Having gone through two weeks like the last two weeks, I’m in a very reflective mood, so I wanted to talk about………..THIS monstrosity:
What you’re looking at is the horrible period June 16-August 16, which just so happens to cover two months (hence the two “wretched gifts” cited in the title).
As you can see, during that period, there was hardly a downtick in sight. Oh, sure, at first there was some lingering weakness, but the farther along we went into that two months, the more emboldened the bulls became, until it reached a point that good news was good news, bad news was good news, and “the pivot” was always just around the corner.
I cannot describe how infuriating, frustrating, and maddening this time period was. That two months felt like two decades. Because, you see, what I was expecting as of mid-June was a continuation something along THESE lines:
Instead, the sumbitch recovered the MAJORITY of its entire fall, and we had one of the largest bear market rallies in history (although near its end, every goddamned bull was saying it was a new bull market, and now a bear market rally at all; how wrong they were).
Plus, I had to read smug crap like this every thirty-seven seconds from permabulls:
(I will mention that I am positively salivating at the prospect of retweeting Mr. Goepfert’s post with a giant red WRONG emblazoned across the front on a daily basis for the rest of the year once we break June’s low).
So if I despise that time period so much, why am I calling it a gift? Well, it’s for the same reason that we all have when we look backward and recognize those blessings-in-disguise in our lives. What we experienced was a classic Wave Two (and what a huge one it was), and if I had the sense that God have a hummingbird, I would have recognized it as such and become more and more overjoyed the higher it got. Indeed, any shorting that went on in mid-August was richly rewarded.
We actually experienced a miniature version of this that lasted all of four days (Sept 7, 8, 9, and 12) and, boy, did I bitch above THAT little chunk of time too. Indeed, my patience is getting thinner and thinner, and at this point even ONE day of strength is enough to get my panties in a wad.
But it’s all ridiculous on my part. This is a bear market, and in some respects it started in June of last year, although more plausibly it kicked off around Thanksgiving of last year for much of the market and, finally, January 3 of 2022 for the whole of the market. So all this griping about the market going up is pointless, because not only will it go down again, but even moreso than before.
The key for me is to GTFO of positions when that strength does happen, which is why my Taking a Dump post was so important to me, because I am FORCING myself to take profits and take money out instead of constantly exposing everything I’ve gained to counter-trend forces.
See, early this year, I had a crystal-clear vision of what I thought the market was going to do:
But it threw a huge curve ball…………because it went DOWN and then UP and then started to go DOWN, but it aborted that descent way too soon.
So this didn’t turn out so clean and easy as I hoped! But, hey, at least we’re past THIS kind of idiotic thinking……….
