Even though I'm not a particularly social creature, I'm in touch with a lot of different people. They come from all walks of life, and all sorts of social stations. They range from students who can't afford their rent to billionaire entrepreneurs; they range from savvy-well read investors to people whose idea of a newspaper is USA Today. So I talk to a lot of different folks.
My general impression these days is that the ones who have done the best in 2009, and who are most optimistic that Things Are All Right Now, are at the low end of the IQ scale, or at least the experience & knowledge scale. Now, I know what some of you are thinking: "Oh, Lordy, poor old Tim has resorted to name-calling, since 2009 has been such a stinker." Nope. Sometimes the well-read and experienced make the money. Sometimes the dummies do.
I think the people throwing money into crap NASDAQ companies in the late 1990s were really dumb. They also got really rich. The stock market is not an IQ test. I believe one's results in the market are a direct reflection of who you are as a person (which is a combination of intellect, temperament, experience, discipline, knowledge, etc.) and what the market is at that particular point in human history. Sometimes the market agrees with a person; sometimes the market does not. This year, the market hasn't agreed with me.
Of course, our collective goal is to be as market-neutral as possible. If the dumb people are making money, great, then be dumb! Think dumb, dream dumb, and act dumb. But that's far easier said than dumb (pun intended).
Because, as I've beaten to death all year, most of the rise in equity prices has been from artificial means (use yesterday's ~25% gains in FNM and FRE as a microcosm of 2009). There are exceptions. I think AAPL, AMZN and GOOG, for instance, are sensational organizations that are printing money, and God bless 'em for being real businesses with real products, real customers, and real profits. But – and I'll say this as passively as I can muster – my view is that equities are not undervalued. To say the least.
But the dumb, overvalued market in December 1999 kept rocketing higher into 2000 for another ten weeks, and who am I to say it won't continue here? But I'm a chartist, if nothing else, and the charts I'm finding – and shorting – are bearish plays. I'm not going to buy Amazon because it has had a good 2009 (nor am I going to short it, by the way).
I do my job one day at a time, one chart at a time, and I have to be real with myself, for better or worse. To thine own self be true.
