Well, when you look at the VIX or stock market volatility Index it is just amazing how much it bounces around, and often for no apparent reason. Sure, you can come up with reasons such as events around the world things like China lowering their interest rates for their banks, Greece debt, the Fed chairman’s latest speech, or the banks in Spain severely challenged for liquidity. Nevertheless, when it comes right down to it the technical analysts are usually right, most of the time, and they don’t even need to consider what’s happening in the real world.
Still, when you step back and look at the jagged line of the stock market, or any given stock, it looks like a giant gambling casino, and some analysts have said that the stock market’s job is to redistribute wealth, and leave the debris for the fishes, those are smalltime investors like you and I. but if that is the case, then why play? The other day I was talking to a financial planner and I asked them if they were a casino consultant or really in the financial planning business. They laughed, knew exactly what I was talking about, and told me that; “sometimes I feel like that.”
They also came up with another funny line, this might be something you should see at the end of a financial commercial on the CNBC morning stock market report; “Where we measure your financial success one day at a time.” And really isn’t that about how a gambler thinks, up one day and down the next – or how about someone that is going through Alcoholics Anonymous, that whole; “one day at a time,” thing.
Indeed, all this brings up another point – if people can’t trust the stock market as a place to save for their retirement, or allow their money to grow then what can they trust? Is there any stability at all? Why hire a financial planner, investment broker, or a stock market trader to help you with your money, if the chances are they will either lose it, or make a little bit in fees and commissions, but you won’t gain very much in the end – except more gray hair?
There used to be an old chart that financial planners used to show that if you started out in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and bought stocks of major blue-chip companies, then today with the rise in the stock market over time, you would be able to retire wealthy. But if we keep having financial crisis such as the S&L crisis, the 1987 stock market crash, the dot-com bubble burst, and the housing bubble crash taking out a decade of gains, then in essence we’re just kidding ourselves, it’s not a good way to invest your money any more than the local casino might be. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on.