As the turn of the calendar occurred in the quarter century mark of the 2000s, the start of the year and
the quarter looked much like any other.
However, as the quarter progressed, capital markets seemed to lose their stamina and became more
tepid for almost no reason. Looking deeper into the data points, as mentioned multiple times at our
blog http://www.street-cents.com, economic data and consumer sentiment began to sour. With things
moving faster today in every form and fashion, including the capital markets (increased even more by
computer trading), as the weaker data points continued to come in trepidation increased throughout
the capital markets.
As of the final day of the quarter, investors began to question the strength of the economy and capital
markets. We continued to mention in our blog posts, the multiple data points that were starting to
soften but remained inconclusive.
As the quarter wrapped up the fireworks began with talks of a long spoken about but often unused
word, “tariffs. At the time of this writing, just a few days into the second quarter, the fireworks have
continued as market participants react somewhat knee-jerkingly to the multitude of inconclusive
headlines related to the subject matter.
Inconclusive, being the carefully chosen word, as market participants seemingly are trying to assess the
situation, but with so many parties and living in unknown territory, the usual overreactions, and
nonreactions to events seems to be the norm.
While we have no idea on the outcome, we are once again happy to be conservative investors with a
long-term horizon and experience in traversing waters like this before. Even with our experience, every
situation is unique, and we currently find ourselves relatively uncertainty about the outcome, however
we are very comfortable in our investment postures.
Have a good start to the second quarter, Spring, and what looks to be a most interesting continuation
to the year.
Sincerely,
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
