Trump will talk to Putin "very soon" about a plague death in Siberia. The CDC is monitoring. Your portfolio remains unaffected by both the plague and the phone call.
Retail traders will check their Russia ETFs. They will see red numbers that have nothing to do with plague and everything to do with the fact they bought at the top. They will then Google "does plague affect semiconductor stocks" because that is the level of analysis we are working with here.
The plague killed someone in Siberia. Siberia is very far from your brokerage account. The distance is roughly 5,000 miles, or one standard deviation from relevance. Trump calling Putin about it changes nothing about your positions except possibly making them worse through mechanisms you will not understand until your account is liquidated.
The CDC monitors the situation. Monitoring is what organizations do when they want to appear useful without committing to action. Your financial advisor monitors your account the same way. Both produce the same result.
Somewhere a day trader is drawing lines on a chart of Russian mining stocks. He is connecting the plague death to a support level he invented last Tuesday. The lines will not save him. Nothing will save him. The plague is more survivable than his trading strategy.
Trump and Putin will talk. They will say words. The words will move markets in directions that contradict every rational expectation. You will lose money on the correct analysis. Someone who bought based on a TikTok video will make money. This is how it works. This is how it has always worked.
The Siberian plague has a higher survival rate than your calls expiring Friday.
Photo by Nuovelife Magazine on Unsplash
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