![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
consumer stocks
Mar. 7th, 2019 03:49 pmToday was the first Thursday of the month, which is when I do my banking and bill paying and stock stuff. (Thursdays I work a split shift so that I can run any errands I need to run during banking hours.) The market has fallen substantially since the last time I checked it which thank goodness it was way too exuberant and confident about China. (Seriously? Trump and Xi are going to suddenly make the world effervescent, solving all problems by magic, tra la la? Trump? And Xi?)
I suspect there will be a bounceback tomorrow when the jobs report comes out, so it happens to be a good day to buy according to the "buy low" strategy. But today there were angry red numbers next to everything reminding me that do you KNOW this is DOWN from LAST TIME YOU LOOKED AT IT (even though it is higher than two months ago by a lot). It was stressful, like when a smoke alarm is going off and you know it's just the steam from boiling water freaking it out but your whole body is telling you there is an alarm going off, are you sure you are not an idiot.
In any case, I was making unsexy purchases because I'm already fairly well taken care of in the sexy sectors like tech and energy and chemicals and medicine (I promise that as stocks these are sexy), and thought I should diversify into consumer products, and solid waste management. (That last one is by my standards extremely sexy, but this is not the general view.) I of course looked at the numbers, but undergirding philosophical approach is to look at clothing companies with uncommonly ethical supply chains who don't market themselves that way.
I figure that if they're paying workers a fair wage, they're (1) probably less exposed to emerging markets, which shields me from China-sentiment swings, (2) are making good investments in future value and haven't put all their eggs in the basket of their continued ability to oppress labor and undercut everybody on prices, which I don't think is sustainable, and (3) aren't greenwashing and making their labor practices look good for the purposes of advertising, since that's not how their advertising is focused, plus aren't going to take a big hit if something bad does come to light, because that's not why people are buying their clothes.
I mean, I obviously also just like it if businesses don't oppress their labor, and that's a general guiding principle behind my purchases. But in this case I also think it is a clever way to evaluate a company's ability to sustain earnings. We shall see.
Also I specifically bought an amount of Canada Goose stock that is about what a used women's Canada Goose parka sells for on ebay, because it's going to make me laugh to think that I am co-using a feather's worth (optimistically) of everybody else's Canada Goose coats. It will maybe make the cold slightly more bearable if I am using part of everyone's warmest coats.
I suspect there will be a bounceback tomorrow when the jobs report comes out, so it happens to be a good day to buy according to the "buy low" strategy. But today there were angry red numbers next to everything reminding me that do you KNOW this is DOWN from LAST TIME YOU LOOKED AT IT (even though it is higher than two months ago by a lot). It was stressful, like when a smoke alarm is going off and you know it's just the steam from boiling water freaking it out but your whole body is telling you there is an alarm going off, are you sure you are not an idiot.
In any case, I was making unsexy purchases because I'm already fairly well taken care of in the sexy sectors like tech and energy and chemicals and medicine (I promise that as stocks these are sexy), and thought I should diversify into consumer products, and solid waste management. (That last one is by my standards extremely sexy, but this is not the general view.) I of course looked at the numbers, but undergirding philosophical approach is to look at clothing companies with uncommonly ethical supply chains who don't market themselves that way.
I figure that if they're paying workers a fair wage, they're (1) probably less exposed to emerging markets, which shields me from China-sentiment swings, (2) are making good investments in future value and haven't put all their eggs in the basket of their continued ability to oppress labor and undercut everybody on prices, which I don't think is sustainable, and (3) aren't greenwashing and making their labor practices look good for the purposes of advertising, since that's not how their advertising is focused, plus aren't going to take a big hit if something bad does come to light, because that's not why people are buying their clothes.
I mean, I obviously also just like it if businesses don't oppress their labor, and that's a general guiding principle behind my purchases. But in this case I also think it is a clever way to evaluate a company's ability to sustain earnings. We shall see.
Also I specifically bought an amount of Canada Goose stock that is about what a used women's Canada Goose parka sells for on ebay, because it's going to make me laugh to think that I am co-using a feather's worth (optimistically) of everybody else's Canada Goose coats. It will maybe make the cold slightly more bearable if I am using part of everyone's warmest coats.
