Looking for Screaming Buys

Over the past nine months investors had the opportunity to buy three ridiculously cheap asset classes: municipal bonds last fall and winter, stocks in February, and corporate bonds early this year. I got two of those, viz. the municipal bonds and stocks. I missed the corporate bonds since I already had an overweight position in the fixed income class.

One strategy long term investors can use, in addition to simple asset allocation, is to wait for screaming buys to appear to deploy new money. Just keep the money in cash or bank accounts or solid money market funds until a screaming buy comes into view. Then deploy that cash in a few (2-4) blocks into the cheap asset class. One's asset allocation model for long term investments might help identify this class, or not.

Now my asset allocation model is again telling me to buy commercial real estate assets. It's also signalling a simple re-balancing into Treasury inflation protected securities. A few months ago it had me sell some of those to buy stocks. Now it wants me to reverse that very profitable trade. With my distractions, I've waited but am now noodling over it.

For now, I wait.

California claims to have made a budget deal. I'll read the details before commenting.

Yesterday was a good rally to the top of the consolidation range. I wonder if any real buyers are left to take it higher barring good news ? Maybe if earnings and guidance this quarter are good.

I put some money into Fido Fund to take advantage of any dip in the price of FCX. I have serious seller's remorse on that one. I should have simply put it into Fido Fund, instead of selling out in Obama Fund. But the distractions clouded my thinking. Oh well, perfection is a high bar to clear.

Word of the Day

"Entelechy" - noun [$10] Philosophical
Entelechy means 1. realization of potential; 2. the supposed essential nature or guiding principal of a living thing.
Sentence: To avoid going nuts in retirement, Bunkerman released the intellectual entelechy of the verbal half of his mind to study the humanities and languages. So far, its working.

Le Mot du Jour

"Se méfier" - pronominal verb; takes 'de'
Se méfier means to not trust, to distrust.
La Phrase: L'homme du bunker se méfie de l'autorité.
Sentence: Bunkerman distrusts authority.