Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of May 22, 2024

Article Excerpt

Here’s the text of the most-recent letter I sent to our Portfolio Management clients in March: “Guesswork plays a role in a lot of human decision-making, including decisions on investments. For a while after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel last year, the stock market reaction didn’t seem to make sense. When the market opened, the Dow Jones Industrial average crept up for the next seven days. That’s an odd way for it to respond to an outrage like the Hamas attack. This rise went on till October 17. The market then turned and fell more or less steadily until Friday, October 27. Over the next several days, stock prices fell below where they had been for several days before the attack. You might say this drop made more sense than the post-attack rise. After getting over the initial shock, some people may have decided that the attack raised the risk of war. This may have led them to sell some stocks and…