In every market there are always glass half full and glass half empty situations and only in hindsight or looking back do we see what is reality. For example in the glass half empty situation, the virus Delta and Omicron is spiking, it doubles every few days which means the prudent thing to do from a public health perspective is shut things down and encourage vaccinations. The glass half full is many people have learned to shop on line and shopping drives the economy.

In an article by Echo Wang of Reuters, at the end of last year, a report released by Mastercard showed shopping increased 8.5% over the previous year’s holiday season. This means many people shopped and if they were working from home and technically saving money on the commute, they spent money on themselves and their families. According to Sylvia Jablonski Kampaktsis, chief investment officer of Defiance ETFs, personal consumption makes up to 70% of our GDP.

With Delta and Omicron racing through the world, airlines and cruise operators have a problem which caused about 1,000 flights to be cancelled and as much as a cruise is wonderful, would there be a problem getting off the cruise ship? If the answer is yes, then cruise ship stocks were down.

If you examine the overall market, the benchmark S&P is having its best 3 year performance since 1999.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, ideally when you buy a dividend stock portfolio the idea is you do not need to worry about trading on a daily basis, you can examine your portfolio weekly or bi-weekly or monthly whatever is best for you. The stock market similar to all markets will have signs of optimism and pessimism at the same time and it is up to you to determine what you are. If you are waiting on the sidelines, most of the time you will wait a long time and not participate. If you buy, it is helpful to have the overwhelming majority of stocks in profitable stocks that can pay dividends. If the market goes down, you will receive dividends. If the market goes up, capital gains are wonderful and that allows you to do portfolio allocation and continue to buy companies you have researched which helps to keep time on your side.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.