I don’t sync, just watch it manually.
Too too long, and the print is too light, the charts too small. Get shorter, bolder and bigger please.
The longer the better for me. This is all meaningful content. And it looks great and is perfectly readable and clear on my iPad mini.
Loved the beginning, but felt bogged down by the extended comments. Reads better this am with rested 74 year old eyes, but still must lean forward with a bad back to get chart details on a large screen paired to Macbook.
I need a rendering for the aged and impatient.
You can always enlarge a screen especially if you have a touchscreen. I”m 70 and just fine with Travis’ presentation and comments. Don’t complain–adjust. Too often people eschew detail. Sorry but life is complicated and to understand complicated topics requires complicated analysis. If you want an overview you can just skim and select what interests you. I’m willing to adjust until I’m 100–maybe more.
Reads fine on my laptop in every respect.
Great summery as usual Travis(the longer the better for me) couple of questions:- Do you think berkshire is still a buy around $200 as you’ve previously stated despite overall market weakness? i remember you mentioning it is supported by buy backs around this level .Secondly regarding Fairfax india, as nothing has fundamentally changed to the long term investments surely this is getting into over sold territory (now its close to book value) or do you believe any downturn will hit india a lot harder than the more developed markets?
I think Berkshire is an easy buy around $200 for the long term (years), but it could easily fall below that if the market drops meaningfully from here.
Fairfax India is a compelling play on India, given their financial and infrastructure assets, but the political and currency risk is substantial. I’d add at this valuation with the thought of this being a 10+ year hold as India rises, but my allocation is already as big as I want it to be right now. It’s certainly very possible that it could also fall 50% from here.
Thank you, Travis, for your balanced analyis of this week’s crash and your thinking which certainly resonates with mine.
I use Stop Loss triggers similar to your practice- as an initial opportunity to re-analyze a fund. I do use TradeStops VQ%, and also some hard stops too. This last week I did sell holdings in some municipal bond and income funds when VQ% stop loss triggered FOF, VGM, VKQ, RNP, and DSL…… AMZN Amazon I bought 38 shares early this year, TradeStops has a 18.5% VQ% trailing stop loss, I placed a 15% trailing stop loss which was triggered yesterday Oct. 11, I decided not to sell, it rose 4% today.
Travis – Excellent column as always. I generally just ride the down-cycles out, and am usually bottom fishing in these markets. One reason is that I often have significant gains in many stocks, even when the market is tanking, and am reluctant to take the tax hit resulting from letting a stop loss trigger, on stocks that I still like for the long run. (I’m getting older and would prefer that they pass to my heirs without capital gains taxes.) I’ve done pretty well with a mostly buy and hardly ever sell strategy, but it’s not truly optimal. Could you refer me to a good article or paper that deals with this tradeoff regarding taxes and associated strategies to consider? Or perhaps write a column yourself if you think there would be general interest in it.
Thanks
Thanks, Travis. Sure do hope you’re right about Shopify. I’m a great fan, despite a small holding. But at times like this, I have trouble shaking that Citron garbage (fingers crossed) that persists in the face of what the Fool is preaching, for instance. And the MJ gurus.
Thank you for this astute analysis. Such is why I joined the irregulars.
Interesting about BRK and the S&P 500 actually performing pretty closely these last five years. BRK itself has been in the Top 5 of the S&P 500 for at least a couple years now. There’s a significant gap between BRK and the next largest company (AMZN) right now, but it will be interesting to see if BRK continues to becomes a larger part of the S&P 500 over a 10-20 year time frame.
John Mauldin did a blog post about “Sandpiles.” Months ago. It is about piling more sand on top of a sandpile until the sand avalanches down to make a stable pile. The process of the avalanching is a major study and theory in physics. Can be done with real sand and means of identifying stresses in the surfaces and can be done with computer simulations. The process and nature of a collapse of this sort applies to many things including the stock markets. Predictable but elusive events that defy being timed or of knowing exactly when or where things will begin to happen. This week the Markets Sandpile avalanched. Wait & see if it is over. For my own portfolio, both too late and too early to buy more shares/positions. May look stable for days or weeks and then continue the avalanche. Or not. ????????
Not sick of reading your analysis at all. Travis, you are really quite talented in investment.
I did reasonably well over the years but one of my problems is I have no exit strategy when I buy a stock. Having a full time office job prevents me from researching each company I am holding and deciding what to do when it falls. Sometimes, I take my profit too early, like selling TTD, AMZN, APPL too early. I think I ought to just buy a index fund or ETF and leave it there. But greed and F.O.M. gets me, LOL.
Just FYI, FINX holds SQ and PYPL etc, so does IPAY. Those are some options for people who don’t want to hold SQ or SHOP individually, though the returns may not be as impressive as buying individual underlying companies.
With the Chinese stocks, I am so convinced that BABA, JD, TCEHY will do well, over a long term.
Thanks again.
When is AAPL a buy.
Travis, Thanks for great honest writings and insights. Just a question: Instead of wait for your weekly update. Is it possible to quick update any of your buys/sells in the real time or possibly you can?. This would help us to act if subject instrument is interested. The reason i’m asking is sometime big price variations when we receive your updates in the week end. This is just an idea.
As always, awesome material! Some advice is timeless, indeed, ref: Dagwood Comics. Reminds me of Thomas Sowells’ wisdom portrayed in his works.
Thanks for the great work, Travis. I have a question for you and anyone else who cares to answer. Do you have any qualms about companies such as Starbucks borrowing money to buy back stocks, especially when interest rates are rising?
wow man your articles, esp the friday files, are awesome, like im downloading friendly advice on how to think and how to dodge and duck in the wild world of the stock market.
Thanks daniel!
Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. I love it when the VIX shoots up and I have dry powder. Great buying opportunities. Historically, VIX trends are extremely short lived. Will likely settle back to 10 range sooner than later. Great summary of week’s action. VNQ and XLK are some positions I hope to establish when VIX starts to trend down close t0 15 range. Will also revisit BRK-B. Any thoughts on fear and greed? thx for summary