The Dividend Cafe

The weekly jobless claims came in at 1.87 million, and continuing claims totaled 21.5 million. We will get the official unemployment number for the month of May from the Bureau of Labor Statistics tomorrow morning. The numbers today were about as bad as expected if not a bit worse, whereas yesterday’s number was exponentially better than expected. More on all of that in tomorrow’s Dividend Cafe!

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The market exploded 527 points higher today, now well past 26,000 on the Dow, and in the high range of our general short term target. REIT’s, financials, and energy names led the way today. And while the question of, “how can markets be going higher when ___” are completely understandable and reasonable, the answer(s) remain no different regardless of how you fill in that blank. First, markets need no reason to do what they do in either direction, ever. Second, they are forward-looking and have incredible knack for shaking off what they know will be out of the news in days if not hours. Third, the Fed. Fourth, the economic re-opening is going very well. And finally, fifth, the Fed.

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Early on in the COVID affair my general feeling was that the most ignored yet needed data point was the recovery rate, as first three people I knew tested positive and quickly recovered, then eight, then twenty, then ~thirty, etc. The key timing issue was that a significant portion of the people I knew early on that tested positive were already recovered by the time they got their test results, as back then getting the test, and getting the results, had a nearly ten day lag from the time one initially had symptoms bad enough to warrant getting tested. Here we are nearly three months later and I am sure we have less of a percentage who already recovered by the time they get test results (because of improved testing), but I still strongly suspect “recoveries” are rampant (we intuitively know this, and empirically know it), yet the data has either no way to capture it, or a big lag in capturing it.

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This is the Replay of the National Video Call hosted by David L. Bahnsen- Markets are continuing to shock investors and a wide array of interpretations of health data and economic data are circulating. We will delve into all of this and more.

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I am constantly challenging myself to get my applications of “first things” right in the investment world, but my principles themselves are not constantly changing. I say that with pride. The challenge that exists for the investment professional who has done the work of developing operative principles is to constantly evaluate their application of said principles, to alter, change, adjust, or modify as needed. And here is the other piece to that: To thoughtfully consider what it would mean to their client’s capital if they were wrong. Investing client funds as if one can not be wrong in investment application/execution/implementation is the height of arrogance. The humility to constantly check one’s work and one’s strategic thinking is a money-saving character trait. Sometimes it gets forced upon you in my business.

So this week’s Dividend Cafe focuses on many first principles in investing, and many beliefs we have about executing on our principles. But it also hopefully reflects the humility that is needed in risk management.

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