My "retirement" has been anything but quiet. We moved to a new home in a new state, in a somewhat rural area, which was physically taxing and required us to figure out where to get so many of the simple things we take for granted (haircuts, doctors, dentists, auto parts stores, CostCo, prescriptions, licenses and registration, etc) ... our home is also much smaller so we're growing accustomed to that as well, but holy cow do we have a gorgeous view. We also spent several weeks abroad, sailing and just enjoying life.
All of this has been a nice distraction from the otherwise chaotic market conditions due to both macro issues and seasonally poor market performance that tends to occur through the end of June.
That said, punditry about how the worst is probably behind us continues -- e.g., some saying there is a historical precedent for a better half of the year for the S&P 500 after such a bad start, pointing to slightly lower gas prices, the 10-year dipping below 3% and the fact that everyone is gloomy and expecting a recession. And, while I think these are significant points, it feels a little tenuous and early to be declaring an end to the bear market and we have not yet seen the impact of all of this on earnings.
That said, I am seeing price reductions in real estate and more inventory than we'd seen in a while. This, by the way, is something annoying to me since we sold our home at the top and clearly overpaid for our new home, but I have to remind myself it's all a wash ... still, I could have rented and been fine, but the options were not great and my wife would not have liked it.
Anyway, the point is that housing is less crazy and that's a good thing. We're also seeing some of the speculative bubbles continue to burst (BitCoin is less than $20K) and margin debt come down (though it's still quite high).
All in all, I think we're not out of the woods just yet. |