Recovery, Now What?
Email This Article Bruce DooleOctober 13th, 2009
WE’VE HAD SOME RECOVERY IN THE MARKETS, NOW WHAT?….Last year at this time, we were writing about the extraordinary market conditions we were facing and that the hurricane force winds that were driving the economy down would eventually subside and we would have a recovery at the end of this year. It turns out that the economic recovery started earlier than was expected, albeit slowly and as they usually do, the markets anticipated the recovery by a few months and started moving back up the second week of March. Our patience in holding on to our investments has paid off and we have started to sell some of our investments that are back in profits. As we have been reading, the Federal government and the Federal Reserve have taken significant measures to add liquidity to the markets (put more money into the banking system) and keep interest rates at an all-time low. In addition, the Federal deficit has increased dramatically as has the issuance of new Federal debt. This will have to lead to inflation which will mean higher interest rates in the next few years. We are thus starting to prepare for this eventuality by investing in stable short term and inflation protected government bonds, natural resource funds, and international funds that are based on non-dollar denominated currencies. We will also be looking at companies that make products that tend to keep pace or even stay ahead of inflation like consumer staples, drugs, medical devices, and energy – especially renewable energy.