How Will I Invest Over the Next Four Years?
So Trump is putting together his policies and agenda for the next four years. And let’s just say, fuck. It’s going to suck.
It’s hilarious to me that people got tricked into voting for the billionaire businessman who went bankrupt six times and was most recently selling designer shoes and $100,000 watches because they thought he’d look out for them.
American history books will study how he was able to trick the uneducated into being so gullible.
But anyway. Back to his tariffs.
You know a lot of people on TikTok clearly don’t understand how all of this works so let’s spell it out very simply:
Deportations get rid of people who work in agriculture, hospitality and construction.
Many of these people were undocumented and thus, underpaid (I don’t like that anyone is underpaid but like it or not, that’s how it is).
The thought? Deporting people will make more jobs available for Americans. But …
Most Americans don’t want to work in agriculture, picking strawberries.
Many Americans are not skilled in certain hard labor jobs.
This causes a problem: there are not enough workers to do these jobs. Prices will go up.
Farmers, who voted for Trump, are now begging Trump not to deport their workers.
Tariffs will hit Canada, China, and Mexico. Almost everything we get comes from these countries.
When it comes to housing, not only will home construction or contractors charge more because they have fewer workers, but …
The prices of everything they use to buy the homes will go up. Wood is imported. Plastic is imported. Steel is imported. Appliances and tech are imported.
This is a one-two punch. Everything is going to be more expensive.
No big deal though, right? Because it’ll force companies to bring jobs home? Except there’s just one problem. Companies have said they will not bring jobs home.
Not only that, but bringing jobs home is no easy feat. we don’t have the factories, the infrastructure, or the skilled workforce to manufacture things here. Not only that, but even if we implement changes to start manufacturing here, we’d still have to import the materials. And the cost of labor would be more expensive. So … things get more expensive.
The reality is, Trump’s policies will make things more expensive.
What should you do as an investor? Well, first of all, hopefully you’ve been following me on social media over the last six years. Why?
Because:
I’ve been urging people to start an emergency savings account for more than half a decade. If you’d started six years ago, you’d have a lot of money saved up by now.
I’ve encouraged people to start investing. If you’d started 6+ years ago when I was suggested consistent investing, you’d have a pretty sizable position right now in a handful of high quality ETFs.
People want to know how I plan on investing going forward. The reality is, nothing is going to change for me. But I am not you, and you are not me.
If you’ve been investing a few bucks per month into an SP500 index fund, a tech ETF and a dividend ETF and you’re still 20+ years from retirement, nothing needs to change. You don’t need to worry about “locking in profits” ahead of a potential recession.
You just need to stay the course. Keep doing what you’re doing.
However, if you’re a very large investor - I’m talking 1,000-10,000 shares in an individual stock, and you’ve got millions invested, no mortgage, and a high paying, secure job, you might look at your portfolio and decide to lock in some profits here or there.
Maybe a speculative investment ran up 200% in a year. Huh. Someone might be in that position with 10,000 shares thinking you know, I’ll lock in 50% of my gains and sell half. Or a quarter. Whatever they choose.
Me? I’m in the accumulation phase. I don’t wanna stumble over my own feet and sell some shares now when I’m still trying to acquire more shares.
What will I do? Keep investing in the same stuff I’ve been investing in. high quality tech. High quality growth. High quality dividend. And a little bit in ultra speculative stuff. I’m sitting on a lot of cash and I’ll add more cash to my holdings just in case I want to pounce if there is a recession. Will I try to time the bottom? Nah. I'll just start averaging in.
