Apr 8, 2018

Cory Diary : Is this a Start of Trade War ?

Just came back from hiking in Jia Yi farmland recently. 24c and windy weather. Excellence walk on some unplanned and very secluded locations. Used pedometer and the max day count is 20268 which could be more than 12 km. Quite an adventure I would say especially walking pass 3 unchained street dogs and a traditional cemetery hill plus a 1 km detour. I do not find it appropriate to take a snap ... kind of regretted.






This is probably the kind of life i love to have when retired. Travelling around the country and going to unknown places. Of course safely. Free from the dynamics of the market especially recent trade disputes while my money works for me. A trial run i guess.

We are in early rattle of possible trade war between China and America. And if this further deepen we could see significant impacts to trade between the two countries. Some economists think Russia, Australia and others may benefits. I think there maybe short spike of demand but we could see a global reduction in demand after due to more expensive cost inputs to production reducing affordability. Therefore recession could be on the card to many countries since America is a key driver to world consumption. China is no small market either even though the goods are of lower pricing relatively.

I do not see how Trump and aides would come down from this stance. There is some fair logic in his argument and he tries to do what he says he would. People who are against him will be fired. So the only main recourse I think would be to watch China closely till the next presidential election. Whether PRC would want a peaceful development for next 20 years or a major detour they have to do their calculation as manufacturing base will re-locate away from China to other Asian locations as time goes by. Once they start moving it will be hard for them to come back.

What i did is to build up my war chest for now. Potential max dividend from SG equity reduced to less than 38K. So if I am wrong, I won't be too bad. With SSB, further Treasury and FD, this would help mitigate. I also took profit from some of my US holding. I guess this level of cash is good for stable property installments ... and time for more local hikings in Taiwan.



Cory
20180408


4 comments:

  1. Hi Cory,

    Same here, did some selling to raise cash levels and also made some portfolio changes to the current situation. Since you have sold your US holdings, mind sharing which were they? haha

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  2. When you sell, market keeps going up, and when you commit your fund to buy stocks (so as to reduce your idle cash) the market goes down. Market is so unpredictable.

    What you said at the beginning of the year is completely different from what you said now. Our emotions and thinking (fomo and fear) flip-flop like the market.

    Following blogger is also no longer a good approach, as they also flip the stock frequently and unexpectedly from what they said. Stop talking on losing stocks and talking only on winning stocks is the norm now.

    People like me are finding it hard. Are you the herd or the contrarians? I am definitely the herd.

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  3. I think natural order of thing is we can't get it perfectly right since we aren't god. Therefore in rising market when we sell, chances are it will keep rising. And when buy in a downing market, naturally there is high probability it will go lower. Make sense ?

    Is true we need to U-turn quickly. I called this being nimble and it can be a retailer advantage. And do be careful when one put in trade is for speculation or long term. Is there a goal ad surely subject to emotion. Do also note the investment size. A trade could be just 1% of a person portfolio. So the core holding may not have change much.

    The last I do is to follow a blogger blindly. We need to do our own diligence,
    What blogger provide could be the sparks. The sharing. The Discussion. Like all DIY we must do our own work.

    I am not sure i could purely be on one 100% on herd or contrarians. Hope this helps.





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