Agree 100%, Charlie.
See: Buy in May and Stay Invested
Now, I am not of that ilk personally. My closely held biases are that a) the market’s cycles can be interpreted and managed (although my bias also has led me astray at times, in my execution) and b) that the economy, and by extension the markets, are not normal; not your grandpa’s economy and markets because they are ginned and steroidally goosed by off-the-charts (i.e. experimental) central bank meddling. That’s my bias in line with my entire history of public writing since 2004.
So I am not a stock market apologist, bull wise guy or ‘buy ‘n hold stocks for the long’ run tout. But I am the guy who is frequently nonplussed about the mainstream media fanning the flames of investor/trader sentiment during inflammatory news cycles. As Charlie says “it is their job to entertain” and “your job to ignore”.
But this applies not only in the major media. It applies to the minor media as well. Led by ZeroHedge, a whole raft of blogs and other entities are going to fan your flames with all sorts of opinionated, agenda driven or just plain biased information. And what Charlie has right is that it is absolutely imperative to tune it the hell out. That is because the bias never changes because it is promoting emotional viewpoints, promoting sides, teams. In the market the only side is the right side, whether your little heart of hearts agrees with it or not. (more…)
begin this post by again noting publicly that feel like I clowned myself yesterday in my own trading and in my lack of attention to the market at a critical point (couldn’t really be helped, but it’s the results that matter). Despite a market doing generally as expected, I was not really prepared. My macro views often prove right on while my own execution can shall we say, vary. It’s why I tell