Geopolitical situation

Is the coronavirus geo"political" situation? Is it something to be aware of? In my workplace, in case of someone returns from China, needs to stay at home (needs to stay away from work) for 14 days. If this would be implemented everywhere, would that be an impact on the market? Is this only the noise? Are you in time of making any big decision already now or you are late already?

I put actions behind my words :-).

Iā€™ve already increased all my allocations in stocks which have dropped below my target (in dollar value). I also added 3 new positions on discount. Thereā€™s a good chance I will be buying again if the market drops any further, especially after the Chinese stock exchanges open on Monday after the holidays.

None of the companies I have will stop being profitable or being good businesses in general. If anything, profits will come slightly delayed. I have the time to wait. Now is the time to buy on discounts. BTW my previous purchases were done at the depth of the trade war. Iā€™m still in profit.

Judging by your posts, your strategy is buying the dip, whenever the dip seems to be caused by unreasonable panic. You must have a very low opinion of the market: a bunch of people who are easily scared and sell at the slightest sign of trouble. If that was true, then it should be childishly easy to beat the index. Iā€™m not saying the reality is different, but I just canā€™t believe itā€™s that easy.

Yes indeed. Panic is a moment where nobody can price in the facts because the facts are as of yet unknown.

And Iā€™m not expecting to be always right. Itā€™s enough that Iā€™m right 50.1% of the time for compounded long term win ;-).

By the way, just look at the FRA: XGLF starting the day after my post from 6th January (scroll up). It is down again because of the virus, but Iā€™m willing to bet itā€™s nothing but another buying opportunity. Iā€™m not reckless with my risk taking, so Iā€™ll stay with my existing allocation.

BTW2 , the total death toll of the virus has not as of yet reached the number of people killed on Polish roads only in the month of December 2019. Tough statistics.

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Regarding Corona, Iā€™m just tracking this chart from Wikipedia, all available at a glance:

At first you think: jeez, whereā€™s the fire? From 100 to 10ā€™000 sick people in two weeks. But if it maintains this pace, in two weeks it will be 1ā€™000ā€™000 sick and 20ā€™000 dead :wink: . So letā€™s hope these dots soon canā€™t keep up with that exponential trendline.

Mortality rate is 2% and most victims confirmed have been elderly people or people with preexisting conditions. There will be more cases and more deaths, but this one is not a virus which will cause the world economy to collapse. I guess weā€™ll see about that in around a month.

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Stumbled upon this dashboard - looking a bit nicer than Wiki plot :slight_smile:

Cheers,
dbu

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2% of the World is the population of Russia. Just saying :wink: . Btw, a bit black humor: if you say this virus mostly affects weak and elderly people, then this virus may help prevent pension systems from collapsing :wink:

I edited this part of my post out before sending :wink:

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What is your definition of catching a falling knife?

It can not continue to grow exponentially because at some point all the people are infected ;-). To me this corona virus is just some huge panic hype from the media. In fact it is just some influencia virus that started spreading in a overly populated area with poor health care system. Now, because of globalization and modern aviation it can spread more easily but that does not make it more dangerous. I would prefer to call it the chinese flue similar to historical flue events when in switzerland we would call it spanish flue and in spain they would call it french flue, etc.

I agree to your definition but If you invest into ETFs, I think itā€˜s not wrong to try to time the market. In the long term the market will always grow unless you buy into a small niche etf composed of dying dinosaurs.

Why do you think Iā€™m catching falling knives? Iā€™m adding to positions which I already had, or I watched and wanted to have but they were too expensive.

Iā€™m not investing in some value crap hoping it will once turn around. What I buy, I believe are the leaders in their respective industries. A temporary pause in growth will not mean they suddenly lose a competing edge or will stop growing business. This really is nothing but a buying opportunity and perhaps it will become even better, but I then I will add even more. Simple as that.

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So how do you call market timing for buying. Doesnā€˜t it make sense to time the buy ins? If I anyways accumulate my investment doesnā€˜t it make more sense to buy more on the dips instead of spreading it out over the whole year?

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Exactly, how do you judge when a stock is ā€œcheapā€? or itā€™s ā€œa dipā€ So if I understand correctly you will find time, all market participants, million dollar paid wall street traders with all the tech and research behind them are valuing a stock lower than ā€œwhat it should beā€?

You do not believe the markets are efficient, which is one assumption. plus you also believe that you can spot and exploit these inefficiencies better than all the institutional investors with teams and resource behind them.

You might be right, you might find the dips. you might find stocks that are undervalued - yes. But itā€™s very very unlikely. I would not bet money on me vs. all the other investors.

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Well, technically, he doesnā€™t have to do it better than them. If the professional traders find a market inefficiency, they have to invest capital in order to profit from it. There are financial tools, like leverage, which help you make big impact with smaller capital. The question is, do they have enough capital to cover the whole market inefficiency?

Imagine a market inefficiency is like a freshly discovered gold ore. They send in big ā€œmachinesā€ into the gold mine to find the big gold nuggets. But if you go on your own with your ā€œpickaxeā€, you will not be as efficient, but you may also strike some gold. Ugh, I canā€™t tell if this analogy works or not :stuck_out_tongue:

Oh but I could be totally wrong! Weā€™ll only find out in a few months from now. Iā€™ll keep you updated.

For now, I can only give you a simple example of a stock which fell for no logical reasons. Imagine you are locked up for 2 weeks at home. What do you do? A lot of people will likely spend the time on watching tv, gaming, online shopping or socializing online. Why then, would the stocks positioned to most profit from this kind of scenario, discount by 10% or more? Look up IQ, this is Chinaā€™s Netflix. There are already reports telling that online shopping activity has skyrocketed on leading platforms such as Alibaba (BABA), JD.Com (JD) or Pinduoduo (PDD). All at a discount. There is no reason here. Pure panic.

Who said that I only try to buy the dips? I am not following black and white strategies, the world is grey! I can buy on a regular basis, irrelevant of any news. But If I am sure that itā€˜s a dip I can invest a bit more letā€˜s say a 2-3 months buy in that I would else spread out over 3 months. Of course I could be wrong, then I perform less, but if I am right I will beat the market. Itā€˜s always a risk and opportunity management. But you can also just always ignore any news, and keep your strategy but with a mindset like that youā€˜ll stay 100 % average - also in your career ;-).

I am always a bit pushy with my statements, else we never reach the core of a discussion and always talk around it ;-). I would totally sign your statement and would also recommend any novice to do it this way, with finance and personal investment one can definitely become a millionaire by following a safe and average strategy and keeping a safe and average source of income, discipline is the key to success - I know someone who followed this way long before any FIRE movement and became a millionaire when he got retired. Unfortunately, I donā€™t have a very disciplined personality, so I always need to push on all edges to be successful ^^ā€™.

Get ready to unleash your moneybags a bit more :slight_smile:

(Green should be red, nice psychological game)