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If You’re Looking for ‘Safety,’ Try This

by | May 2, 2022 | Stocks

It’s gearing up to be another crazy trading week…

All of the Cathie Wood growth stocks were up Monday morning and some big companies are set to report earnings. Here’s a handy little chart to help cover your bases…

Chart of companies reporting earnings this week

The problem with trading right now is it’s hard to feel confident holding positions for more than a few hours. There are just too many unknowns…

A stock can look like the greatest play ever one minute, and then a total dog the next. So swing trading has become super difficult. 

Take Mosaic Co. (NYSE: MOS) for example… 

Stock chart of MOS

It was a fantastic stock for most of the year and now I wouldn’t look twice at it. It was a defensive stock, a flight to safety. Now it’s junk. Same with Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE: FCX), which had also been a market darling this year until the past couple of weeks… when it’s gotten crushed… 

Stock chart of FCX

So people are scrambling for safety. But I also wouldn’t look to bonds…

I see bonds like the iShares 20 Plus Year Treasury Bond ETF (Nasdaq: TLT) continuing to fall. TLT has gotten no bid of late and we’ve seen some call buying in ProShares UltraShort 20 Plus Year Treasury (NYSEArca: TBT), which is the inverse of TLT (so it goes up when TLT goes down). Bonds are usually a flight to safety but with interest rates on the rise, that’s not the case anymore. 

So it’s hard to be bullish on TLT right now. 

If you want “safety,” you can try looking at Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) — yes, a tobacco company — instead of TLT.

And for good reason… 

With seemingly everything pointing to an economic slowdown at best and a recession at worst, people will be stressed. And when people are stressed, they smoke more and drink more. 

It’s just a fact of life, and one of the “safest” bets you can make during times of such uncertainty. 

WRITTEN BY<br>Lance Ippolito

WRITTEN BY
Lance Ippolito

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