Stock Markets - Time to sell or hold ?

Hi All,

I continue to watch the stock markets closely and so far this year has been a roller coaster - although a good one for me so far.

In short, I sold at the end of Jan when tariffs were being threatened, and bought back in in early April when things were close to the bottom. I normally invest in ETFs (eg, Nasdaq, FTSE100, Euro markets, S&P500 and Nikkei trackers).

[A picture to brighten up the post ! Keiss Castle, on the North East coast of Scotland - taken when I visited a couple of weekends back in the glorious sunshine !]

I now have another decision to make - hold or sell.

I'm definitely leaning to the side of sell - and probably this week:

• There was a shock across all markets last week. Had the bubble burst on the return since the lows in early April ? Gold went up and markets went down, showing investor confidence had waned. The arguments between the US and the EU was the big catalyst for that, but there was also other poor news around (inflation, Moodies downgrade of the US, lack of US interest rate cut as a result of concern over the impact of tariffs to the economy, etc),
• Thankfully things have gone back up at the start of this week thanks to things cooling between the US and the EU,
• But has it run its course ? We still have a looming deadline of the 9th of July for tarriffs being implemented again following the freeze in April - thats not far away now,
• No more big trade deals have been announced,
• The impact of tarriffs will be starting to be seen in the data on worldwide economies, and so I think we'll start to see the bad news coming through soon,
• I think there are also other things ongoing in the world that continue to cause concern without resolution in sight and that also stokes things,
• Is the market simply too high and over valued for the current state of affairs world wide (I cant help thinking that if it isnt, its darn close).

All of the above make me think its time to get out and hold things in cash (or maybe even some in gold) until the bad news hits, and then buy back into the markets - maybe later in summer when we have a new dip to buy. Although I have to say that I'm not as convinced as I was back at the end of Jan.

Arguments for holding:

• If more trade deals (and particularly China:US) are announced soon, then it would probably spur the markets,
• If the 9th of July deadline for tarriffs is put back again, it will help,
• If we see progress in ending conflicts, that would have to be a big boost (surely ?),
• Accounting for the above items, is the market still on an upward trend in the short term ?

I dont think I believe the above arguments for holding, so I think I will go ahead and sell either Thursday or Friday. I'm hoping the Nvidia results bring some good news tomorrow, and then maybe thursday is the day to sell. But I'll be watching the news closely for other signals to see what else its looking good or bad, to help make the decision.

Anyway, thats my thinking out of the way and I'm keen to now what anyone else is thinking or planning to do as far as the markets are concerned. Let me know - I need help !

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