Calling Bullshit: on the stock market
If you don't know what you're doing investing is like playing poker with Amarillo Slim...
OK, so you pick up the newspaper (because you’re older than dirt and don’t trust anything that isn’t printed on paper) and it says the stock market went up or down and then gives a reason why that happened, like:
1. “Inspired by the news that President Biden finally learned how to program his DVR, the stock market made significant gains yesterday.”
Or…
2. “Depressed by the news that President Biden still owns a DVR because the rest of America is watching streaming TV because we all like it when the quarterback throws a Hail Mary and when the ball’s halfway there, the picture freezes so we can watch that little circle go around and around instead of seeing if anyone caught the ball, the stock market had significant losses yesterday.”
Frankly, I don’t know jackshit about the stock market (which I’m about to prove), but I do know the people who write about the stock market have absolutely no clue why millions of individuals they never talked to did what they did, and since they can’t talk to all those people, the approved stock-market-reporting technique is to grab a nearby news event and claim that’s what caused the stock market to go or up or down and possibly sideways.
Google “is stock market reporting accurate” and you’ll be led to an article by moneycrashers.com (which makes it sound like they employ the grown children who show up at your house and expect you to feed them like they were still in third grade) and the article says highly-paid research analysts have a failure rate of up to 81% which means you’d probably do better flipping a coin.
Now here’s an article about a group of monkeys outperforming stock market experts and once again I’m not making this up:
So if Cheeta can pick stocks with better success than stock market experts, that means all those ads featuring incredibly wise and informed people who want your money so they can guide you through the dangerous waters of investing to the safe harbor of owning your own yacht while simultaneously being able to afford feeding your grown children are bullshit and every time I see one of those ads I think:
“If you could really do that, you wouldn’t need my money…you’d do it with your own.”
A lot of those commercials encourage average people to get involved in the stock market, which – in my opinion – is like being encouraged to play pool with someone who owns his own pool cue. Chances are you’re in way over your head which is why the people who have some knowledge of how to play the stock market (like play it with other people’s money) want those average people involved.
Stock brokers make money when you make a transaction, so the last thing they need is you figuring out the safest place to put your money and leaving it there until you need it. They’ll tell you your money should be “working for you” which actually means “working for them.”
If you’re already tangled up with some broker, you can be charged money for not trading – it’s called an “inactivity fee” – and yesterday I started watching football at noon and finished about 11 PM after the Chiefs beat the Raiders and you can’t get much more inactive than that, so if I had a broker and got charged an appropriate “inactivity fee” I just might be bankrupt.
Now here’s an article from the people behind The Trading Bible, which according to Amazon is a guide to investing for people who want to trade and have no idea where to begin and after taking a look at the article, it seems pretty much like the Kansas City Chiefs letting you skim their playbook and then putting you in the game on third and long and expecting you to know what to do when Patrick Mahomes says:
“Far double-wing right, hum short, 76, halfback shallow cross, on two.”
Here’s the article explaining just how many ways a broker can screw you over and about five paragraphs into the explanation of the differences between an MM broker and STP broker (which I was disappointed to learn, has nothing to do with oil additives) and a DMA broker and an ECN broker, and about halfway through the explanation I decided to put my money in a coffee can and bury it in my backyard.
https://thetradingbible.com/how-brokers-make-money
As they say about poker: if you look around the table and can’t spot the sucker, it’s you.
Investing when you barely understand the terminology being used, seems pretty much like taking a refreshing swim in shark-infested waters and if you’d rather read something about quarterback play calling – which is quite a bit more understandable – here’s that article as well:
I read another article about investing in the stock market and the people who wanted you to invest said it was a big mistake to think investing was like gambling because you actually have some ownership of whatever you invested in, so why don’t you try buying three shares of Apple and then show up at their Cupertino, California headquarters and demand a tour because you’re one of the owners and see just how far your “ownership” gets you.
A few interesting facts about the stock market
A while back I read an article by someone named Farhad Manjoo (which makes me want to say “gesundheit” and is probably some sort of unconscious racism on my part) and he works and/or possibly worked for The New York Times Company and here’s what the article had to say:
Slightly more than half of Americans own some type of stock, but a huge share of the value in stocks is held by a tiny number of Americans.
The wealthiest 1% of Americans hold 40% of the value of stockholding account.
The wealthiest 10% hold 84% of the value.
So when the stock market goes up or down it’s mainly wealthy people making that happen and you may not have the same financial concerns they do, like buying your own private island so the 19-year-old stripper you’ve been seeing on the side can live there secretly and Wife #6 won’t find out about it.
Also, the stock market reflects the value of just a tiny slice of U.S. businesses.
In 2015 there were 600,000 US companies with at least 20 employees and only 3,600 were publicly listed.
Manjoo’s (Bless you!) article concluded that the stock market doesn’t really reflect the economy, but it’s the best indicator we have, which – if I’m not mistaken – is the same reasoning used to justify throwing a witch into a rushing river to see if she floats.
It might not have been accurate, but it was the best indicator of Consorting with Satan that we had.
Barely-related story alert
According to History.com people figured that witches had rejected the sacrament of baptism and the water would in turn reject the witches because apparently water’s petty and spiteful and if the test is accurate and a floating female = witch that would seem to mean Olympic Gold Medal swimmer Janet Evans should be burned at the stake immediately.
Other tests for witches:
Making them cite Biblical verses flawlessly, so country singer and stutterer Mel Tillis would be screwed if he weren’t already dead.
Having them strip naked so they could be examined for the “Devil’s Mark” which could be any imperfection like a mole or a birthmark or a tattoo so Angelina Jolie is definitely in trouble because she appears to have the periodic table of elements inscribed on her back.
Having them touch someone and if the “touchee” had some sort of weird reaction that meant the “toucher” is a witch, which is interesting because I grew up watching evangelists knock people on their asses by touching them – the unconscious people were said to be “Slain in the Spirit” – and now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure this test actually works because those evangelistic assholes were definitely in league with the devil.
But all that’s back when people were ignorant morons and now we’re much more knowledgeable and sophisticated and understand that if you’re an anti-Vaxxer who had to get vaccinated for COVID-19 to keep your job, you can “detox” your body and get rid of the vaccine by taking a bath in Borax.
A story I did not make up and here’s the link:
https://www.kansascity.com/news/coronavirus/article255771071.html
And that advice was given by a doctor which confirms my suspicion that somebody had to be the worst student in med school and as long as they squeaked by with a C- average they still get called “doctor.”
That being the case, you’re definitely going to want to invest your money in Borax, because you should never forget an IQ score of 100 is average, which means there are millions and millions of people walking around making decisions with two-digit IQs.
And some of them are investing in the stock market.
I need a coffee can and a shovel.