Our net worth dropped to $47,070 by 4.26% and in EUR by 4.69% to 41,990€ in the month of May.
Apparently, I own all the stocks that are effected by the ongoing trade conflicts with China, Germany and Mexico, and I was duly punished for it. Eventually, I assume there will be a resolution, but it's not fun while it's happening. But my hope of reaching 50k will be put of for some time now.
Stock Price Kill Switch
A phenomenon I've also noticed in the last year is this: some stocks seem to almost have a kill switch, where someone somewhere declares the trade done, and the stock sells off sharply and consistently over the course of a month or so. It's wild when this happens, and I've seen this happen multiple times in the past year. Eventually, the stock hits some value and then sits there, but the decisiveness and steadiness of the selloff suggests that it's computers somewhere making the decision. It just doesn't look like the actions of a human being, and there was no obvious news event that prompted the move.
Here's one example:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipdD7XawWPteUl4zjLAudJwuYG8GVz369NQksIWA794Mlpbm2BPinkNR6fBBkuW_083uxGnp1Nq958ikyzYPmM4HrU7owb5naybHHOTYgVWWao7gJKWZUvXMepw3WkLq7Duk689n96c0M/s320/SellOffOne.png)
And here's another, possibly still in sell off mode:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRzFiaMI8IQdkPECP4kXvB7is67RDLrw4m5GI7-IDilWPnnxkULbkT0KToKNvAR1IczOzqCPWtS9KonQPWx1TlXAMQf7s2ujoEqgK6AMR8by4zXENbZ__SBJE6bKoTnIjeXZsaokXQKnw/s320/SellOff2.png)
Why not sell these myself? So far, they haven't violated my sell rules, so I'll just hold them, and hope that in the fullness of time, their purchase will have been worth it.
As I said in previous entries in this series, our savings rate is going to be reduced for a while. So while global securities are experiencing a downturn, I'm left out from buying at the lower prices in any meaningful amounts.