Hi Ray, Thanks for the pointer to the Fear and Greed Index. Didn't know about it.
For what it's worth, of the various publications I read, there seems to be a sentiment that we are nearing the end of this market and that there will be another pullback. Weiss Investments is probably the strongest in this opinion and cites a number of reasons: large retailers having a a pullback in sales, businesses not spending as much, job market seeming to be running out of steam, interest rates flattening between 2 year and ten year treasuries, profits dropping for S&P 500 companies (6.7%) in first quarter, and large billionaires seem to be taking short positions with IEP finished first quarter with "net short" of 149% when they were net long of about 4% last year, Soros cutting his exposure to US stocks by 37%, etc. Another thing he points to is that the overall corporate default rate is at the highest rate since 2009.
There is another tidbit I noticed that buyback announcements have decreased 38% according to Bloomberg in the first 4 months of this year compared to last.
Offsetting this is that the VIX is only about 13, far below the usual fear and loathing usual level of 25+.
My Patience has been tested a lot on the international front in recent years. This one is finally within pennies of a selling target after two + long years. At least it pays around 2% while I've been waiting...... Exclusive of dividends and interest it's back to break-even and will trigger a 5% sell of the position at $30.91 and a LIFO gain of about 20% on the latest purchase in February.
The number of shares increased 26% since starting this position. Additional shares purchased by AIM were at an average discount of 16.3% from the starting position. Cash is currently about 11% of total value. Cash started at about 27% of total value.
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