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Spring is in the Air

Ross Silver • Feb 23, 2017
Spring is in the air, the geese are pairing and I see ducks flying North almost daily. Living in the country gives me a different perspective than those of you that are city dwellers, those that live in the concrete jungle. My country life perspective is key and the reason I attribute to much of my financial success, not that city dwellers cannot succeed financially. What I find when I visit the large cities is that everyone is focused on and thinking about the same things. Given I live out in the country, I am usually the only one in the financial services industry and as such when I ask others their opinion on whether the stock market is headed higher or lower, I am met with blank stares. One lady I asked about the stock market was kind enough to tell me how to get to Safeway when I asked her about the stock market, lol.

This past weekend we had our annual Winter Festival here in Bend, OR which attracts all sorts of people from the Northwest to my nape of the neck (Caddyshack joke) and what I found was thriving businesses, no parking and tons of entitlement. It is amazing how well the economy is cranking right now and it sure doesn't look like we are going to slow anytime soon. Interest rates remain low, the President is preaching populism and to get your shovels ready and most importantly WalMart, a major bell-weather for me on consumer health, just reported an excellent quarter. The good times are here and sure seem to want to keep staying around which has me scared to death. In times of complete and total disfunction and near societal collapse, I thrive. When things are great and caution is thrown out the window, credit card borrowing is at an all time high & the average American owes $4717 in credit card debt, I get very scared because the only place to go is down. For those of you who know me well, know my nose tends to be very good but also VERY early. So equity shoppers, literally throw a dart at a board of stocks and you will likely succeed because the tide is rising and when it does all boats rise. With that said, at some point the tide will recede and my guess is the tide recedes when another act of terror occurs and it sure seems out POTUS is instigating our invisible enemies, which I hate.

Happy stock picking!

Random Musings

  • Is it me or are colds and flus getting exponentially nastier? I was nailed with the sinus flu going around and I was in torture ville for nearly two weeks trying to kick that thing. What a nasty bug, good grief. How is it that we can build 80 story buildings and yet no cure the common cold? I don't get it.
  • Airports are at total and complete capacity. Last week I sent a text about buying airline stock considering every flight I take is full. Last week I was traveling to Redmond, Oregon and the 7:15pm flight was sold out on Wednesday. Are you kidding me, what 120 people need to be in Redmond, Oregon at 7:45pm on Wednesday of last week?
  • The NBA is becoming unwatchable given the talent gap is so large. When parity exists, sports are fun to watch but when three teams basically dominate a league of 28 or however many teams there are in the NBA, the game suffers. I was in Vegas recently and decided to take a financial interest in the San Antonio Spurs when they played the Brooklyn Nets. I think San Antonio scored on every possession (which was awesome), I kid you not. The Spurs won something like 140-105 and Brooklyn looked like a bunch of hacks, which is why they have the worst record in the NBA. How is it that the basic fundamentals of the sport of basketball are not applied by professionals? There are some NBA heavyweights who read this, and gents let me tell you, your product is terrible and needs to be fixed. Watching a team run a high school level offense with ease against a team of professionals is no bueno.
  • Last but not least, the Kentucky Derby is two and a half months away and this years Derby looks up for grabs compared to recent years. I seriously have no strong lean on any of the horses and feel like a big price could win the race this year.
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