Friends

What a mess of a day to end a mess of a week. Market participants were not pleased with the plethora of earnings received from tech giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Intel, and others. At our lunch recently we talked about the bear market that many of the high-flying chip and AI stocks have been in and this week we seem to have seen a culmination of recent weakness. For me, what a lot of this comes down to is that these giant companies are investing for the future, spending a lot of money, and that is a risky but likely necessary thing to do. Remember, all of this spending is to reap profits in the future. Typically, that is what you want a growth company to do. The Dot.Com bubble saw ridiculously valued companies, many with no earnings at all, flame out and crash. The companies that are leading the way this time around are making tons of money and trading at very reasonable, some might say cheap valuations. We talked about how in this bull market participants are curbing their enthusiasm. If you believe that we are early in what is the most impressive and significant economic development since the railroad, then weeks like this might be providing you an opportunity.

As for the market averages, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 572 points to finish the day at 51,770. The S&P 500 was down 140 points to close at 7,580. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 747 points to close at 25,436. Gold was down $145 to trade at $3885 per ounce, while oil was up $1.02 to trade at $103.02

Protecting your financial accounts and personal information was a popular topic at the luncheon I referenced above (by the way if you haven’t attended our lunches, you really should). With that in mind, we put together a new blog post in the link below, with practical steps you can take to help you protect yourself and your family. We hope you find this information helpful.

Have a great weekend everyone. Happy Halloween!

Jim 

9 Simple Ways to Protect Your Financial Accounts and Personal Information