Letter to my broker

[Old Crank]

I live in Germany and my retirement savings are in US taxable accounts. This means that everything I take out is taxed as income both in the US and in Germany. We have to be careful not to pull too much but want to drawdown a lot of our savings. I wrote a note to my stock advisor asking, half in jest, if there was a Trump trade tracking fund. Sort of like the S+P 500 tracking funds.

She said she has heard chatter about it but mostly the trades would come too late to get the benefit of his short or long sales. Oh well. Below id part of a reply I sent to her about Trump's trading and the SEC.

********

Anyway, the major problem I, and I'm sure others involved with investing, have is why are the US stock markets doing so well internationally? I think a big reason is the trust other countries and people have that the market is fair. The market is transparent. The market isn't subject to the whims of teh countries leadership.

China has a problem because you have to trust that Xi won't change the favoured state of the company you invest in or place currency controls on your ability to change investments.

I think this suspicious trading is hurting that trust and transparency. The winners are Trump and who ever he shares his plans with. This degrades the market. It hurts all investors who can't be sure that they have one of the most level playing fields in the world.

The government prosecuted and jailed Martha Stewart for a $500 profit several years back. The profits here are millions. Real people have lost money from this. Yet nothing has been heard from the SEC. This is one of the reasons we are moving money from the US.

[jmbar2]

1. Another reason is that wealth is rapidly compounding itself

Wealthy people from around the world are chasing returns, moving money from bitcoin into the AI and tech stocks. Also massive retirement funds, like state teacher funds, have sums of money coming in every payday that need to be invested.

When the compounding hits reverse, it will be swift and painful for awhile. It's just a matter of when.

[Old Crank]

4. A good amount of the large retirement funds

are investing in TIPS, inflation protected treasury bonds.

One of the reasons the stocks are going up is the amount of money going into private retirement accounts.

[jmbar2]

5. Will TIPS be protected in a major downturn?

[Old Crank]

7. A better place than just stocks

The real worry is will a large US downturn destroy the world economy.
Spme countries are pulling some of their investments in the US out. They are doing it slowly so as not to crash the markets.
About 40 percent of the Stocks are in foreign hands.

[Manatee]

2. Martha Stewart was not

convicted of insider trading.

She was convicted for obstruction of justice and making false statements.

[Old Crank]

3. The reason for those charges

was based on insider trading.
What is going to happen to Trump or his buddies?

[Celerity]

6. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Stewart avoided a loss of $45,673 by selling all 3,928

shares of her ImClone Systems stock on December 27, 2001, after receiving material, nonpublic information from Peter Bacanovic, her broker at Merrill Lynch. The day following her sale, the stock value fell 16%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart

[Old Crank]

8. I had heard dh made

About $500.
That seems to be incorrect.
But it is a far cry from the millions being pocketed by the Trump trading group.