Stefan’s weekly: Investing in an unstable environment

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

With all the ups and downs in the markets and all the political and economic uncertainties we are currently experiencing, I think it is fair to say that we are living in a much less investor friendly environment than 18 months ago. “Wait a minute” you may think, this is more or less the time of Mr. Trump’s presidency. Yes, it is, and I don’t want to judge Mr. Trump, take conclusions or even blame him, but fact is, the world as I see it has become somewhat increasingly restless, no matter why and without looking for any correlation. Such „restlessness“ as I want to call it, usually is not good for equity markets. Market participants, as you all know, don’t like uncertainties. I wrote about this many times.

You know, analysts and/or researchers but also the media tend to impose their own views and ideas (or the views and ideas they may sell best) on their audience. What does this mean, it means that what happens ever so often is that analysts and/or researchers or the media will go back to trick their audience with two very old and rather blunt possibilities of attacking our inner feelings, our sentiments by manipulating our senses of greed and fear,

Either they are trying to tell us how unbelievably fantastic an economic scenario, a product or an investment idea is to make us greedy and wanting to buy into their idea or they will tell us how bad the world has become and how much protection or insurance their economic concept or investment idea offers … again to make us want to buy their concept, product or investment idea.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to sharpen your senses.

When reading a text, when listening to the news, when talking to your investment advisor, banker, an analyst or a researcher, etc. rather than just accepting the views of the one talking to you (essentially about his/her realities), keep in mind that there is almost for every situation in life a possibility of negotiating your (very own) reality. Which means that you may have a view that is close or not so close to the view of the person trying to convince you. Realities may depend on many factors like education, socio-demographic or socio-economic backgrounds, religious beliefs, etc. They generally consist of impregnated factual claims trying to modulate our “consumer” behaviour. If you therefore take a somewhat agnostic stance to all of this talk it probably can not hurt.

Now, what does this have to do with investing in an unstable environmentyou may ask. Well, first of all I don’t know anyone who has a crystal ball and may foresee the future and second of all I am very careful when listening to people preaching the same mantras over and over again and I would strongly advise you to do the same and rather stick to an investment style that seem good for you, suits your purpose and matches your risk profile.

Please think about it.

…and please don’t forget, if you want to share your thoughts and ideas with me. Please feel encouraged to do so and please send your messages to:

smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish you a great day and weekend!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth