Aug
9
Mr. Market as The Trickster, from Larry Williams
August 9, 2008 |
You can allude to the mistress or gods of the markets, but the best analogy I have found comes from American Indians who honor the coyote; some tribes saw the coyote as a god, most all label a coyote as "the trickster".
"The Trickster alternately scandalizes, disgusts, amuses, disrupts, chastises, and humiliates (or is humiliated by) the animal-like proto-people of pre-history, yet he is also a creative force transforming their world, sometimes in bizarre and outrageous ways, with his instinctive energies and cunning. Eternally scavenging for food, he represents the most basic instincts, but in other narratives, he is also the father of the Indian people and a potent conductor of spiritual forces in the form of sacred dreams." Native American Trickster Tales.
The trickster is responsible for mosquitoes; that was the first legend my grandfather told me about the trickster, a short summation is the coyote killed the monster and cut him into a million bits so he would be dead and never bother anyone again. The bits became mosquitoes, evil cannot be stopped and there are unforeseen consequences to all good acts.
Dr. Williams is the author of The Right Stock at The Right Time, Wiley, 2003
George Parkanyi replies:
I don't know. I don't see the market as a trickster. I see it as a dumb, lumbering creature of habit, unpredictable only in its timing and its reasons. It likes to go back and forth, often gets confused, is easily distracted by shiny glass, and can be as easily startled by its own shadow. Occasionally it smokes something it shouldn't and tears off inexplicably (Internet bubble) or doesn't watch where it's going and face-plants into a big hole (1987). No matter where it goes, it eventually likes to come back to the familiar.
Who knows why or when it does what it does? But it keeps doing the same things, and going to the same places, over and over again. (And each of its offspring, except for a rare few, behave the same way). So instead of expending all this time and energy on the next move of what is essentially a moron, why not just pick a spot, or spots, and relax and wait till he comes by?
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