Sell in May and go away?

1

Today, I sold 10% of the portfolio and placed into CAOS, BOXX and GLDM.

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2

why 10%? Are you doing it in stages?

3

Buy in May and June, July,
Hope that Trumpster will comply.

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4

I wanted to sell 20%, but couldn’t bring myself to part with some of the stocks.

10% I eventually need in cash this year as I will pay that into my Pillar 2 pension fund.

The other 10%, I wanted to keep as dry powder. Instead I put a short bet on the Russell 2000.

5

Are you close to retirement? Or are you trying to avoid loss/get higher returns?
Honest question.

6

if my read of trend charts was right; I think that you were about 2 weeks too early. We will see, but my magic cristal cube thinks that we will have a top on about 14 May.

But who am I to say, I don’t act based on these instincts so no skin in the game
 and I just do these things for fun, so don’t take things too serious.

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7

“Sell in May and go away
but remember to come back in November” 
apparently!

Not sold anything other than some gold according to my rebalance target, just stacking more cash.

I’ve gotten the itch to look at trend charts too, gold seems to have a lot of legs left in terms of buying trend. VT, SPY, and NASDAQ100 have all death crossed 2 weeks ago, so certainly not buying unless my buy bands are breached.

8

i really don‘t know what’s happening right now. After a small crash market going up again.

I‘m also considering selling some because i think we are heading to a recession but the last weeks
were crazy.. On the other side i‘mm thinking time in the market beats timing the market..

9

Are you close to retirement?

Yes, considering retiring in 2026 or 2027, but if a Trump armageddon comes in the the next year or two, I might think if that still makes sense or not.

Or are you trying to avoid loss/get higher returns?

Also yes.

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10

I hope so. I’m perfectly happy to sell down another 20% over the next couple of months. I just wish I’d trusted my instinct to have taken profits earlier in the year when I was 6% up!

11

And now China sells gold and talks of trade deal. Worst timing ever.

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12

so what is the conclusion? VT is just 4% away from ATH

are tariffs now gone, FED will decrease rates soon and we are back to bull run?

or it is just some post earnings positive which is delayed and not reflecting the tariffs reality before further crash when economical indicators will start showing the effect of tariffs + Russia/Ukraine will not stop as expected now and India/Pakistan or something else will start?

13

If tariffs are gone (big if because who knows how negotiations play out), then we are back to where we started at beginning of 2025 in terms of policies. And a self inflicted bear market would be over.

Earnings would need to drive the market in US and perhaps in rest of the world, multiples can expand a bit.

Having said that -: following will still play a role

  • unreliable US
  • long term trade flow changes
  • Huge US debt with no end in sight
  • AI revenues need to justify capital
  • Germany‘s pivot in fiscal policy
  • Ukraine war
  • Europe investment in defence
  • Europe capital market plans
  • Chinese fiscal stimulus
  • Continuous drama from White House and need for praise & attention

Who would have thought European news would be positive :wink:

14

I’m still hoping for a massive bull-run / blow off top caused by tariff deal (because I want to sell into it).

For the bull case, we still have:

  • Very loose fiscal policies
  • Potential tariff deals
  • De-regulation
  • Tax cuts
  • Potential for rate cuts
15

Would be tough to sell at top as always because narrative would be very positive :slight_smile:

16

May is a particularly bad month to sell. Others are June, January


You will miss Days Like This:

And later don’t say that nobody told you


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17

My main conclusion is that, as always, markets behave in pretty unfathomable ways that make medium term predictions as difficult as prediciting the next move of a drunken monkey.

Longer term, I still think there are real effects that many market participants haven’t yet priced in . They’ll call it recessions or bad earnings when they come but they’ve been set on their way by the way Trump handled tariffs. As always, this might be utterly false, the market likes to humble me on a regular basis.

Tariffs on Canada and Mexico are still on, by the way and they’re, with China, the biggest trade partners of the US of A. Canadians are particularly pissed.

Edit: I’ve reacted too quickly. VT is different from a fund of purely US companies. VT could stay up as investments move around and I wouldn’t be surprised.

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18

I think the market called Trump’s tariff bluff and will call it again if when necessary.*

PS: Also, fun exercise (I just did): I recommend everyone scrolls back to April 2nd or so in the “Chronicles of 2025” topic to appreciate sentiment at the time and compare it to today’s.
It’s just been one month.

* Famous last words ... ;-)
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19

I currently stick with my 14 May hypothesis. We have another 1.5 weeks of up, until the downs come back. Lets see how it goes


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20

What is that hypothesis based on? When empty shelves are supposed to show up around the US?