Now that November 2020 is completed, TMP is still comfortably in second place in “The Financial League”.

Gold fell back slightly. Our TMP house continued to appreciate; at least according to the estimates at Redfin, Zillow and Realtor.com:

Up $3,254 in one month?! That’s 1.4% in a month! That’s crazy!

But the stock market was up 12% in a month!! Our stock market index, “VTSAX – Total Stock Market Index Fund” went from $115,481 to $129,567. What if you had bought on margin? If you bought VTSAX on 50% margin in March of 2019 when the share price was $70.28 your $200,000 would have bought 2,846 shares (rounding up). You would have had to pay interest on the margin loan, say 6% for 18 months = $9,000. But your 2,846 shares would now be worth $259,156. Subtracting the $100,000 loan plus the accumulated $9,000 interest, you would be up $50,156 beating TMP and Gold. You made 50% over 18 months!

But’s lets look at the downside. In March of 2020, VTSAX fell to $62.45 per share. Your 2,846 shares would have been worth $177,732. This would certainly have triggered a margin call.

Would you have been able to resist the urge to sell and put up more money? Probably not. Most people are risk averse and would take their loss and sell.
I faced a margin call and I folded and sold.

Long, long ago; 1981 to be exact, I bought 30-year US Treasury bonds (if the term is longer than 10 years, it’s a “bond”, not a note) on 90% margin.

Finally, last month we gave advice on what to do in an uncertain environment of the election:

I write this on Monday evening, the 2nd of November 2020, the day before the 2020 Presidential Election. I will give my analysis of the election and what to do at the end of this post.

Who is will win the election and what should we do?
The answer to both is:

“Buy a field”

In Jeremiah 32 the Prophet Jeremiah is prophesying that the Babylonians will conquer Jerusalem, kill most of the inhabitants, take the remainder into exile in Babylon (Boney M – Rivers of Babylon – 1978) and leave a remnant in Judea (who will also abandon the Lord).

Surprisingly enough, we’re still uncertain. Who knows what the remainder of this crazy 2020 will bring?
God knows: