If today's column seems familiar to the regular readers, it should. It's a derivation of a column I wrote many moons ago. Over the past few weeks I've been asked about one or the other items in the essay, given the volatile times in which we live. I always chuckle at this, because no matter how much you say it, or how ingrained it is in your mind, I can, without much effort at all, find someone who doesn't believe. That may seem a bit trite, but it's true.
Most people do the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Markets usually over-react. In my neophyte period, I once questioned a wall-street guru why we were getting word that the market reacted negatively to a weather report. I'm not kidding, it had happened a few days before. He explained to me, about as patient as someone could, that the report indicated heavy rain for the Midwest, which could mean a bumper crop, which could cause the commodities market to drop, which could impact on other markets, which were reacting to the report. Nobody knows what the future will bring.