Here’s Why There's a Pumpkin Shortage

“We’re doing everything we can. … Every manufacturing facility in the country is running 24/7.”

John Rost is having a stressful 2020. He’s the vice president of global sustainability and regulatory affairs for Crown Holdings Inc., a national packaging supplier. In an interview with Slate, he called the pandemic a “perfect storm.”

The packaging industry wasn’t ready for the switch from large-format orders — supplying events and restaurants — to smaller packaging for at-home customers.

In that same interview, Crown Holdings projected that it would take another 6 to 12 months for manufacturers to catch up to demand. Retrofitting entire factories from making kegs to making cans takes time.

If you’ve been wondering why some grocery store shortages feel completely random — pumpkin, canned chicken, beer — this is likely the answer. Canning facilities are pushed to the brink.

Campbell’s and Progresso soup companies are even pausing production of some flavors to help streamline their offerings.

This tells us that any shortages we’re seeing could go on for a while yet. And it teaches us that a crisis isn’t always going to affect you the way you expect. That’s why you have to have a plan.

And as Alpha Investor Managing Editor Lina Lee showed readers last week, having ANY plan is better than NO plan at all.

Even the worst situations can hold a valuable lesson. The Winning Investor Daily team focused on the learning opportunities in the news this week:

The Dallas Cowboys’ historical upset over the weekend can teach us about managing our risks. Lina Lee tells the story of one sports bettor who bet the farm on the Cowboys to lose … only to lose it all himself. Read her article here.
The epic fall of Nikola Corporation (Nasdaq: NKLA) last week can teach us to appreciate Alpha Managers. Nicole Zdzieba, another of the Alpha Investor editors, tracked Nikola’s meteoric rise and fall. And she showed you how to avoid these frauds.
A snide comment about a cheap watch can teach us about prioritizing the important things. Former Barron’s No. 1 Trader Charles Mizrahi told a story from his fund management days. He showed readers that it doesn’t matter how you dress, it matters what you do.
This volatile week can teach us to ignore the hype. Master technical trader Chad Shoop cut through the noise and showed readers what was happening in one specific sector. He is excited about the move he sees coming in this particular group of stocks.

As Chad wrote about this week, part of being a good investor is ignoring the hype. The S&P 500 Index is down around 10% from its peak earlier this month.

But longtime readers of Winning Investor Daily know that we aren’t concerned.

How to Think About a Crisis

There are always risks to investing. But when we see healthy corrections in the market, it makes us more excited to invest, not less.

A correction like this one — which has been going on for three weeks now — pales in comparison to our long-term gains. We’re talking about buying businesses and holding on to them for years or more.

When you’re in a long-term mindset, the way that you think about the market changes. You begin to realize that small dips like this can be huge opportunities to buy more of the businesses that you like.

Of course, this correction could always turn into a crash. But those who have a long-term mindset handle crashes better, too.

In the crash of 2008, some of the best intelligent investors I know were positioning themselves to buy into new investments. They recognized that these situations are rare. The market was handing them the opportunity to buy businesses at massive discounts.

And when stocks ultimately rebounded, they were in a position to profit.

If they’d paid attention to the doom and gloom of the financial media at the time, they might not have achieved any of that. Some market commentators were calling for the end of the market as we knew it. They were saying that the entire country could collapse. They shouted up and down that everything could be going to zero.

But none of that happened. Instead, people worked together to steer the ship back to some semblance of normal.

And the smart investors were able to buy their favorite companies at a deep discount.

They had a plan and they executed it.

And Charles Mizrahi — an elite Alpha Investor who’s done this time and again — wants to show you how to do the same. Best of all, you don’t need four decades of Wall Street experience like Charles to start seeing a shot at big profits now … as in, today.

Just click here to see Charles’ explosive new video from the American Prosperity Summit. It may be the best thing you see all year.

Click here now for more.

Regards,