With markets closing early today and equities (and our core portfolio) basically flat as I type (although the Russell 2000’s down half a percent), I’ll keep this morning’s note short and sweet.

In fact, I’ll just offer up one of my favorite quotes from my favorite book, the 1923 (still in print) classic, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, and call it a morning:

“It is the way a man looks at things that makes or loses money for him in the speculative markets.

The public has the dilettante’s point of view toward his own effort, the ego obtrudes itself unduly and the thinking therefore is not deep or exhaustive.

The professional concerns himself with doing the right thing, rather than with making money, knowing that the profit takes care of itself if the other things are attended to.

If I said to the average man “sell yourself five thousand steel” he would do it on the spot. But if I tell him that I am quite bearish on the entire market, and give him my reasons in detail, he finds trouble in listening.

And after I am done talking he will glare at me for wasting his time expressing my views on general conditions, instead of giving him a direct and specific tip — like a real philanthropist of the type that is so abundant on Wall Street, the sort who loves to put millions in the pockets of friends, acquaintances and utter strangers alike.”

All of us here at PWA wish and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!