Weekly Portfolio Update, October 8 2023

As if the world wasn't already stressful enough

Obviously, the outbreak of war in the Middle East makes whatever else happened last week largely irrelevant. Going forward the question is, Will interest rates spike and stocks tank because of the resulting uncertainty, or will financial assets catch a massive bid in anticipation of the Fed using geopolitical turmoil as an excuse to ignore inflation and go back to easing? I’d give these two scenarios about equal weight at the moment. Gold seems likely to benefit either way.

In the meantime, let’s hope that the destruction is minimized and peace of some sort is restored quickly. Our thoughts should be with the regular people caught up in the insanity.

Industry news

Oil gave up the past month’s gain…

… but …