I saw this sign in a diner Friday night while watching an new series called Alaskan Daily (with Hillary Swank). I found it appropriate for SOH, as well as the Alaskan bear image in the foreground.
Good reminders for the all Slopers, with an election cycle approaching. I would hate to see the SOH membership list get off target of the more important thing, namely the markets That is where our focus needs to be. There is the HUGE potential if we Slopers collectively get it right. Let me offer an example.
Back in 2008, with the help of being on a list called RealTraders (RT) I was able to just that. In the late spring of 2008 (mid-May) one person made a bold call (let’s call him Ben). He had a good past track record on the very occasional prior calls he had made. When the S&P was around 1375 (following the peak at 1550+ October 2007), he posted very strongly to liquidate everything to cash including your 401ks. He said the market was going to 800-875, short and sweet with no elaboration. It literally was a two line comment.
I had corresponded with Ben off list on occasion and with such a bold call I emailed him asking basically Ben are you serious? He reply was firmly, YES! Followed by Get out NOW! I exited everything around 1350 (early June). I watched, sitting in cash, for the market to continue downward and downward until it bottomed in March 2009 at 666. He made a few later comments on the way down, reaffirming the direction, then that was the last we ever heard from him.
I never knew what his job was, he did say his wife worked in the financial industry in NYC and that she had liquidated everything (in earlier posts). He also said that he lived in Long Island. Much later I later heard from another trader on RT that he left the USA to live in South America, Argentina or Brazil. She was still emailing him.
My point is simple, one person, helped me miss almost the entire 2008-2009 stock market collapse. Had I not been on that list, I am confident I would have been harmed as many traders were, not considering where this market might be possibly going. I had missed the 2000-2002 collapse feeling things were massively over-valued, good for me, but missing the second one was purely the luck that I was on RT.
SOH has many, many good traders, with varying approaches and techniques. There is more than one way to skin a cat as DaButcher might hate to say. Of all times, for the next few months or longer, lets follow the wisdom of the sign, as much as possible, so collectively we get it right. As the other sign says….
