Postcards: The Year in Review... and the Week Ahead

It was a very important lesson for me on the fly this year - as my initial prediction for the S&P 500 didn't come close. But sentiment shifted in March - and we're now ready to take advantage.

Dear Fellow Expat:

I compiled a portfolio of mean reversion stocks at the start of 2023.

I sold calls on most of them by using covered calls out for a few months.

My top pick, Skywest (SKYW), finished the year up 217%.

But readers only walked away with about an 18% gain. Lesson learned. I won’t do that again… at least when our Equity Strength Signals are positive.

SKYW took off like a jet (fitting since it’s an airline company).

Meanwhile, my prediction for the S&P 500 - initially around 3,450, didn’t come close.

A few critical things happened… and I changed my outlook by March 2023.

Primarily, the markets started 2023 with a flurry of central bank interventions.

We noted in March that the proverbial bottom for the market was last October 2022.

In addition to various pivots by central banks - particularly the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England in October 2022, the markets received multiple jolts from the People’s Bank of China with its COVID-19 reopening and a batch of support fro…