Hey friends; this is one resilient stock market! Tech is rolling like it did in the late 1990s. It seems many cloud-based companies involved with “smart-everything” technology are seeing their stock prices charging ever higher as the companies stretch to meet strong demand while needed supplies are constrained. It has led to some stout profit margins in the “Internet of Things” (IOT) world of today.

In the background, there are events going on that the market seems to simply shrug off, especially given how advanced market indices have become. For example, the back and forth of the U.S. and North Korea may just be talk and I pray we will not experience war but the market seems to rather flippantly factor in the possibility by momentarily pulling back in knee-jerk fashion in response to “new” news but then quickly dismissing the uncertainty and heading northward again. The growing national debt, as another example of something much greater than but a token threat, seems to be a distant concern in the present market. Yet, as Ethan Pope, my dear friend and the writer of the foreword of my book, “Choose Stocks Wisely,” aptly says about the growing debt, “it’s unsustainable.”

But for the moment, all seems well and, relative to stocks, it’s “risk-on.” Personally, I don’t have many answers beyond the few I understand because they are simply sensible. At the heart of stock investing, anytime I do invest, I always will respect risk enough to do my homework first and locate all the quality equity for the price I can find where the subject company presents rational positive catalysts for a better future. In a market like the present one, it’s very easy to get carried away by the tide and abandon the basics. But the basics are the basics for good reason.

Have a good weekend, friends.