Finance, Investing, and Speculation Thread

[WaeV 5,014]

I've started learning a lot about investing this year, and thought it would be a good idea to start a thread for it, much like Weps' World Conflict Thread.

 

It all started back in February, when the seven-year bull market looked as though it was coming to an end:

 

 

Of course it actually didn't, and February would have been a great time to enter the market

 

 

But regardless of all that, it kicked off my interest in the stock market, and I've had a lot of fun learning about it.

 

They say that the best way to learn about something is to teach it, so by yakking at you guys I'm primarily helping myself understand things better. If it helps you too, well that's a bonus!

 

I'll leave at that for now -- first post in progress, I'll post it soon. Cheers!

[WaeV 5,014]

Alright, before we even get into what stocks / bonds / funds to buy, the first order of business is what vehicles to allocate your money towards. (No, I don't mean the vroom-vroom kind.)

 

After food and shelter, the very first order of business is making sure you have an emergency cash pillow. It is *shocking* how many people are unprepared for fiscal surprises. Just the other day on Facebook, I saw someone from my high school wailing - they had made a huge lump sum payment towards their school loans just DAYS before losing their job. Now they are in a dire situation with no cash and no income. I would say that a three-month cash pillow ought to be a minimum. You may feel safer with a six-month pillow. A full year might be excessive. Transfer this money into your savings account so you're not tempted to spend it.

 

Second, ensure you're making all your bills and debt payments. Target the ones with highest interest rates first, and pay the minimums on everything else. Before I learned how to do this, I was paying off my 6.8% school loans just as quickly as my 3% school loans -- whoops!

Here's my ranking of various interest rates, completely seat-of-the-pants and calibrated for today, 2016. Your mileage may vary.

• 25%+ interest = PANTS ON FIRE EMERGENCY! PAY THIS OFF AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! You should not have ended up with a loan this expensive unless you were irresponsible with credit cards.
• 10% interest = Still pretty awful. Pay this off aggressively fast.
• 7% interest = Pretty normal for unsubsidized student loans. Not the worst in the world but not great.
• 5% interest = I would rather pay this off than invest in stocks, but it's not an emergency.
• 3% interest = In the range of subsidized student loans, or a home mortgage if you have acceptable credit. This is a reasonable deal, and I wouldn't hurry to pay it off. Better to have the spare cash lying around in case you need it.
• 1% interest = Holy shit, where did you get such a cheap loan? Pay the minimums and ride this sucker out.

Third, take advantage of your employer's 401k matching plan, if applicable. It's literally free money. Let's run through a few examples. (USA only, sorry. I'm not sure how it works in other countries.)

1. Acme Widgets Incorporated offers a 100% match for the first $3,000 you contribute to your 401k. You should maximize this benefit by contributing $3k or more, and you get the full bonus $3k.
2. XYZ Sprockets Limited offers a 33⅓% match with no limit. However the IRS limits 401k contributions to $18k/year. If you contribute the full $18k, XYZ will add an additional $6k. Yes, employer matching does not count towards the $18k limit! Now, not everyone can afford to save $18k/yr, but 33% is worth penny-pinching for. That is a *ridiculous* benefit. Even if your 401k is just a pile of cash and earns no interest, the 33% return is still worth it.
3. I don't feel like working through a more complex example, but Investopedia is a great resource and they can help you figure out how to take advantage of 401k matching: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/112315/how-401k-matching-works.asp

----

 

If you've made it this far and have followed the above advice, you are already way ahead of most people as far as financial literacy goes. You are prepared for a financial emergency, are paying down your worst debt, and are taking advantage of free money offered by your employer. But let's keep going!

 

There's a small variety of different tax-advantaged vehicles, but you can basically sort them into two categories: pre-tax and post-tax.

• Pre-tax includes: Traditional 401k and Traditional IRA.
• Post-tax includes: Roth 401k (sorta) and Roth IRA.
• "Health Savings Account" or HSA is actually both pre-tax and post-tax, but can only be spent on healthcare.

Whether you put your money into a pre-tax or post-tax fund depends on your present and future tax situation. You have to pay the tax at some point, but the game is to pay tax whenever it will be lowest.

 

If you're making a lot of money now, paying a 30% tax rate, it's better to stash your cash in a pre-tax account such as a 401k. When you start withdrawing (slowly) in retirement, your income should be much lower and you may only pay 15-20% tax. And it grew tax-free in the meantime!

 

If your tax bracket is currently rather low, you'll get more benefit from using a post-tax vehicle. With these funds, you pay the tax up-front and never again! Not only does your money grow tax-free, but you can withdraw it tax-free as well. Genius! Roth IRAs are typically better than Roth 401ks. Contribute up to the $5,500/yr limit and watch your money grow.

 

If you have access to a Health Savings Account, I recommend making use of it. Although it's limited to being spent on healthcare, everyone spends money on healthcare at some point. Especially in old age. You can read more about HSAs here: http://www.madfientist.com/ultimate-retirement-account I don't know a whole lot about these and need to do more research.

 

----

 

BONUS: How to get extra money into your Roth IRA

 

The maximum amount that the IRS lets you contribute to an IRAs (either Traditional or Roth) is currently $5,500/yr. But the Roth IRA is a reaaaaally nice vehicle, if you can get your money into it. Somewhat notoriously, Mitt Romney managed to get millions into his Roth IRA by buying a pre-IPO company for cheap. Sorta like sliding a balloon under the door, then inflating it.

 

It turns out that you can actually add additional tens of thousands to your Roth IRA through the "mega backdoor" method. You start by making large after-tax contributions to your 401k. The very next day, do an "in-service withdrawal" and move the lump sum directly into your Roth IRA, at which point it can grow fully untaxed. Read more about the mega backdoor here http://www.madfientist.com/after-tax-contributions/

 

Okay, that's enough about investment vehicles for now. Next issue will start talking about economics, money, and credit cycles.

[Aurodox 424]

All good stuff. I'd only say that if you're paying any percentage of interest, if you can afford to pay it off/maker larger than minimum payments, do so. 

 

The only time I would recommend against this is if you took out a loan strictly to build your credit. The average time of credit accounts being open is actually a rather larger factor into your credit. So if that is your first and foremost goal, and your interest rate is low, it may we'll be worth your while to keep paying those minimum payments to drive your average credit time up, raising your score allowing you to pay less on a larger loan down the road.

[WaeV 5,014]

Thanks, Andy.

 

Part 2 is about money and credit.

 

At first I thought the value of a dollar would be easy to calculate. The formula would be something like, "total all the wealth in the USA, divide by the number of dollars, and you have the value of one dollar". But this is overly-simplistic and definitely wrong.

 

I don't know if it's the case that anyone really understands how money and credit works. There are a number of different operating schools of thought, and there are theories we know are definitely NOT true, such as my simplistic theory above. The operating theory I find most useful - the most explanatory bang for the conceptual buck - is Ray Dalio's explanation of money and credit. Check out this video. It's 30 minutes and well-animated. Pretty easy to follow.

 

(Ray Dalio is a famous bond investor. Definitely top 5 in the world. Knows his stuff.)

 

In contrast, this is a video that had a big sway on me several years ago. It postulates that all debt is bad, the gold standard is a good idea, banks are a Rothschild conspiracy, etc. It's also well-animated and emotionally charged, but I don't think it's correct. Included for completeness but I don't exactly endorse it anymore.

 

 

 

"But WaeV," you might ask, "loans always cost interest. How is finance not just a money-siphoning scam?" Loans are productive as long as you create more value than the cost of interest. If you take a loan out to buy a TV, that's just stupid. If you take a loan out to buy pizza ovens for your new restaurant, and earn enough profit to pay back the interest and then some, both you and the bank have profited. The better your investment, the more profit you get to keep. It's only when you waste credit or investments go awry that you lose money. And if you default, the bank loses too.

 

Tangential thought:

 

A neat trick I learned about recently... you can take a loan out against your 401k. This might cost ~$100 in fees, plus about 3.75% interest paid against yourself. That's pretty rad! If you've been taking advantage of your employer's 401k matching, you might have a sizeable pile of assets sitting there, waiting for your retirement. If something comes up and you need to take out a loan, consider borrowing from yourself - as long as you're doing something that's at least 4% productive, this can be a decent strategy.

Speaking of 401ks, I remembered another cool trick that business owners like Weps may be able to take advantage of. The IRS limit for personal 401k contributions is $18k, but the business can contribute WAY more than that. As the owner, give yourself a hefty 401k matching plan -- a company may contribute up to 25% of an employee's salary each year, up to a maximum of $53,000 in combined contributions each year (your combined employee and employer annual contributions can’t exceed $53k). This is all *pre-tax* income! And the money is still available via a 401k loan if you really need it before retirement.

 

Back to money/credit/interest.

 

The Federal Reserve central bank has a very powerful lever - the "federal funds" rate - which is their primary way of controlling the money supply. The Fed loans money to about a dozen large banks at this bottommost rate. The large banks loan to the small banks, and the small banks loan to you and I. Currently, the federal funds rate is very low: 0.25% to 0.50%. By the time money is loaned to you, the consumer, it costs about 3.5% in interest to borrow for a 30-year mortgage (assuming you have decent credit).

 

The Fed manipulates their lever in order to control the cost of borrowing. If the lever is too low relative to where it "ought" to be, credit flows very easily. People borrow money left and right, either investing in increasingly risky ventures (which is wealth-destructive) or spending it on stuff (which is inflationary). If the lever is too high relative to where it "ought" to be, credit is tight. It's more expensive to borrow, which reduces investment, reduces spending, and overall deflates prices.

 

It's pretty cool to look at the historical federal funds rate:

 

Back in the 80s, the USA was experiencing double-digit inflation. This was wreaking all sorts of havoc. Famously, Fed chair Paul Volcker raised the federal funds rate nearly to 20%. This was extremely painful, but it brought inflation under control. Even Ron Paul, who hates the idea of central banks, said "If I had to name a Federal Reserve chairman that did a little bit of good, that would be Paul Volcker." Interestingly, Volcker was called upon to help draft post-2008 Wall Street regulation. There's even a rule named after him which restricts banks from making speculative bets with their customers' deposits.

 

Anyway, looking at the chart you can see some spikes and waves. Generally, the Fed will raise interest rates in order to head off inflation, to prevent from economy from "overheating". After the dotcom crash and the 2008 crash, you can see how interest rates plummet. This makes it easier to borrow and stimulates a sluggish economy. But look, isn't that funny? Post-2008, the rate has basically been stuck at zero.

 

Zero interest-rate policy (ZIRP) is wigging investors out. The economy seems to be functioning okay, but why hasn't the Fed been able to raise rates back to normal? Is low interest the "new normal"? Some people believe we are in a new era of low growth, a theory referred to as secular stagnation. Some people believe that the Fed is artificially propping up the markets, and that the interest rate would be much higher if not for central bank meddling.

 

The scary aspect of ZIRP is that there's not much room to drop rates in case of recession. If something bad happened to trigger a recession, the Fed is unable to lower the interest rate and stimulate the economy. Post-2008, central bankers have turned to exotic ideas such as "quantitative easing". The name sounds more complicated than it really is. Basically, they can't add money to circulation by lowering the federal funds rate, so instead they buy financial assets off the market. By buying bonds in exchange for cash, they inject cash into circulation.

 

Several rounds of QE have been going on since 2008, and it correlates surprisingly well to stock prices. What's in store now that the Fed plans on stopping QE and raising interest rates?

 

Chris Ciovacco is an investor who publishes videos every Friday, discussing the latest changes in the stock market. He is skeptical of ZIRP and QE, and there's some good discussion here:

 

Essentially, he argues that the Fed is only delaying true recovery. Much like "hair of the dog" treatment - drinking more alcohol to cure a hangover - providing more and more stimulus is only preventing the economy from truly recovering. I have a more favorable interpretation of stimulus and believe the Fed is helping keep the economy stable while we slooooowly unwind our assets and "deleverage" the excess debt we built up prior to 2008. (Watch the Ray Dalio video for more background on deleveraging.)

 

----

 

By the way, if you're looking to get started in investing, I heartily recommend the Robinhood app for iOS or Android (currently available in the US and Australia). The app is very pretty and streamlined (arguably too simplistic, but it's good for beginners), and they charge an amazing $0 per trade commission. The way Robinhood makes money is by earning interest on all their users' uninvested cash. Because they're such a small operation (maybe 40 employees? idk) and don't have to pay for brokerage offices all over, they can get away with not charging fees. One of the biggest downsides of Robinhood is that they show prices as a simple line chart. They don't show you the bid/ask spread. Sometimes a stock's buy price can be quite a tad more than the sell price, and you can end up paying a few percent more than you expected to.

 

If you've ever played poker, you know that there's a HUGE difference between playing with chips and playing with real money. Transfer a small amount of money into Robinhood and toss it back and forth between some stocks... you'll really get a feel for how prices change and what your risk tolerance is. Just be prepared to lose money. Consider it tuition for an education.

 

Be aware that trades will impact your tax return. I think short-term trades (held a stock for less than one year) are taxed as normal income - whatever your top marginal rate is. If you lose money, you can deduct it from your income. I'm crossing my fingers that TurboTax and Robinhood have some sort of integration, because I've done several dozen trades this year and paperwork sounds like a hassle. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Aurodox 424]

Tax paperwork shouldn't be a big deal. Youll get a 1099 summarizing it.

 

Gains from investments held for less than a year and one day are taxed as ordinary income. Gains from investments held longer than a year and one day are taxed as a long-term capital gain which has a max rate of 20%.

 

Losses can help with lowering the overall gain, but be sure to be aware of the wash sale rule. You can't sell something for a loss, and then buy back a similar security within 31 days. In order to take the loss, you have to sell and be done with that name for a month.

 

Of course, in classic IRS fashion, "similar securities" isn't defined and so most hold to the idea that if it is a different ticker (i.e., selling Apple and buying Microsoft), than you are perfectly fine.

 

The reason why some people fear that low rates is artificially propping up the stock market is because a widely used valuation method of stocks takes into account the risk free rate (i.e. Short term interest rates). The higher the risk free rate, the more you can return by taking NO risk, and therefore stocks are cheaper because they wouldn't adaquately compensate you for taking their risk otherwise.

 

But, with rates at near zero, you'll return almost nothing by taking no risk. And therefore, to get a good return, one must take risk. Pushing money into risky assets (read stocks), inflating their prices.

[WaeV 5,014]

Re: Taxes, I also have to consider REIT (real estate) funds. They're a special situation because they pass on >90% of their profits in order to pay no tax - the shareholders are responsible for that. But I'm sure I can figure it out.

 

First update with some real news... in the past couple hours Hillary's health has become a real concern. She fainted at a 9/11 event today. A few days ago the story was "just allergies", earlier today they said she was overheated/dehydrated, now the official story is pneumonia. The internet hivemind is diagnosing Parkinson's, but it's hard to take reddit diagnoses too seriously.

 

News anchor David Shuster made two tweets:

Quote

Clarification from dem operatives @HillaryClinton pneumonia:  Expect emergency DNC meeting to CONSIDER replacement.  #HillarysHealth

Quote

Top dem: "we can make contingencies, argue, plead with @HillaryClinton, but DNC bylaws are clear her nominee status now totally up to her."

 

So we went from "meh, she's fine" to "we may have to find a replacement" in a very short time.

 

Markets are ajitter. Japan's Nikkei index is open for Monday trading, volatility up 15%. S&P500 isn't open yet, but the futures market is in the red: http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

 

I expect tomorrow to be a red day. I don't recommend daytrading for novice investors, but I anticipate VXX (volatility ETF) and SPXS (-3x S&P500 ETF) will rise tomorrow. No idea what gold will do.

 

Fed Governor Lael Brainard is making a speech after the market closes. This is the last we'll hear from the Fed for a while - on Tuesday they enter self-imposed silence before the Sept 20-21 FOMC meeting. Mum's the word until then. I'm still betting no rate hike.

 

Update:

17 hours ago, WaeV said:

I expect tomorrow to be a red day. I don't recommend daytrading for novice investors, but I anticipate VXX (volatility ETF) and SPXS (-3x S&P500 ETF) will rise tomorrow. No idea what gold will do.

I was wrong! This is why daytrading is a bad idea, lol.

 

Brainard's speech was dovish (hinted at no hike), so the market was positive today. Speech summary:

• urges continued `prudence' in removing accommodation
• case to tighten monetary policy preemptively is 'less compelling'
• weak demand from abroad to weigh on u.s. outlook
• japan is greatly challenged, european growth slow
• the Fed is more concerned about undershooting inflation
• policy should tilt toward guarding against downside
• stabilization of oil, usd, should lift inflation
• economy has seen welcome progress on some fronts
• we've seen signs of progress on fed inflation goal
• low neutral interest rates are likely to persist

I have a thesis I've been working on about why interest rates are going to remain much, much lower than most people (including the Fed members) think.

 

The Fed members vote on what they think the future interest rate will be, then they publish a "dot plot":

 

This schedule is waaaaay too fast. They expected four rate hikes in 2016, and we haven't managed to hike even once so far. I agree with the one person who voted 0.6% into 2018.

Edited September 12, 2016 by WaeV

[Aurodox 424]

Today started as a dead cat bounce....but now it could go either way. I'm thinking we'll head lower tomorrow.

[WaeV 5,014]

My favorite part of investing is studying the macroeconomic view. Micro has its place, but it can be very math-heavy, calculating "beta", Sharpe ratios, and so on. Macro, on the other hand, is more philosophical. There are many different economic schools, each with different outlooks and explanations. A good macro theory helps to make sense of long-term trends.

 

Here's my current operating theory: Eight years after the 2008 crash, the stock market has largely recovered. Interest rates have been near-zero for a long time, and the Fed is anxious to start raising them back to "normal" levels. They've begun taking baby steps.

 

But it won't work.

 

Thesis: Interest rates will be lower for longer

 

The primary change that has affected the economy is the massive shift of wealth to the upper class. In the words of Warren Buffet, "Through the tax code, there has been class warfare waged, and my class has won. It's been a rout."

 

Chain-emails about buying beer aside, the ultra-wealthy have extremely low tax rates in the United States. The highest marginal tax rate in the US is 35% (before state tax). But this is a tax on *labor* rather than *capital*. It's a tax on the upper-middle-class, not the true upper class. Take a look at this chart:

 

 

At the extreme right, effective income tax starts going down because the upper-class makes most of their money through capital investment. They don't pay 40% income tax, they pay 15% capital gains tax. If the chart extended into $100M or $1B, you would see it drop even lower. Warren thinks this is pretty unfair, and has proposed the "Buffet rule" which imposes a minimum 30% tax on incomes above one million dollars.

 

Some wealthy oppose the Buffett rule -- "I spend less than 1% of my income on living expenses and invest the other 99% on creating new businesses and increasing the productive capacity of existing businesses." Sounds good in theory. The wealthy mostly invest and spend little. On the other end of the spectrum, the poor spend nearly all of their income and save little.

 

Okay, so what? "Fairness" aside, what are the effects of our current tax scheme?

 

Quote

In free-market capitalism, capital generates income for the owners of the capital, which in turn is used to create additional capital. This is very good. Sometimes, it can be actually too good. As capital continues to accumulate, its owners find it more and more difficult to deploy it efficiently. The business sector generally must interact with the household sector by selling goods and services or lending to them. When capital accumulates too rapidly, the productive capacity of the business sector can outpace the ability of the household sector to absorb the increasing production.

—Lance Brofman, "A Depression With Benefits: The Macro Case For mREITs"

 

Let's take a simplistic example: Company X pays a dividend of $1/share, and shares are currently listed at $10 each on the stock market. That means a 10% dividend.

 

As more and more capital accumulates, demand increases for assets like Company X stock. Over time, the stock price rises to $50/share even though the dividend has not changed. Even though the company still pays $1/share, the dividend is now merely 2%! That's the effect of too much capital. Asset prices are outpacing the increase in productive capacity, driving down yields.

 

You hear a lot of yelling about how financial assets are "overvalued" right now. Stocks are too expensive, bonds are too expensive. EVERYTHING is too expensive relative to the past. That's because we have a glut of capital and nothing to do but keep buying assets.

 

----

 

Inflation is defined as "a persistent, substantial rise in the general level of prices of goods and services". If every American was suddenly gifted $10k, that would be inflationary. The vast majority of people would go out and spend it, driving up prices.

 

But a transfer of wealth to the upper-class is *deflationary*, since they save and invest it rather than spend it. This is exactly what happened with Reaganomics and "trickle-down" theory. The 80s had double-digit inflation, so cutting taxes on the wealthy (a deflationary pressure) was a very good idea. But those policies were never reverted.

 

In 2012, France elected a Socialist president who enacted the most progressive tax system among the 20 largest industrial nations. But if France had the same tax policy in 1969, it would have been the most *regressive* among those same nations.

 

There is such a buildup of capital around the world, that bonds have negative yield in some countries. It works the same way as my Company X example above. Suppose a 10-year bond is redeemable for $500 at expiry, but bonds are in such demand (due to their safety) that the price rises to $513. That's a -0.25% annual interest rate.

 

----

 

So, what's going to happen next? The Federal Reserve is trying to raise interest rates. They desperately want to get back to "normal". But the market is fighting them each step of the way.

 

In 2013 the Fed tried to transition back to normalcy and the market reacted violently, causing the "taper tantrum".

 

On December 16, 2015 the Fed raised the interest rate from 0.25% to 0.50%, and there was a pretty significant mini-crash.

 

Now the Fed is considering raising rates again. They've been hinting at September, but I'm not sure they'll do it so close to the election, lest they cause another crash. I expect they will raise rates at least one more time. When they do, I expect another mini-crash, which would be a great time to buy into the market.

 

Until we take steps towards fixing wealth inequality, we're going to remain in a deflationary/low-inflation environment. The Fed might even have to reverse course and *lower* rates again. It would take *huge* political change to shift the economic landscape: raising rates on the wealthy, lowering rates on the middle-class, huge public investments in infrastructure, and so on. With Congress divided as it is, these changes are effectively impossible.

 

----

 

How to profit on all this? What sorts of investments do well in a low-interest-rate environment? Lance Brofman is recommending a few funds: MORT, MORL, and CEFL.

 

MORT https://www.vaneck.com/vaneck-vectors/income-etfs/mort/
This fund borrows money in order to buy mortgages. Since they are constantly taking short-term loans, they profit when interest rates are low (cheap to borrow). They have a pretty massive dividend yield of ~10%. However, as a REIT they are taxed funny. I plan to buy these in a Roth IRA to avoid paying extra taxes.

 

MORL http://etracs.ubs.com/product/detail/index/ussymbol/MORL
This is basically the same as MORT, but 2x leveraged. That makes them *even more* sensitive to interest rates. Currently yielding a whopping ~20% dividend. Crazy. Most leveraged assets have their leverage reset on a daily basis, which makes them risky to hold on a long-term basis. MORL is reset on a monthly basis, which makes it suitable for longer terms. See also the sister fund MRRL, which is the same thing but less liquid.

 

CEFL http://etracs.ubs.com/product/detail/index/ussymbol/CEFL
This fund uses 2x leverage to invest in closed-end funds that have high yield. It's pretty diversified, but is interest-rate sensitive due to its leverage. This also yields ~20%.

 

----

 

I'm still waiting for a good entry point to buy these, since I expect the Fed to raise rates at least one more time (probably December) which should cause a significant price drop.

 

I'm not sure if gold/silver is a good long-term play or not. The market likes gold and silver as a hedge against central bank fuckery, but I don't think that inflation is actually a serious concern at the moment. But I'll probably be making gold plays regardless.

[WaeV 5,014]

Ouch, gold and silver took a beating today!
 

Gold itself:

Spoiler

 

Gold miners:

Spoiler

 

Small-cap silver miners:

Spoiler

 

I knew that gold/silver would spike in early September if the Fed's announcement was no-hike (which it was), but I overall I bought too early and sold too late.

 

Today's drop took me by surprise... apparently the dollar is strengthening recently (which is bad for gold prices) due to Brexit fears, hawkish comments from a Fed chairperson, and lots of quarterly economic reports being released this week.

[WaeV 5,014]

The unexpected Trump win led to a sharp drop in stocks... but only for a few hours and they recovered by morning.

 

(Individual stocks don't trade overnight, but the index as a whole trades on the futures market, which is open 24 hours during weekdays)

 

The biggest winners are:

• Healthcare up 4%
• Financial stocks up about 6-7%
• Construction/infrastructure varies, but e.g. Caterpillar machinery is up 7%
• Coal stocks up about 15%
• For-profit prison stocks up a staggering 45%

The biggest losers are technology, consumer goods, and utilities.

 

The market's prediction for a December rate hike remains unchanged... currently the odds are 75% in favor of a hike. If the market tanked today they might have called it off, but it will probably proceed as scheduled. If they pull the trigger in December, asset prices will drop... particularly interest-rate sensitive assets such as bonds and REITs.

 

Based on my operating theory, the Fed will not be able to hike rates very quickly... so if they hike in December and prices drop, I plan on buying in.