Sep

19

Can anyone explain to me why counting matters anymore?

I asking seriously and without disrespect.

How can one "count" for what happened today? Is there some sort of "the market is up 37 out of the last 42 full moons" question/equation that would lend one to believe that the the 2 pm rocketing of the market was going to occur?

Maybe there's some other form of analysis that we can do to have an edge?

What about fundamental analysis?

What about technical analysis?

What about astrology?

Palm reading?

Maybe I should convert Scientology and see if the Thetans give me any insights?

I firmly believe that the government (and let's be not pretend that the Fed is not the government) and politics are driving 98% of what happens in the markets now.

This is a BS market.

Ralph Vince writes: 

It's a GREAT market.

At the risk of being a blasphemer, my interest in market analysis is an academic one. My implementation, devoid of my personal academic failings. That is……buy low, sell high, and at the same time, sell high something else, to buy it back lower.

You should never have a move like this go by without taking a profit on something.

Yeah, I take a lot of disparagement over my bullish stance on the markets here, as I do thinking the Miami Dolphins will be Super Bowl Champs this year. I have no skins in either game you see.

Gary Rogan writes: 

If you invest long-term in good companies you don't have to be hurt and/or left out of the steady progress of the market regardless of any of this.

If you enjoy this n-dimensional game of chess than you should be like the Palindrome: smart, totally cynical and totally connected.

Ralph Vince responds: 

Gary,

But the premise of buy and stay long HAS worked only because we have been in a bull market since forever. Every high of the past couple hundred years has been exceeded — long term bull market (for whatever reason).

That is a bet on that continuing.

Gary Rogan replies: 

Ralph, but didn't Victor publish some whole-world stock data from Dimson, I believe it was, that showed steady progress? Isn't it the expectation for the previous highs to be eventually exceeded simply from the nature of the beast and not being a a "hundred year long bull market"?

There are really only three risks for a diversified stock portfolio:

-Geographical concentration risk (including where the owner lives so that he can actually access his money if it hits the fan)
-Unprecedented worldwide collapse
-The future being TOTALLY different from the past in this area

Otherwise it's steady progress all the way to infinity.

The three risks are unquantifiable, but seem better than being able to outwit the flexions day-to-day.

You pays your money and you takes your chances.

Ralph Vince adds: 

The thing is, this isn't a big move up.

When the rain comes, it washes everything away in a hurry. Weeks worth of advance vanishes in minutes.

I don't recall, in my lifetime, a setup for liquidity disasters like we have under us here, and when this goes, it will vindicate any shorts you can hang onto.

Gary Rogan writes: 

Ralph, why would all this extra liquidity resolve itself by the stock market collapsing in a spectacular fashion as opposed to say (1) Sudden high inflation perhaps followed by hyperinflation of the economy improves, and the stock market losing value in inflation adjusted, but not absolute terms (2) Or a multi-year stagflation period with the economy not doing well in some middling fashion and with the stock market slowly drifting down or simply not rising (3) Given that we will have this extra liquidity for quite some time now, evidently, based on the recent Fed personnel developments and Ben's short term and new-found caution, a liquidity withdrawal quite a few years from now, making any shorts in the meantime unfeasible, even if there is an eventual collapse?

I really have no idea what will happen if there is a bond vigilante battle royale against the Fed and it's printing press, and clearly bonds cannot be a GREAT investment at this point, but how can you be even reasonably certain that there will be a stock market collapse unless there is an overall economic collapse (which is reasonably likely, but will make profiting from the shorts a moot point)?

Mr. Kris Rock comments: 

Counting is a discipline…like belonging to the mormon church is a discipline…

Ralph Vince writes: 

I think people look for "causes" (du jour) to explain market moves. Right now, the story is QE, and it sounds plausible, but the story always sounds plausible, but it is always a very, very specious causation there.

We're talking about equities. Puffs of smoke that only have value because people day they do, right now, that the value is X. And that is only because they don;t have something shiny elsewhere to put their money. Equities are an easy place to park money.

But they have the same value as puffs of smoke, and when we forget that, the market has a cruel way of reminding us.

Gary Rogan adds: 

The future is fundamentally unpredictable: no amount of past experimentation or data can preclude some fundamental parameter of the system changing and invalidating all the statistical evidence. We don't seem to have a choice in having to rely on the past to the extent that we understand it and extrapolating in the future. But what if a parameter like the unprecedented rise of the national debt in peacetime or the rise of socialism or the changing demographics flips the long term growth rates in profits? Or the reduction in de facto property rights or the rise of flexionism make it impossible to realize gains? I don't think there is an answer other than overall we have evolved to take the past as a consideration for the future, so we might as well stick with it for the lack of a better alternative watching out for the changes in the parameters where we do understand the causal relationships as well as (and particularly so) for contradictions.


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