My market statement for today is: hold. Many people will panic-sell to take minor profits or cut their losses. It’s fine to sell if you lost confidence, but don’t panic-sell an investment you conducted due diligence on. The markets will rally soon. Measured “reopening” of pandemic-related restrictions is beginning (for example, 1/3 of British adults are vaccinated). This will boost global commerce in the short term. As the world’s largest economies stamp out the high prevalence of COVID-19, we will see an even greater rally.

We will see a huge stock market drop in 2021 or 2022, in the meanwhile we should see dips like the present one. I suggest working on diversification of your portfolio and East Asia is looking very good. Check out Korean ETFs, like EWY (24% of its holdings are in Samsung), for instance, and any other funds that give you Asian exposure. Watch the 1/22/2021 Jeremy Grantham video interview on Bloomberg where he talks about the impending crash, irrationality of the markets and its actors, and investment diversification ideas.

Beware of Chinese company ETFs. I researched this investment option because I wanted to get in on the booming market—consumer spending is going up and tech co’s are growing rapidly—but investment options are sketchy. You cannot actually invest directly in Chinese companies, as the government prohibits this activity. Yet there are ETFs like MCHI listing holdings of Chinese heavyweights like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD. Here’s the rub, these aren’t holdings in actual Chinese businesses, they are holdings in shell companies called Variable Interest Entities (VIEs). Enron also used this structure. Read more on the Globescan Capital website.