October Picks and Bitcoin

 

Mid October, 2022 and heating costs are in people's minds as the weather will turn colder eventually but for now, it's unusually mild weather in Atlantic Canada. My best time of the year compared to the hot muggy days of mid summer.

Heating or Furnace Oil is big in the news where the cost has shot way up for those folks using furnaces. OPEC cutting back production and it seems reserves around the world are lower than normal plus the Ukraine-Russia conflict with Russia, one of the biggest oil producers in the world plus natural gas, has practically shut off distribution to Europe ... is the cause of extra expense for many on top of inflation costs.

Moving to the stock world, which moves from a bullet train up one day to plunging even farther down as investors debate what's going on with national and world issues from day to day although there is no change that I see from when Central Bankers started hiking interest rates to reign in inflation and the price of oil, which remains king in rolling markets at times. 

Electric everything in transportation is slowly catching up but will still take years, decades to equal and surpass the need for oil overall.

No change with me adding to oil related, banking and telecom stocks along with their decent cash dividends they provide to holders. The BTSX current 10 stocks covers all that and more. 

The BTSX stock line up changes with price and yield percentages but looking at the top twenty in the TSX top 60 by dividend yield ... there are some great picks in my opinion.

In the crypto world, new coins, (block) chains and related sites continue to surface and attract the high risk takers looking for the big score. Many also attract the wrong element like Hackers that are more in the news than ever. It seems to be easy picking for them to manipulate prices and take out millions at a time. 

Now some sites have "bridges" people can use to jump from one chain to another with their crypto but like the old story about the Troll under the Bridge, hackers wait and divert millions in coin there as well.

I had my time in the early days of crypto exploring the newer coins and some I came ahead with while others were a clear pre-arranged pump and dump scheme.

These days I stick to Bitcoin and Ether, which are both down from what seems to be there average price these months ... 20 grand for Bitcoin and $1300 to $1400 for Ether .. in those ranges. They'll probably come up to those ranges once again when the stock world gets a tad more positive than it's been lately ... like the upbeat start of October, that fizzled quickly.

 

Thanksgiving 2022

Heading into the long Thanksgiving Day weekend here in Canada, the stock markets started strong in the first full week of October, 2022. But, fell back after a couple days where optimism gave way to that there is no real change with the issues like inflation and interest rate hikes among others in the final quarter of the year.

It's no doubt safer to keep funds in cash during these volatile times but where I seek cash dividends from companies and banks, I prefer the lower cost of stocks during these times. Eventually, things will be more positive again, Probably well into 2023 from the latest news but current events can change quickly and on the fly.

So far these past weeks, Bitcoin keeps coming back to the 20 grand range with it's highs and lows. Kind of more stable than stocks these days ... but it can get into that volatile mood as well without notice.

I follow both Markets on a daily basis although after I research and but a stock or ETF, I keep it long term for the dividends and reassess probably every 6 months or so. 

I continue to focus on energy, pipeline related and banks this year. With the recent OPEC production cut and oil rising in price, oil companies are raking in more cash which makes the dividends they pass onto investors safer while some forecast higher dividends going forward ...  depending on what companies. Names like Enbridge, TC Energy Corp and Fortis come to mind of the many out there and across the border into the US.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about the wearing of the Mask, started when the Covid hit us in 2020.

I can't recall a sore throat, cold or flu during that time, wearing the Mask when in shops, etc. I've stopped wearing it the last few weeks and boom, got flattened with a congested chest and sore throat. Cold Meds are back in high demand. I can certainly see it makes a difference wearing the Mask during our annual fall flu season and specially when the kids are back in school, which tends to spread it faster.

However, the world has moved on from the covid although it's still all around us and back to the coughs and sniffles with colder days after a hot and muggy summer.