It’s hard to believe, the first six months of 2017 are history. From an investor’s standpoint this has been great. The broad market, year-to-date through June 30th, is up 8.85 percent as measured by the Wilshire 5000.

The Dow Jones industrial average is up 9.35 percent, the Standard and Poor’s 500 is up 9.34 percent. Those two numbers are the closest I have seen in years.

The S&P Midcap 400 is up 5.99 percent and the Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks is up 4.99 percent. The Nasdaq Composite is up a roaring 14.07 percent.

These returns look kind of unusual to me. Normally the small and mid-sized stocks are running well ahead of the blue chips, not today.

Outside of the U.S. the EAFE index of foreign stocks is up about 13.8 percent well above the U.S. Again, all these stats are of June 30.

So, what does all this mean?

Part of it is The Donald. Companies and their leaders are feeling better and are optimistic. They feel like now there is no one standing in the way of companies being successful.

Regulations that almost stopped business expansion are slowly being removed.

This should translate to more profits. We shall see.

The Nasdaq is screaming along in part because stocks like Google up 46 percent YTD, Apple up 119 percent YTD and Amazon up an incredible 124 percent.

This trickles over to the S&P so those numbers are reflective of some of the high flyers. I’ve always said, I don’t care how they get there, just get there.

I like to look at commodities. Gold is interesting. It looks weaker to me. Gold is down almost 8 percent this year. It’s about $1,240 per ounce. It hit a high of $1,917 per ounce in August of 2011. The gold bugs have been hurting. That is a downturn of 35 percent.

Typically, gold is purchased by investors as a hedge on lower stock market prices. It seems that some don’t think the market is going down. Things change in a blink however. Natural gas is down over 18 percent this year.

I just purchased my winter supply of propane for my garage furnace and paid about 40 percent less than I paid last year. Crude oil is also weak down over 14 percent.

Lower gasoline prices are a result. The commodities that interest me a lot are things that we eat.

I like to eat. Wheat futures are up 50 percent, oats 23 percent, hogs 19 percent and cattle around 14 percent.

Futures down include orange juice down 30 percent, sugar 25, milk 12 and coffee down 11 percent.

People ask me what I think. I always stress that no one, including me, has a clue about what is going to happen.

Having said that, I do have a thought. “Everyone” thinks the market is going to go down or pull back.

Since “everyone” thinks that, maybe it won’t happen.

1. It seems to me that a big risk is geopolitical. Something could happen outside the U.S. to affect our market negatively. God forbid terrorist activities, wars, whatever. That could be an issue, things over which we have no control.

2. The U.S. economy could tank. Even at a growth rate of 2 percent, in the U.S. that 2 percent is billions and billions of dollars, that is not bad.

3. What if the president is right and those numbers improve markedly? Can you imagine what the stock market would do if those numbers went to say 4 percent?

I think you would have to get out of the way of the runaway train. But what do I know?

You could do what I do and that is to prepare for a downturn. Prepare for a Bear Market. I have no clue if it is going to happen, but I prepare BEFORE it happens.

Most of us are not comfortable being 100 percent invested in the stock market. What you might consider doing is investing whatever amount you are comfortable with.

Ask yourself the question: If the market goes down how much am I comfortable losing?

Let’s say the number is $50,000. If you have, and these are not hard and fast numbers, $250,000 in the stock market and the market goes down 20 percent there is your $50,000 loss. By the way, no one says it has to stop at 20.

4 Wife came into the Man Cave recently. Birthday was near.

I asked her “What would you like to have for your birthday?” She said “Nothing would make me happier than diamonds.” So, I got her nothing. She didn’t think that was funny.

[naviga:h3]Howie Pentony is a Portersville client portfolio manager.[/naviga:h3]