This morning I went out to feed the horses around 6:30. As I stepped out into the morning air, I felt the smattering wetness of cool, heavy fog. All around me, a haze hung in the air. A grayish pall had replaced the usually bright morning light …
Once again, I find myself feeling low. Once again, I have let the market seep into my emotional being. Once again, my thoughts about where the market would be, where it would go, were wrong, dead wrong. In fact, what the market did yesterday and what the market is doing today is so far from what I thought it would do that I have to wonder, I have to reevaluate my understanding of where the market is post debt-ceiling crisis. Is it a market following economic fundamentals, or has it become a technical market focused on support levels in a downward slide? I don’t know, really. What I do know is that as the various indices cross their moving average support levels, the downward pressure increases.
Fundamentally, even the bulls are backtracking a bit. Maybe the second half won’t be as strong as once thought. Maybe the U.S. economy will contract enough to go back into recession. At this point, I don’t trust my understanding enough to feel any certainty, which puts me just about where most of the everyday people in the world are right now I suspect. I get it.
I understand why one would put the money in the bank, as opposed to buying the house or the new car. I get it that investors, big and small, are willing to sit on cash and earn little for that effort. Yes, I get it. We now have a crisis of confidence, and it has infected the psyche of those who “bring home the bacon,” those who power the economies around the world. Yes, those of us who get up every day, go to work to pay the bills, to save for college, to save for a vacation feel a lack of confidence in our leaders, our institutions, our way of life. All we hear or read anymore is how bad things are. Yes, I get it.
So what is “out there” that will lift the haze? What lies ahead that can act as a towel to wipe dry the wetness from the heavy fog?
For me, if I think outside the haze in my head, I can always go back to my innate optimism, my belief in the power of the global economic, technological transformation currently underway. I can remember the trillions of dollars sitting on the sideline, money waiting to go to work, money waiting for a sign that the sun will come out again. I can think about Japan and its resilient people and powerful economy coming back from the brink. I can speculate on what that will do for the global economic engine. Yes, I can see that the price of oil is going lower, that the busiest driving time of the year is coming to an end, which implies the price will go even lower. Yes, yes, I know what lower gasoline and lower food prices will do for a burnt-out consumer, a consumer feeling low from the continuing barrage of bad news. Yes, I can tell myself that all is not lost, that the cycle turns, that feeling bad is a state of mind …
Outside, the horses are relaxed, eating comfortably, and the fog, as it always does, is lifting.
Trade in the day – Invest in your life …
