The old adage in the investing world is “sell in May and go away”.

In the beginning of the month I posted a blog titled “The Stock Market Ride“. In this blog, I noted that I felt we were entering a period where people are looking for a reason to sell. I also noted that this feeling was based on the markets entering what is historically the worst time of the year as well as the knee jerk reactions the markets were having anytime tariffs were mentioned one way or the other. This observation proved to be true as the markets racked up losses in what was a roller coaster of a month.

Was this a stroke of genius on my part? Um….No! Just knowing historical trends and watching daily reactions to news is all it took to know where the markets were heading in the short term. Although I did choose a roller coaster as my image for that blog as well. So maybe there is more to this genius thing?

So where do we go from here? There is really no way to tell at this point. On the negative side; this is still the worst time of year historically speaking. The tariff trade wars are far from being resolved. In fact, it appears they are probably going to get worse before they get better. And the economic impact of this trade war and its tariffs are not fully known at this point. All of this points to a continued decline for the foreseeable future.

But wait, there’s more! What if the trade situation gets worked out? There will certainly be a sizable run up in the market on that news. What if the market has priced in the expected impact of the tariffs but it’s not as bad as expected? What if the economy continues to roll on despite all of the trade tensions? If any of this occurs, the markets could see a Summer rebound instead of the historical downtrend.

The great part about investing for the long term is none of this really matters. As I said before we only look at downturns as opportunities. As of now, we have not reached that point at all. May was more of a correction after a four month run up than a panic stricken sell off. The markets were looking for a reason to sell off and they found one in the ongoing trade war saga.

So after all of this up and down roller coaster ride:

Here is where we finished the month of May:

Portfolio- $923,580 (Cash and Investments)

Portfolio Goal – $1,500,000

Amount needed to reach goal – $576,420

Our portfolio decreased by $28,664 or 3.01% from the end of April.

Year-to-date we are still up 11.08%.

Net Worth – $1,117,148

This is a decrease of 2.03% from the end of April.

Watching the daily market fluctuations in May was interesting. I am usually able to keep a mental note as the month goes on and have an idea of where we are. With the wild swings, I gave up on that futile task about mid month.

I knew we would be down so there is no surprise to these numbers. I will say however, we held up better than I thought.

How did your portfolio hold up through the market drama? Leave me a comment below.