I own almost no individual stocks anymore. But I have a little bit of Apple stock, worth about $5,000 that I’ve had in one of my retirement accounts for a long time. I’ve often thought of selling just to get things simpler, but it always performed well and it was such a small portion of my portfolio it didn’t seem worth it.
I came close last week, but reminded myself that my whole investment philosophy (pretty close to straight Boglehead), is that I don’t know anything everyone else who is investing doesn’t know. And without special information, the trick is pretty much hold and stay the course. If you miss just a few of the best days trying to time the market, you can really harm yourself.
So I thought, sure, I have every reason to think these tariffs are real, the recession is coming, the dollar is weak, Apple’s China market is dead, and things will be bad. But everyone knows that, and everyone sold on that. I don’t know anything new, so I’d just be selling low.
Today, it turns out Apple products will pretty much be entirely exempted from the tariffs. I still think they’ve got no more Chinese market and we’re gonna hit a recession. But I bet I’ll be happy on Monday I didn’t sell all that stock at the bottom.
In the end, it won’t matter. But the unpredictable circumstances just reinforce my belief I know nothing and a recession is inevitable.