It's Monday.
Or, as I like to call it these days, 'The day we get to find out the financial cost of Donald Trump's weekend tweets'.
More often than not, Mondays are expensive.
The only positive — if you squint and look from a distance — is that it's rarely a surprise. We usually know by Saturday morning or Sunday at the latest.
For some, the extra time only means more fretting. For others, the 'at least we know' factor is valuable.
It's got to the point where the content of the tweets is almost not worth worrying about, so regular is their cadence and caustic is their tone.
"Oh well, here we go again" is probably the best response.
Oh, it's frustrating and unnecessary. And the volatility is both unwelcome and self-inflicted.
But here we are. Thanks, Mr President.
Even my usual response: "Don't worry, this happens and will pass" has been given so often, it could start to feel passe.
How many times can you write the same thing about variations on the same theme?
If I was a newspaper journo or sub-editor, at least I'd know not to worry about needing to fill column inches on Mondays. Just keep an eye on Twitter over the weekend, and you'd have your lead story.
Which is fine when you're in the 'what' business.
But when you're in the 'so what' business? Well, it's getting harder to keep it fresh, honestly.
For the record, the 'so what' is the same as it's been in weeks pass. Here's the short version:
— Trump is out of his depth and jeopardising US and global economic prosperity.
— Markets are fearful of the impact.
— Volatility comes not from long-term investors who know that this is all short- or medium-term, but from those who are trying to make money by guessing tomorrow's moves, and who overreact accordingly
— For the investor, who is long-term by nature, there are so many 'maybe, finally, this time it'll matter' moments — most of which don't come to pass — that the best bet is to embrace what's worked in the past: invest anyway and ride the waves
That's precisely what I intend to do, this week and next.
Invest.
Buy shares in companies where the price is cheap, relative to my assessment of long term value.
At the moment, I'm thinking that'll be a combination of beaten down companies whose future isn't as bad as the market thinks, and growth companies whose future is stronger than the market things.
In other words, value and growth, respectively.
Except that, if you re-read that paragraph, they're the same thing. Don't tell the ideologues, but there's no difference between 'too pessimistic' and 'not optimistic enough'.
In both cases, you buy because you think the shares are worth more than the market thinks they're worth.
No wonder Warren Buffett said:
"Most analysts feel they must choose between two approaches customarily thought to be in opposition: "value" and "growth." Indeed, many investment professionals see any mixing of the two terms as a form of intellectual cross-dressing.
"We view that as fuzzy thinking (in which, it must be confessed, I myself engaged some years ago). In our opinion, the two approaches are joined at the hip: Growth is always a component in the calculation of value, constituting a variable whose importance can range from negligible to enormous and whose impact can be negative as well as positive"
That's going to make a lot of people uncomfortable.
The diehard value mob won't let go of the pre-enlightenment Buffett.
The staunch growth mob would rather give up investing than admit they might share something in common with Uncle Warren.
Life, dear reader, isn't black or white. It's not goodies and baddies, like The Donald would have you believe.
And it's not Value or Growth.
Ignore the Tweeter-in-Chief, when it comes to your investing. And ignore others who can only see the world one way.
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
But in the land of the investor, using both eyes is a much better strategy.
