Every now and again a client will ask me to comment on a doom and gloom scenario some famous (because he/she showed up somewhere in the mainstream media) person — whom they’ve never heard of — put forth in an interview, or infomercial, they just exposed themselves to.


Funny how they almost never ask me to comment on someone’s rosy scenario?? Yep, negative news provokes a stronger internal response than positive news…


In virtually every instance, after a little Googling, I find that the soothsayer has been saying the same sooth literally for years. Of course, in that all things economic and market are cyclical, if you stay with the same tune, sooner or later it’ll sound like you know what you’re talking about.

Today’s quote (from Kirkpatrick and Dahlquists’s outstanding book Technical Analysis) — if we apply it to the run of the mill soothsayer — is too generous in the use of the term analyst. My point is, even genuinely thoughtful and ethical “analysts” have to forever check themselves, being that we’re all human:

…analysts must remember that they are subject to the same human biases as other investors. This set of human biases is so strong that even those who recognize them still are affected by them and must constantly fight against them. Successful traders and investors often say that the worst enemy in investment is oneself.