Many complain about the mainstream media in how they miss points, and how they keep looking at the bright side of things without seeing the dark side. Well, Bloggers need to get a life. For the most part I have completely ignored blogs like Mish’s, and How I Made My First Million at 33, and so on. And I have completely ignored Jim Rogers who seems unable to make a trade.
"I have no shorts for one of the first times in my life," Rogers, a co-founder with George Soros of the Quantum Fund, told Reuters TV in Singapore. "On the other hand I don’t see much to buy."
Well Jim, then you are not doing your job are you now! After all the name of the game in the fund industry is that you have to earn your keep. And right now after telling us that your previous predictions of impending doom and despair are causing you to do nothing? In other words your pessimism has caused you to become paralyzed! And this is the problem. Sure you can stay on the sidelines, and retail investors can afford that luxury, but Jim you are supposed to be the expert here, and you are supposed to offer guidance.
Zero Hedge (which I can barely endure) has an interesting viewpoint on how the “experts” are missing the numbers in a big way;
Personal income was out today and "economists" (the ones we trust to tell us how the economy is doing) were off by 600% in their estimates. Personal income was up 1.4% due to massive inflows of stimulus but what’s disturbing here is how wildly far off the "experts" can be. This is their job, they are supposed to have a clue! While boosting incomes for a month by 1.4% may sound great, what we really have is an indication that you can’t stimulate a dead cat as Personal Spending was up just 0.3% and the PCE came in at our own deflationary 0.1%.
Yes economists and the “experts” could not hit the broad side of a barn. I have known this for a while, and as such have ignored the experts. What I do is look at the numbers and they say we are slowly moving out of this recession. So while the experts can’t hit the broad side of a barn many many bloggers can’t get off the “the world is ending theme.”
Look, I do not like being negative. You do not like to hear negative things – this is human nature, we like to be happy. But this is seriously dangerous stuff people! If nothing happens then fine but please do not get all bullish as if nothing will. A major bank or a medium-sized country could default tomorrow and who knows who they owe money to who would also default and so on and so on. Very sadly, we’re going to have to do a weekend post on catastrophe protection because the VIX isn’t the only thing back to pre-Lehman levels. So is the level of economic idiocy….
Why are bloggers like this? Because it is an echo chamber. If you are a blogger then you are telling the “truth” and as such you will be sceptical of the media, and thus will only listen to other bloggers. And these other bloggers are spouting their version of the earth coming to an end. Thus the echo chamber resonates with negativity. And since the bloggers only trust each other they believe they are the only ones who understand what is going on. So here I say, “get a life!!!”
Maybe I am too optimistic, or too positive, but I as a rule in my investment style using psychology. And in this case people are getting tired of the constant drone of impending doom. It is not that they are spending like crazy, but they are living their lives. Yes some people have it hard, and some people are worried. But most people I have talked to are taking one step at a time. And maybe these bloggers need to do the same thing! And in Zero Hedge’s guest column regarding Japan, you as being my reader would have known that in my 2009 predictions (written in December of 2008) I said Japan would blow up and should be avoided at all costs. Japan is a unique case and its downfall is its own doing. And who is doing better? Oh yeah you as my reader would have known that as well, China!
As the retail investor what do you do? Because this market is not helping you in any way. What you do is digest the numbers step by step. My uncle who managed to take his medium sized business from bankruptcy to recovery told me one thing: “Take each day as a step, and take each step as a move forward. And with every move forward look at what worked and what did not work. Don’t try to solve the problem in one step because you can’t. And then several years down the road you will be grinning and wondering how you did it.”
In closing if any reader has any question on any of the numbers or questions about the market because they don’t understand a specific concept send me an email at christianhgross at gmail dot com. I will be more than willing to explain the concepts like the velocity of money, consumption curves, economic philosophies like Keynesian. Please don’t hesitate since I see lots of one sided arguments that could be easily discounted by knowing the theory.