Stock market jitters

The stock market seems to be doing it's usual thing. It dropped yesterday because I bought 1000 shares of Ford. Whenever I buy something it causes prices to fall the next day.

Please post your buying plans at least two days in advance. Perhaps selling as well.

The result of the Trump crisis will be international jitters, which means a falling stock market. The stock market loves stability, hates uncertainty and uproar. With Trump and the various scandals, there will be much uproar.

That's the reason why I only buy index funds for the long term. I used to play the market when I was young, but determined early on that even the investment advisors at Prudential didn't have a good record. We've since then put our money with Vanguard, and it's more than doubled in value. I don't worry about the daily ups and downs, but try to keep up with the US economic news. Our economy is still one of the strongest in the world, and probably will stay that way for a very long time. Even if China's GDP surpasses ours, the majority of Chinese are poor and we're talking about a county with one-fifth of the world's population.

Yes cicerone, it is good to have professionals handling your investments. I keep a minimum for my stock investments. Most of my money is in real estate holdings right now. But as I mentioned, it is funny that the stocks I pick drops in price right after I buy them, kind of like a jinx. Stocks do go back up after people forget the bad news, and I get to make some profit, but it may take months.

Property is a good investment, but as you probably know, it's about location, location, location. I had income property, but sold when I retired, because I didn't want to "manage" anything in my retirement, even though we have had good luck with tenants.
We had a share on a 3 bedroom condo at Incline Village at Lake Tahoe, but sold it when our kids no longer wanted to go. Didn't gain or lose, but had the opportunity to go to Lake Tahoe year round. I was totally satisfied in how it all turned out.
What was nice about that condo was we could use it any time even when other partners showed up because of the 3 bedrooms. That didn't happen too often.

We can now go to Oahu, Hawaii, at any time, because my nephew owns a two bedroom condo in Waikiki. He's now spending two years in Bhutan to train doctors, so we can go at any time. We were just there, and shared our time with my sister and her husband. They were there for much longer; about 22 days. We stayed for ten days.

Cicerone, glad to hear of your good fortunes and retired life. I am not a traveler. Home is my favorite place to be. Rentals can be a problem, luckily my tenants are all relatives. My brother is thinking of moving to a South East Asian country next year. He has bought three houses there for his wife and her family who are citizens there. I am hoping everything will go well for him. If not, he can always return home.

I'm a traveler because when I was in the USAF in the late fifties, I was stationed in Morocco for one year, and was able to travel to Madrid, Paris and London. The travel bug bit my behind, so it was sort of beyond my control. Have visited 80 countries, and have friends in many countries including Russia and Cuba. I'm fortunate because my wife hates foreign travel, but I have a Canadian travel buddy I met on one of my trips, and we have traveled all over the world. We're planning a trip to Cuba for Oct or Nov.