Francisco Jose Ortiz @FranciscoOrtiz13: "A few weeks ago, fear..."

Georgia

A few weeks ago, fear was everywhere. Today, the S&P 500 is back at all-time highs. That is how markets work. They don’t wait for perfect clarity. They move when uncertainty starts to fall. And that is exactly what we have seen in the last two weeks. The Middle East conflict has not been solved. But the market is now pricing less uncertainty than before, thanks to ceasefire extensions, peace talks, and the idea that the worst-case scenario may be avoided. That change in expectations has been enough for stocks to recover fast, erase the losses, and push the S&P 500 back to record highs. This is why so many new investors feel lost right now. Last month everything was falling. Today the market looks strong again. They ask the usual question: should I invest more now, or wait? The problem is that this question assumes we can reliably predict these turns. We can’t. The S&P 500 spends a surprisingly large part of its life near all-time highs, so waiting for the “perfect moment” usually means doing nothing, or buying later at a higher price. Yes, buying last month would have been better than buying now. But nobody knows that with certainty in real time. Investing is a game of probabilities, not clairvoyance. That is why our process does not change. We stay focused on the long term. We stay globally diversified. And we keep allocating capital to high-quality leading businesses instead of trying to guess every short-term move. The market will always find new reasons to panic and new reasons to rally. If your strategy depends on predicting both, you are playing a very hard game. On the geopolitical side, I think it is important to stay neutral and factual. The conflict in the Middle East remains dangerous. Oil is still elevated, inflation risks are still real, and bond markets have not recovered as cleanly as equities. What changed is not that the region suddenly became safe. What changed is that investors now see a higher probability of de-escalation than they did at the peak of the panic. That distinction matters. Markets can rally even while the underlying situation is still fragile. At a portfolio level, I also try to learn from what I see on the ground. Last year, after seeing the Chinese economic transformation with my own eyes (traveling there twice), I became much more bullish on China. It’s one thing to read about it. It’s another to actually experience the scale, the infrastructure, and the pace of execution 🤯 Now, after spending time again in LatAm after a few years away, I’m starting to feel something similar about Brazil 🤓 Part of that is valuation. Part of that is sentiment. And part of that is political optionality: Brazil heads into an election cycle where the possibility of a more market-friendly government is starting to be priced in. We also saw it in real time during the recent volatility. While most assets were falling during the escalation in the Middle East, $PBR.A (Petroleo Brasileiro ADR) was one of the few positions in the portfolio that kept going up strongly, benefiting from higher energy prices and global demand. That kind of behavior matters. Not just at the company level, but at the portfolio level. Because this is what real diversification looks like: when one part of the world struggles, another one behaves differently. If US markets and the USD weaken, we are not fully exposed to that risk. We have exposure to China, Brazil, and other emerging markets, with different economic drivers, currencies, and cycles. This is not about predicting which region will outperform next. It is about building a portfolio that does not depend on a single outcome. At the same time, Brazil has real structural strengths. Brazil is the only large democracy in the world that is simultaneously a food superpower, a water superpower, an energy superpower, a mineral superpower, and a carbon superpower, with export routes that do not depend on any contested strait or chokepoint. My view is simple: $NU (Nu Holdings Ltd.) looks like a very interesting opportunity here, and to a lesser extent $MELI (MercadoLibre Inc) as well. Brazil gives me a mix I like: quality companies, improving sentiment, and upside if politics turn even slightly more market-friendly. I’m not saying it will be a straight line. Brazil never is. But long-term investing is not about finding easy countries. It is about finding good probabilities. Patience matters. Discipline matters. And maybe most of all, emotional stability matters. In March, many people wanted to sell because everything looked broken. Now many of the same people feel they missed it and want to chase. Both impulses come from the same place: short-term emotion. That is exactly what we try to avoid. To everyone who follows and especially to those who keep trusting me with their capital through the ups and downs: thank you. Green months are easy. Red months are where trust is tested. We keep doing the same thing: staying rational, staying diversified, and staying focused on the long term.

Not investment advice. The author may have financial interests in the mentioned instruments.

3 Mentioned

PBR.A

Petroleo Brasileiro ADR

Nu Holdings Ltd.

MELI

MercadoLibre Inc

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