June 2023 Investing Update

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For the month of June, the DOW went up 1499 points. This puts the DOW up 3.87% for the year, and up by 11.14% in the past 12 months. Interest and dividend income was $2213 for the month. Withdrawals for living expenses came to $1106 in the past month. I did not make any trades in June as I wait for several stock investments to recover. I also don’t like investing in stocks when everything is going up. I usually get caught holding the bag when there is a sudden downturn. That’s what happened with TLRY and PTRA. I still have 250 shares of TLRY, but sold my Protera stock earlier this year. Protera is now being investigated for possible securities fraud violations.

Walgreens is another one that caught me off guard. I bought my shares in 2022 and so far, this year it has been a steady decline. They announced that they will close 150 locations in the United States and 300 locations in the United Kingdom. They also announced that they will be eliminating 10% of their corporate positions to cut costs. The company is facing muted consumer spending and a pullback in demand for Covid vaccines. It also doesn’t help that they have huge judgments against them related to the opioid crisis. Despite the cost cutting measures, investment firms have announced lowered expectations for the stock. No announcement yet on a dividend cut. It looks like it may take another pandemic to get them back in the game.

The stock market performed surprisingly well in the first half of 2023. My investment account is up by +5.31% in the past six months. This usually means that any bad news will result in a pullback in stock prices. The Fed is suggesting that they may need to increase interest rates again before year end. This would most likely send the stock market in a negative direction, especially if it is combined with bad economic news. As long as interest rates on money market accounts are over 4.7%, I will be happy with that. Retired Americans have been waiting a long time to get that kind of return on their cash.

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