This week is the calm before the storm of speculation that will churn around what the January inflation data might be, what that data might cause the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bankgo Sentral ng Pilipinas to do, and what that might do to this wobbly-kneed baby bull market that we’ve found ourselves with.
Today, the Union Bank [UBP 87.5 4.3%] SRO goes on sale, and the offer period will run until next Friday.
On Wednesday, the Haus Talk [HTI 0.9] shares owned by the Madlambayan Family will come out of lockup and become fully tradable.
We could also see the PSE’s approval of the Upson International [UPSON] IPO application, but that would probably be later in the week if it happens.
If it doesn’t happen, then I’d expect UPSON’s tentative listing date of March 7 might be pushed back.
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I can’t remember the time that I’ve felt this much market euphoria mixed with this much long-term uncertainty.
Actually, that’s not true.
While I know the inputs are entirely different, this feels an awful lot like the early days of that Q4/20 pump just before the Delta lockdowns, and the Q4/21 to Q1/22 pump just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine kicked off a period of absolute inflationary chaos in the global economy.
I’m not predicting this baby bull will turn out to be a trap, and that my feelings mean that some Big Bad will happen.
I’m just saying that I’m not yet willing to stick my neck out on market-wide bets just yet with all these moving parts still moving as they are.
I’m willing to make certain bets on certain stocks in certain sectors, but that feels like a repeat of the COVID recovery investment environment, doesn’t it?
This tide might lift all the boats... at least for now.
I’m just saying that I’m staying careful, but the market is right far more often than I am, so I’ll just patiently wait for it to tell me how I was wrong.
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