Gastro Gnome - Eat Better Wherever

Asset management and or Private equity invesments

VOO/VTI/VGT and chill
The five year return of VGT vs VOO is not exciting me enough to move off being mostly in VOO and VTI which are less heavy into tech sector than VGT though is a lot of tech valuation in VOO and VTI these days.

I am smitten for a couple of decades with the large bucket, diversified ETFs very low cost annual fees so I give you an A+ compared to the individual stock pickers that as a whole net less gain and the losers never strut around just as losers returning from Vegas never strut around so you only hear about the few big winners and the liars wanting attention. Your blood pressure is likely lower, too, and have more free time for things you enjoy while your investments are chugging along past the bulk of the rabbits swinging wildly for the chance for a big score vs. the overall market return.

I was not timing the market earlier this year but instead needed a pile of cash for a second home purchase which fell out of closing after the inspection process and about that time Trump started the tariff rooster strut through the barnyard.

Unless Trump capitulates on his tariff ambition and does several mea culpa mea culpas soon, I will wait to go back in the market after the summer ends. He seriously misplayed the hand he was dealt by Biden and the poker table is schooling him with China building its chip stack. I may put some of the idle funds into VXUS if the U.S. dollar continues to ebb vs the Euro. Mostly will go into VTI and perhaps a bond ladder now that am retired.

So, I have let the funds sit in the money market since first week of February. A similar thing happened when pulled out funds to cover 8 years of college costs for the twins in early 1999. Stocks went on sale not long after had the pile of cash sitting there. Had a big bonus come through the week before 9/11 and went all in with that bonus when the markets stopped the freefall after reopened. I do not think I am causing market pullbacks but am now nervous when a bag of money falls from the sky.

Go forth and prosper!
 
Seeing this pop back up reminded me of the continuous harassment I get from PE firms trying to leverage themselves into the public accounting industry. (i.e. buy an ownership stake in our accounting firm).

It doesn't make sense for well managed firms, so the ones selling are generally the ones that have issues, primarily poor succession planning. They are doing the same with engineering firms, architects and other professional services. They (PE firms) don't do anything but buy poorly performing companies and then put lipstick on them and try to resell them. Evidently if you are ruthless enough it works out well.

I think the end result is going to be bad for the accounting profession as these PE firms put pressure for rapid growth at the expense of quality work. I think that it's going to be a tough market for PE to break into but we will see.
 
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