I’m coming to you a bit early with a “Thursday File” because I’m on the vacation for the next ten days, which also means things will be pretty slow around these parts… and this will be your last Friday File until July 15. I should be on the ground in Ireland by the time you read this, spending a week or so touring the country with my family, and then we’ll spend a few days in Amsterdam… which means I’ll be hitting some of the most congested airports in the world, at a time when the travel industry seems to be falling apart.

Demand is far outpacing the ability of airlines and airports to staff back up after COVID (lines were so bad a couple weeks ago in Amsterdam that the airport was asking people to show up at least four hours before their flight). I love to travel, so I’m excited to get out and see some of the world again… but apparently everyone else feels the same way at the same time, so things are pretty ugly out there. I’m sure the horror stories are worse than the reality, as is almost always the case… but if I don’t make it back for that next Friday File in two weeks, well, my apologies in advance.

But enough about my vacation… what’s running through my head this week when it comes to investing?

We enjoyed a little reprieve from stock market panic for a few days, rebounding from the truly ugly sentiment of about two weeks ago, but it hasn’t exactly been a glowing week, and there’s obviously still plenty of reason to worry… inflation doesn’t usually go away fast, and high inflation can usually only be cured by significant economic pain… wars are unpredictable… election seasons are ugly of late… recessions are scary… and investors seem still to be pretty skittish. All those “fear and greed” indices recovered from their extreme low of mid-June, when they all bottomed out at 0, for maximum “extreme fear,” but they’re still skewed pretty hard to the “fear” side (the CNN one is here, for example, other folks have similar “meters” but they’re all about the same).

If you’re a long term investor, focused on what your returns will look like in the 2030s and 2040s rather than six months from now, then these ...