I know that is a shot at me, but that is ok. It takes time for investment to dry up it isn't overnight.
Also, I could be wrong and in a year you can gloat and i can eat crow then.
I think my outlook is more negative based on the industry i am in. I work in middle management and my manager has gone from 11 reports to 5 in last 2 months. Every week i have a different coworker let go.
In addition 4 developers/ 1 analyst. My budget runs out on some of them starting end of Q2. I will be down to 2 developers by end of year.
This is why i wanted large cash, i fear I could be laid off at any time.
First of all, sorry to hear about your personal situation. Smart move moving to cash to mitigate against future bad news. If you can expand on your situation (and care to), I would be interesed in the nuts and bolts why things are drying up in your industry.
That wasn't a shot at you personally.
I've been reading/watching a lot of media talking about how recent events are going to crash the AI boom. Personally I don't think the toothpaste goes back into the tube, but I could also be wrong and end up having to work another decade as a consequence.
That couldn't be farther from the truth.
There is always going to be winners and losers in a watershed type of "industrial revolution" for lack of a better term. A rising tide raises all ships....until the tide rolls in and lowers again and the strongest ships keep sailing instead of getting beached.
I was in a due diligence conference in Baltimore last October for T.Rowe Price and had the opportunity to be with some of the best money managers and minds in the industry. T.Rowe is a traditionally conservative money manager who does a lot of bottom up due diligence on everything they touch for their shareholders (which is exactly what I do in my own portfolio construction and model construction). The amount of optimism and strong conviction on the next decade of AI was overwhelming. I was able to have several dinners and pick the brains of these stock pickers and money managers and I gathered a ton of intel of where I want my clients to be (Private Credit was a huge addition this year for myself and my high net worth clients as well. Private markets are growing rapidly and they are the future more so than publicly traded companies).
I went overweight on Utilities a couple of years back when the sector hit a 5 year low (knowing what is going to power all these data centers?!), I am now overweight again after this "Tarrif Tantrum" shock wave in the big six (AAPL, AMZN, META, GOOGL, NVDA, MSFT) as these are going to continue to be the big winners long term in the AI revolution. I also picked up smaller infrastructure players and VRT is one of those prized holdings for me as well as PANW, CRM, TTD, VST (Vistra Corp one I have not mentioned here and they are gonna be a big player) CEG etc etc.
One fund manager whom I respect immensely at T Rowe stated in front of 100's of advisers at this due diligence meeting that "AI is the biggest life changing invention since electricity". For this gentlemen to say that with such high conviction got my attention.
Regardless of my personal feelings about the pitfalls we will undoubtedly face with AI replacing humans in many aspects of life.....the fact of the matter is, it is a train that will not be stopped over the next 10-15 years; so my job is to make sure we profit from this generational technology shift.
It's happening, it's gonna change the world (already is) and there will be a lot of money to be made
investing in it the "right way".
Will it have periods of correction? Well yeah...look at what just happened 3 weeks ago. That is the buy signal. And we did exactly that. Add when people are running for the exits. Trim when your hairdresser is giving you stock advice.
Sounds simple right? Yet a lot of people keep falling into the same emotional trap.
And look at this market yesterday and today...moving on headlines and a supposed (and likely) incoming pivot to policy.
Again this is going to correct itself here over the next 60 days.....maybe sooner. The media can blur and scream narratives that will make people do terrible things with their money.
Stick to your guns......stay diligent, don't fall into the trap. Keep plowing away on your well diversified portfolio......and everything is going to be ok. Keep your emotions and personal biases out of your money life.
For self directed investors that is really difficult. That has been proven for over 100 years and still going.
So much noise and panic these last 3 weeks........I mean it has been unreal. And that's all this has been. Bad messaging, media pile on, narratives being pushed.......yet the market will always figure this out before the street. All "what if" scenarios pulling the market left and right, up and down. Not fundamentals, not anything like that. Pure noise. Literally you would think the downward move we had was a signal of the great depression coming. Yeah no. I never thought that for a nano second.
Time in the market not "timing" the market.
Words to live by.
I am not raising a victory flag just yet......because I still believe we will whipsaw here for another month or 2. But I am highly confident this will all be worked out sooner rather than later. Then we can move on to normal market conditions based on fundamentals, earnings, inflation data, jobs, housing, interest rates, earnings guidance....you know.....fundamentals. Not giant what if's based on tweets, media blogs and editorial news.
Off my soap box.