Last month (May 2025) I decided that there was no way the stock market would continue to go up under Trump’s tariff agenda. But despite only a few deals being made, immigration protests, and dropping bombs on Iran, the stock market has continued to march higher each day. After one month I am down 30% on my 100 shares of SQQQ (ProShares UltraPro Short QQQ). The good news is that this means my other investments have gone up in value. But my brokerage account would look better if I had just ignored my feelings about how Trump’s actions would impact the stock market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We still haven’t seen the full effect of tariffs on inflation or how it will impact the economy. I’m still hoping that I bought SQQQ too early and next month things will look different. The Federal Reserve has delayed lowering interest rates so that they have some ammunition to fight the anticipated economic downturn. With the stock market hitting all-time highs at the end of June, it feels like the next interest rate cut is already priced in. It will require a larger than expected inflation increase and a negative employment report to start a sell off. Overall, my SQQQ holding is a very small percentage in my account, so if the market keeps going higher for a bit longer, it won’t make a big difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As of the end of June 2025 my YTD return is 3.43% and the one-year return is 7.25%. In the past year my monthly expense withdrawals averaged $852. This includes an average of $452 in credit card charges. I would like to see the Fed cut interest rates in July. This would help lower my adjustable-rate mortgage when it is recalculated in August. Any savings would be used to offset the increase in my homeowner’s insurance. At this point, maintaining a balanced budget is a matter of offsetting recurring expenses. The problem is that it keeps getting more and more difficult to keep the budget balanced on a fixed income.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last month (May 2025) I decided that there was no way the stock market would continue to go up under Trump’s tariff agenda. But despite only a few deals being made, immigration protests, and dropping bombs on Iran, the stock market has continued to march higher each day. After one<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":978,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions\/978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}