You're very kind and I'm most appreciative.
As for your being old? You're not old, you're nuts! Fifty is young, perhaps younger than you realize.
I look at those younger than I and usually assume, perhaps foolishly, that they will survive me by however many years divide us. This probably works to a point although I take great steps to preserve my wonderful health. Today I focused on abdominal and back exercise for ninety minutes and hit the stationary bike hard for nearly an hour. This is a daily routine for me, along with tending to young papaya trees, taking care of two goats and a miniature donkey and doing all the cooking and kitchen chores for the wife and myself.
I put a heck of a lot of stock in preserving one's health. Once we've spent our options, it's gone. But by living a clean and smart lifestyle we can preserve our options surprisingly well.
And this is exactly how I view the opportunity to create and preserve personal wealth. Every day the market is in session, I work hard researching the stocks ion which I've invested, always looking for weaknesses and, of course, I'm open to strengths.
Today, I couldn't miss ALDW's dropping only to redeem itself in the closing few minutes and actually closing a penny ahead. I believe what we saw today was orchestrated deliberately in the hopes of shaking less secure investors out of their trees. The convincer is that trading volume was exactly one half of the previous ten-day average. This tells us there was no heart in the trading. There certainly wasn't any news, so this had to be a scare tactic at work.
A word about this young new year:
I'm ahead since the start of the year to the tune of 6.5%. No, I don't put any credence in the number for I know better than to trust things. It's too soon. Perhaps in March things will have settled down a bit and then we may be able to draw meaningful conclusions following the installation of the new Administration. There's much in the news these days and we are all glued to the global stage as well as our own domestic one.
My own personal take is such that I rely upon myself for stability. My health, my wealth, my prospects for happiness---it always comes to roost on the individual's shoulders. My wife admitted this morning she doesn't know what she would do if I died. Well, I do! She'd carry on for she's got the backbone to recognize the importance of standing tall and being strong even when it hurts to do so. When we suffer market swoons, it's the same thing.
Trusts are good in that they bring you to focus on things from afar---helping us latch onto the bigger picture. With a trust there's no guesswork as to who gets what. In our case, we know we have an opportunity TODAY to increase our gifts to those destined to be on the receiving end of our best wishes. If you haven't looked into establishing a trust, I'd encourage anybody to do so. It adds value to one's self unlike most other things can.
Meanwhile, every day is as celebration unlike any other for it is the only time we get to live this particular day. Let's do it!
