Since I understand that I don’t understand, I trust science.
I use a car, a cell phone, the internet, electricity, a microwave, etc. I also trust healthcare professionals to understand better, and I believe their recommendations on vaccination matters rather than a self-proclaimed expert who has argued themselves into competence.
Simplifying things is simple.
You know that person X doesn’t know what they’re talking about when they claim that their opinion is as valid as a professional’s.
Well, it’s not. It’s absolute nonsense to claim that the opinion of someone who knows nothing about the matter and/or is untrained is as valid as that of a professional in the field.
Good writing! I looked at my portfolios’ returns from last year’s peaks to today – exactly -36%. Unfortunately, the OMXHPI has only returned something like -20%, so we’ve taken a beating from the index, and a strong one at that.
I’m not close to my pain threshold yet, as I’ve repeatedly told myself that a -50% drop must be endured… at least 
We are still “far” from that and generally from a financial crisis-like drop, fortunately.
But it’s good to learn something from this downturn too, so that something else remains besides a prince-sized portfolio. I have identified that I’ve made more/less big mistakes along the way, including underestimating the “damage” of inflation, looking through my fingers at too high valuations of even quality companies, and looking too far into the future in valuations. There has been a bit of FOMO when I haven’t dared to lighten up for fear of “missing out” (I admit!). I have learned that it’s never wrong to lighten up if the valuation of a stock exceeds one’s understanding, because we are investors, not philanthropists. I probably would never be able to time a shift from growth to oil/commodity crawlers, for example, but some on this forum have managed to sniff out the mood long ago and bring up the next winners, and I give full props to these individuals.
But I believe that avoiding selling at the bottom and possibly even adding more to good companies is already a sufficient win. I also believe that these total destruction declines have some other significance for the markets; they literally clear the air and drive away those who consider investing easy. Now these same types can shout in the streets as much as they want that there’s no point in stocks, but we fortunately know that there is. Proper downturns provide an excellent opportunity to generate excess returns. If the markets never drove away these newcomers with their declines, no one would ever be able to extract good returns from the markets.
It’s a bit like the big forest fires in Yellowstone; they seem like natural disasters at the time, but afterwards, the vegetation always thrives much more vibrantly and healthily.
And if you can truly laugh at your own portfolio today, that’s already a great victory.
This was another great example of the encouraging and educational writing style of this forum! Thank you @Kimi.Heikkila
That quote reminded me, are there many long-term investors on this forum who could share a story where, after months of significant losses, they bounced back into profit by continuing to believe in investing and their own actions?
It would be encouraging to read these stories!
I’ll also link here to the thread I recently started, where I hope these inspiring personal stories will be written 
A few posts have already come in, thanks for them 
Each one has provided new food for thought.
This Sijoittaja.fi article talks about stocks whose services/products see increased demand in the summer. The article briefly discusses seven summer stocks. 
Message merged into thread: Wuhan Coronavirus (Part 2)
She’s just partying at Ruisrock instead of taking care of our taxpayers’ business! I hope this was a joke.
Coeus Invest has published its Q2 investor letter. The letter covers hot market topics (inflation and timing) and new investments (including Stockmann and Witted).
Coeus Invest GRIT Special Investment Fund - Q2 2022 Investor Letter.pdf (278.4 KB)
I had the opportunity to edit the letter for my work. All credit for the ideas goes to Coeus Invest, and all credit for any remaining comma errors goes to me
@Handeli I’ll answer here in the coffee room. YES, I think the market is pricing that scenario into stock prices. A cold winter is a given. Nord Stream 1 remaining shut after the 10-day maintenance shutdown starting tomorrow is entirely possible, and it has been reported enough for large investors to assign it a probability greater than zero. The fear of gas taps being shut off has been present since March.
It’s another matter entirely whether the market can correctly calculate the effects of NS1 shutting down. My own assessment is that the market is exaggerating the effects. Fear has taken too much precedence. NS1 is certainly not the only gas pipeline from Russia to Europe, and gas also comes through pipelines from Norway and by ship from elsewhere. Gas imports from Russia started declining about a year ago, and substitute imports from Norway and as LNG have been increased since then.
There is very good numerical data on this at https://www.bruegel.org/publications/datasets/european-natural-gas-imports/
But doesn’t the calculation, simply put, go like this: 50% probability that the pipeline opens normally, in which case the index’s fair value (FV) is 10000 points.
50% probability that the pipeline remains closed, in which case the index’s FV is 7000 points.
So now the FV is 8500, and there’s 1500 points of downside if the pipeline stays closed.
And if a lower probability is given to the pipeline remaining closed, it raises the current FV, and thus there’s more downside if it does stay closed.
All numbers out of a hat.
But as you said, the risks are priced in, but if they materialize, there’s still a lot of downside.
Analogy to the coronavirus: in January-February 2020, it was worth following the news and preliminary comments from virus experts. Information was available weeks in advance, but when the virus hit Europe, panic immediately set in and we saw a strong overreaction downwards in the stock markets in the following weeks. In fact, it took a few more days for the US indexes, which were priced to the max, to start a steeper decline. The markets acted surprisingly slowly, and I cleaned out my stock portfolio then.
Yes. The situation is slightly different than with the virus, but we shouldn’t lull ourselves into “priced in” thinking. In many ways, we don’t yet know the possible concrete effects, nor Putin’s future decisions. It’s also difficult to predict the potential indirect effects at the societal level. Will European unity be preserved? Interest rates on government bonds? Etc., etc.
Perhaps in this case, I would now follow gas experts, and from the comments I’ve seen, it looks bad. Politicians aren’t saying everything out loud yet.
I don’t think everything is priced in. Stocks aren’t cheap yet, and the consequences of gas supply cut-offs can be unpredictable.
Currently 16% cash, and I’m frantically wondering when the right time is to go in big again.
A pessimistic realist (fortunately there aren’t many, or am I too optimistic) calculates the probability of the pipeline staying closed at 100%, meaning there’s 0% downside and 3000 points upside But a pessimistic realist finds other negative news and even more downside from that 
This is pure market psychology, because only one person perhaps knows whether the pipeline will stay closed or not.
More grist for the mill. Behind a paywall. Under the headline, the most relevant scare message is 15%.
It would hit Germany particularly hard, but also Northern Italy, which receives pipeline gas via Austria. The Italian economy would contract for the rest of 2022 and throughout 2023, with a return to a growth path only in 2024.
But we only have to wait 11 more days to be a bit wiser. These are good times to follow the real experts. Who would they be, by the way?
Even though Heikki Lindfors is from the energy industry. The media will probably be full of Fortums and Unipers in the coming weeks if the situation worsens.
Lindfors seems to have retweeted this, for example:
https://twitter.com/GeorgZachmann/status/1545024713172336640?t=In_aS0u972VWZW47OKiXrw&s=19
Well now! The classic “Wind of Change,” associated with the greatest events of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, makes a powerful comeback. Klaus Meine is still standing, even if he looks a bit shaky.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1546225151171350530?s=20&t=6pGRys_LW9qqHPH3Bp7q0Q
List of those surprised:
Oh, Helsingin Sanomat (HS) and Yle have started their anti-National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) lobbying again, with an eye on next year’s parliamentary elections. First, the somewhat questionably written but relevant Wille Rydman case, and now this. Next, probably a couple of positive stories about Party-Sanna 
At least I’m happy about Uber coming to Finland; no complaints as a customer.
Soon, these interim reports will start dropping in properly… just in time to spoil summer vacations.
I don’t quite understand why many have crammed their “reports” onto the same day - apparently they don’t want visibility or something similar. 
Hand in hand with @Pohjolan_Eka on Friday, 22.7.2022, we will receive Stokka’s announcement together. 
Here’s Inderes’ own stock market calendar.
Will we finally get Inderes live from the stock market? All the seal-like animals reporting disappointing results are coming instead…
