Perhaps it is just me, but it seems as if bull markets are bad for blogging.
Blog traffic typically spikes as the market enters a correction and swoons near tops in the market. That cycle makes sense as who needs financial advice when just about everything is going higher?
The other problem with blogging during bull markets is that blogger restlessness brought on by the relentless march higher typically leads to calling tops – prematurely, in most cases. Sure, it drives traffic, but soothsaying people out of the market while the bull is still charging only furthers one of the primary reasons for investor under-performance: the tendency to sell winners too early and to hold losers too long.
Honestly, I have grown to miss a good 10% correction.
How about this. Is it too much to ask for just regular little pullbacks? Not only have they been presenting great buying opportunities, but they also get the ol’ creative blogging juices flowing.
Or, I could just succumb to the restlessness and run some tests to see if this rally is getting long in the tooth…
Fully understand what you’re saying.
“So, um, today I sat around, drank some coffee, didn’t actually do anything productive, and made a shit ton of money anyway.
To pass the time, I then went out to Twitter to be condescending to people less lucky than me.”
lol. Exactly!
Surprise-bull markets like this are also hell for overly cautious investors like myself.
I sold a bunch of positions up to the fiscal cliff deadline at the end of 2012, and also bought and sold many securities in February, fearing the pullback.
I only have one position left, in INTC that’s in the red, but I just need it move up another $0.25 and I’ll break even after the dividend. The stock should not be moving up since PC sales are continuing to decline, no thanks to Microsoft’s schizophrenic operating system Windows 8 causing confusion in the market.
I want a pullback real bad, so I can get back in. But that pullback does not care, or does not exist right now…
“Surprise-bull markets like this are also hell for overly cautious investors like myself. ”
It has been going since 2009. Surprise!
Have you tried regressing page views to the market? I think Fly once said he could see a correlation. And I remember a gold fund manager claiming he could call tops and bottoms in gold just by counting how many people were asking for info on opening accounts.
I guess given the choice between sheer terror and boredom in the markets I’ll pick boredom.
Thought about it, yes. Never took the time to try it.
I stopped blogging around 2011 as my traffic continued declining. I still do it for fun every now and then and I have noticed others seem to blog less as well… Now what does one blog about during bull market?
To increase blog traffic make dramatic statements about the fed and call the top once a week.
Yep! That’ll work…it just doesn’t work for me.
wonderful post, very informative. I wonder why the other experts of this sector do not realize this. You must proceed your writing. I’m confident, you’ve a huge readers’ base already!