Ukraine (updated)

 

My personal opinions as follows may not be reflected in most of the media.

 

If there were a war with Ukraine, it would be good for the U.S. military suppliers and also would dilute the war atmosphere in the South China Sea. Recently we have self-inflicted damages of our nuclear submarine and our F35-C, which are our top weapons.  Hopefully, they are just unavoidable in new weapons; many suspect the lack of training, implementation and quality control. If there were no war in Ukraine, Biden would claim the credit.

 

Most likely the war will not happen. Russia would not want another war as it would drag down their economy from previous experiences. So is the U.S., as we cannot have two wars at the same time. In addition, it would give China a chance to reunite (or invade depending on which side you are on) Taiwan. China is trying her best to reunite the country peacefully, but using force is still possible, especially when Taiwan declares independence.

 

The major reason of no war is the EU heading with Germany and France would not want to engage in the war for their own benefits. Most countries in the EU depend on Russia’s supply of natural gas and oil.

 

Most likely Ukraine would not join EU and NATO. If there were a war, there would be refugees from Ukraine and the EU have had a hard time  accommodating refugees in the last few years. So far, all talks and no commitment to send soldiers.

 

Ukraine has been the sole loser since their president has been pro U.S. Ukraine used to be the most prosperous country in the region, and now one of the poorest. Russia cannot tolerate Ukraine joining NATO, the same reason for not letting Russia to set up missiles in Cuba. It is better to leave Ukraine as a buffer zone.

 

As a common citizen, I do not like wars at all. I have heard many horrible stories on how the Japanese killed Chinese citizens mercilessly during WW2. The US has not experienced these sufferings in our own land. During wars, we have many youths sent back in body bags; they should enjoy the best time of their life. It is also discrimination, wealth gap and inequality as most of these youths are in these categories. If we send the children of our politicians, there will be no war started by us. Hope major powers do not intervene with other countries’ conflicts. 

 

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This article will be included in my book "A nuclear war with China?" from Amazon.com.

More lessons in investing

 

The following have been included in my books. Due to their importance, it is repeated here.

 

Market Timing. Technical analysis (such as death cross using SMA-20 and SMA-50) is more important than fundamentals as illustrated in 2020 and 2021.

 

So far and since WW2, the year before the election is usually bullish.

 

Weigh more on the strategy or strategies that perform well recently. In early 2022, it is shorting stocks to me.

 

Screening stocks. To illustrate, I got 30 stocks from a screen. I wanted to limit the number. You can do one of the following:

 

Tighten your search  criteria.

 

Only use the first 10 stocks sorted by your specified metric such as P/E with P/E > 0.

 

Do a quick analysis and skip the stocks such as foreign companies, high debt / equity, high insider dumping, high short % (but less than 25% for possible short squeeze), etc. – do the opposite for shorting stocks.

 

Further evaluate the screened stocks with the appropriate metrics.

 

50-50 guesses. Many make good money even with a 50-50 chance of guessing the outcome of the stock bought by: 1. Reduce positions on risky stocks and 2. Use stop orders to limit the losses and trailing stops to let the profits rise.

 

Greed and fear. Do not let greed and fear affect your trades. Greed is fine if you use trailing stops as illustrated in 2000. The most profitable time occurred in April, 2019 as indicated by the golden cross (I call it Early Recovery).

 

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The above is from my book Investing Lessons: Successes and Plunders.

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L8NVJNH

 

 

Shorting stocks

 I do not recommend shorting for most, especially the beginners. Here are some amazing results.

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·      Shorting performance from my book “Best Stocks for 2022”.  Again, fees, commissions, interests, dividends…are not included in the calculations. I am not responsible for any errors including rounding errors. Start date: 12/15/2021 and end date (as of this writing): 01/07/2022.

 

Symbol	Return	Annualized
BKKT	55%	866%
EOSE	18%	284%
FFIE	-14%	-227%
LIDR	18%	286%
NTRA	19%	305%
SMFR	15%	245%
	18%	293%
Beat RSP	1,114%

 

A total of 6 stocks: 5 winners and 1 loser. A 60%-win percentage is quite good to me. All my recent short sells and the ones from the books are not sustainable.

 

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Very few investors including institutional investors short stocks. In reality, we can find more bad stocks than good stocks, especially in a falling market. Even in a rising market, we can be profitable in shorting stocks as demonstrated from the following table of my books on “Best Stocks” series.

 

Best stocks	Return 1 M	Beat RSP	Ret. 2 M	Beat RSP
12-15-2021	18%	1,114%
07-15-2021	11%	241%	12%	330%
02-08-2021	28%	573%	12%	72%
Average	19%	643%	12%	201%

 

As of this writing (1/8/2022), the “12-15-2021” book does not have a full month for duration. Most (if not all) of my previous books in this series did not recommend stocks to short.

 

They beat RSP (a yardstick with equally weighed S&P 500 stocks) by good margins. The annualized returns (X12 for one-month and X6 for two-month returns) are incredible. The performances do not include commissions fees, interest  and dividends; need to pay the last two for shorting stocks. I am not liable for any errors and rounding errors.

 

I did not find too many books specializing in shorting stocks. This book has over 485 pages (6*9), and has complete information from choosing a broker, setting up strategies and executing the strategies.

Check out my book: "Shorting stocks and ETFs 2nd Edition" from Amazon.com.

 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Q4YGMW4