Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of February 19, 2020

Article Excerpt

Most experienced investors understand the idea that “A rising stock market climbs a wall of worry”, because they’ve seen it happen many times. Worrisome news items and developments come along in an irregular pattern. Many are serious enough to raise worries about how they will impact the stock market. Few if any can scuttle a long-term rising trend. Most of the time, in fact, long-term rising trends come to an end due to long-simmering problems, such as deep-seated imbalances in the financial system. Sometimes the most serious problems have their biggest impact after they’ve faded into the news background and investors have quit thinking about them. However, a health scare like the coronavirus seems different, due to extreme historical events. Here are two key examples. The “Black Death” was a global bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. It first appeared in Europe in October 1347, when a dozen ships from the Black Sea docked at Messina, Sicily. Most…