What a month!
After a nice reprieve from market turbulence in March, volatility is back in April. And this week in particular has been brutal.
The S&P 500 is now trading around early March’s lows again.
Just remember: We’ve been here before.
I launched my premium Home Run Profits strategy 10 years ago, and since then I’ve written well over 500 weekly notes to my readers.
I was digging through some of these old insights, and we’ve seen it all in that time!
Up markets … down markets … sideways markets … smooth-as-butter uptrends … and vicious pullbacks.
I even counted how many S&P 500 pullbacks of 5% or greater my readers and I experienced in our 10 years together.
That number totaled 14!
And some of the individual stocks we’ve played in that service pulled back far more than that.
But we survived every one of those pullbacks, as scary as they felt at the time. We lived to trade another day, as trading veterans say.
Go Beyond the S&P 500
Of course, I’m not interested in camping out in the S&P 500. The world’s most-watched and benchmarked stock index is of modest importance to us.
Sure, there’s a “rising tides lifts all boats” aspect to investing.
Typically, when a majority of stock indexes are chugging higher and all is well … favorable conditions provide a tailwind to quality individual stocks, like the ones we recommend and hold.
Likewise, when a wave of selling hits the broader markets, these unfavorable conditions can weigh heavily on the individual stocks we hold. It’s tough to escape a broad market sell-off!
But we need to remember that we invest in specific individual stocks … in some of the most promising mega trends of the coming decade.
In short, we must be willing to ride the minor ups and downs in the broader stock market … for the chance to make lucrative, longer-term profits on these mega trends.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we simply “hold and hope.”
Manage Risk With Stop-Losses
I’m a professionally trained trader, so I know the importance of risk management as well as anyone. That’s why we publish stop-loss exit strategies for a majority of the positions we add to our portfolio.
Not all of our positions work out as we expect them to. That’s just part of the game. In fact, knowing when to cut your losses is how you stay in the game.
Rest assured that my team and I monitor the market’s health every day.
We keep a close eye on our stop-losses.
And, of course, we’re always on the hunt for new opportunities.
We aren’t letting a pullback in the S&P 500 scare us out of compelling opportunities in lucrative mega trends!
What to Do Now
In a word: nothing. Just follow your risk management. Sit tight, stay calm and follow your plan. That’s all you need to do.
Of course, if you don’t have a plan, that’s a problem.
Initiating a trade without an exit strategy — for both the upside and downside of a stock’s moves — builds unnecessary uncertainty into that investment. The investors that panic during a correction or bear market are those that go into it unprepared.
If you’d like to see how we’re navigating this market, check out Green Zone Fortunes.
I’ve mentioned mega trends a few times throughout this story, and it’s for good reason.
These mega trends that we’re tracking through our highest-conviction stock recommendations have the potential to create life-changing wealth for investors in the coming years.
But you aren’t only getting our top stocks by joining Green Zone Fortunes. You’ll also get weekly updates from myself and the rest of the team, portfolio insights into our top picks and guidance on the best times to buy and sell.
We try to take the guesswork out of investing, so you can feel confident — no matter the market conditions.
If you’d like to see how you can join Green Zone Fortunes, click here to watch my “Infinite Energy” presentation now.
You’ll learn about a company that’s using artificial intelligence (AI) tech to unleash the largest untapped energy source in the world. It’s going to turn the multitrillion-dollar global energy industry on its head.
To good profits,
Adam O’Dell
Chief Investment Strategist