You can blame "easy money" for the strong run in stocks this year.  You can talk about stocks being the “only game in town.” You can figure out that companies are stronger than ever because business is just so damn strong.

Me? I think that these spoken “excuses” led so many people off-track that they serve as reminders that a good stock market is ... good, not bad,  as so many talking heads go on TV and try to scare you every day.

We live in a Cinderella world (to throw in some Disney stuffs) where so many people expect midnight to change everything from hopeful to disastrous. The repetitive resurgence of multiple Covid variants made owning stocks seem like a worthless yet risky game, when it turned out that selling was that kind of game. People who tried to call the top on the market since last year have sat on their couch and watched the S&P500 rallied 28%.

Will 2022 be any different? Certainly. The Fed won’t be as easy. The bankers and SPAC-holics will keep pumping out junk stocks of pre-revenue companies -- a phrase that I love so much that refers to companies that haven't sold ANY product yet, let alone returning profits to shareholders. Most of the companies that have gone public in recent years and are loved by young investors are conceptual. I have said perhaps too many times that 2022 will be the year of the tangible, practical and profitable -- it will be the year of companies that have made things, have sold those things, and have high profits.

Why I like the market's set-up for 2022

I like the set-up for 2022 because so many don’t. I like it because the opportunities to buy winners are too great, and because so many companies will prove to have stocks that are too low, especially names that we already own like Ford (F), the banks like Morgan Stanley (MS) and Wells Fargo (WFC), the Covid-recovery stocks like Disney (DIS) and Boeing (BA). I like it because I believe the omicron Covid-19 variant blows through the nation quickly with few deaths and more people joining the workforce. I also think that supply chain issues will resolve themselves as we re-open throughout the world, inflation numbers will come down so we will wonder how tight the Fed really needs to be.

How about growth/tech? Well, there's not much to like because of the garbage Wall Street has been pumping out. I continue to giggle at the phrase "pre-revenue." Beware of anything that sells at a “times sales” valuation.

And once again, we will hear about how overvalued FAANG and friends are, with judgments offered by those who don't know what these companies do.

Could it all come crashing down? I hope it does, so we can buy stocks even cheaper than they are. You know we always like to keep a big cash position.

We will have to soldier through the self-inflicted travails of Boeing (BA), albeit our recent step-in is at the price that has already discounted most of the bad news. We will continue to endure the pain in Disney (DIS) as we have been for the past 2 months. It is starting to look like the worst is behind us, our relentless battling of this stock has made in so that we're only down 6% from our cost-basis, despite the stock being down 23% from its 52-week high. The chance for Omicron to blow through will make Disney a decent risk.

Remember, I mention the bad ones because the good ones like Ford (F) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) (which we have >20% gains) take care of themselves.

If you asked me what the most exciting thing for 2022 will be, it’s simple: the continued chance to learn for myself and share with subscribers how to manage their own portfolios. I want us all to be better at analysis, at thought and at discipline; to be more rigorous and uncomplacent. 

With that, have a Happy New Year, and I will see you in 2022.