From the heights of the 9th Floor office, Cain Hammond Thaler glares out across the sky. I tear the shirt from my back and roar out with fury, the sound of my rage crashing against the landscape, echoing back at myself, carrying meek messages to my ears.
Cain mocks the gods, and dares them to continue this beating!
I was going to post some real bearish doomspittery …I’m talking about some seriously depressing DOW 0 lamentations. I was going to strip you of all hope and send you into the barren dessert on a 40 year pilgrimage of woe. Self-flagellation and tears were to be in the plentiful supply; cheer and optimism nil.
And then I looked up the DOW going back as far as I could. I looked up the S&P going back as far as I could. I looked up the NASDAQ too.
How weak are we!?
What is this selloff, next to seven years ago? We are having a little bear market because we get a bear market about every seven years with very high confidence. I know this, because my initial strategy from a few years ago was to be in cash by now…before I got ultra greedy making 200% in oil stocks and charged head first into my own demise. I’ll find the posts later where I laid this out and link to them.
The prophesiers of doom keep reading those burned entrails, more insistent than ever that their last 1,000 failed prophesies are just circumstantial. Not evidence of anything.
In 2014-15 yes it is true that the wall of our home has sagged in. In 2009, the roof of our house collapsed on our heads. Tell me, what terrible unforeseen disaster has the market missed which equates to that? Why am I expected to run screaming from a little wall which needs propping up when I already experienced the whole thing coming down on top of me?
Black swans happen to comfortable people in states of sloth. This market has been hyper alert, looking for the next BIG ONE every day for seven years. How afraid can I be that we’ve missed something huge when everyone is constantly looking so hard and so diligently?
BIG ONE happens when you aren’t looking. When practically no one is looking. When rules of thumb become adopted as incontrovertible LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE. Where is any of that happening?
Even such staples as “don’t fight the Fed” are questioned daily. There is an entire 24/7 cottage industry dedicated to fighting the Fed. Nothing they say is taken seriously and we have had frequent periods of high short selling going back to 2008.
With so much energy dedicated to inspecting the structure and so little commitment one way or another in terms of outlook, how do we have the potential to collapse?
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Great post. The Big One has always come after massive public participation in one way or another. I imagine it’ll be a long time before public psychology gets back to that point again. In the meanwhile, corrections happen.
Agree wholeheartedly which is why I am poised to go all in on with long term cash as soon as the “bottom is in” which should be soon. The draw downs in HCLP have hurt though, I bought that one to soon.