The stock market has been steadily climbing lately, now that most states have been re-opening. Today’s close (6/5/20) was a +829.16 gain. This brings my Wall Street Holdings back to where they were before I made any gains and before I suffered any losses. Which means, I’m back to Ground Zero. I’ll take it!

Also, the unemployment figure was a surprise to almost everyone with a rate of 13.3%. I guess when you’re expecting 20% unemployment, anything less than that is a good deal. The US economy added 2.5 million jobs which probably almost equals the amount of jobs lost. Almost. (Click here for more info)

“This number is higher than I (Keris Lahiff, author of this article) would have predicted. Most daily data that we have for the economy, though, show that it hit bottom around April 15 and has been partially rebounding since then. I thought the employment would lag a little bit more than it has. It’s hard to predict right now because the gross flows are so large — lots and lots of people are losing jobs, lots and lots of people are gaining jobs. Trying to pick the net of that is hard. One thing that is a little bit discouraging in this report — there’s a lot to be encouraged about in this report — is the number of people on temporary layoff fell by 2.7 million in May. That means the entirety of the job gains was people being recalled, and in some sense, we’d still have a very, very high unemployment rate even if everyone was recalled to their jobs.”

I always said that if the Stock Market recovered and just returned my seed money, I’d pull the whole darn thing out and invest it somewhere else. I didn’t do that today. Because I think the market is going to start doing extremely well as our economy recovers. My choice. Let’s see what happens. My Wall Street holdings only amount to just 8% to 10% of my entire portfolio. The profit these holdings earn me, I use towards our annual vacays. I’ve already booked for 2021. Aren’t I the ever-hopeful type? Yup. You have to have hope. And I do.

In the interim, I’ve still been preparing as if the world was coming to an end. I’ve been stockpiling canned beans, dried beans and several varieties of rice (mostly white jasmine). These products can last in your pantry for years. I also started buying freeze dried foods, such as eggs, milk and some fruits and veggies. They’re expensive, so I buy a few items per month while I build up my stockpile.

My garden is coming along. I saved that peach tree. She’s doing very well. All the seedlings, however didn’t do well. Everything I started from seed, in little containers, such as the different tomato varieties, eggplant and rosemary did NOT grow at all. It’s as if they were stuck in a time warp. The seeds that I planted directly into the ground did amazingly well. Go figure!

With the growing season progressing, I couldn’t wait any longer and went out and bought the veggies already started and grown. Because I waited so long in the initial growing season, I didn’t have much of a selection. I was only able to plant regular tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and the standard eggplant.

Oh well. Refunds coming my way! Have a great weekend.