The Stock Market Through The Eyes of Jeremy Bentham

Anyone who went forth and procured equities this week has been deemed a ne’er-do-well by the soulless algorithms who have decidedly turned a cold cheek to the equity complex.  Ahead of the holiday weekend, it is my duty to bring you market commentary.  I have been summoned from my phone booth and it is with a heavy heart I bring somber news.  The equity complex is going to rehab.

I like pleasuring myself to stock market gains as much as the next fellow.  Each day I strive to rattle my bones by pressing risk right to the edge of intestinal tolerance.  When the sword of youth swings in your favor, ignorance helps you boldly traverse hazardous landscapes–sashaying down urban streets clutching a heater, pressing your life savings into leveraged ETFs, and consuming a variety of high-grade stimulants.  Eventually the way of the hedonist catches up and you either die or go to rehab.  But you must preserve your legacy by all means necessary.

The stock market is a complicated derivative of man.  We attempt to understand it with numbers, and its movements represent the collective actions of its participants.   The greatest quantity of participants are long.  They are long via money they chipped away from corporate boulders one meaningless hammer swing at a time.  They are invested in its continued success and only check on the drug addicts of Wall Street a few times a year.  They are concerned with the recent behavior.  I am too.

The good news is the common investor is worried.  If these recent actions didn’t yield 5-6 phone calls and 20 letters from friends, enemies, and family then I would wonder if death is our market’s fate.  No, instead investors were hit with a wake up call.  Unbridled gains have been put on hold.  The fastest horses have been stabled and we now share the town mule.

This will take time.  Let the children re-acclimate to school.  Soon adults will return to their maniacal pursuit of happiness via spending hundreds of dollars on Halloween costumes and party favors.  This is when they’ll begin neglecting their troubled teen (the stocked market) and all hell can break loose again.