Mark Hanna: Nobody knows if a stock is going to go up, down, sideways or in circles. You know what a fugazi is?”
Jordan Belfort: *Fugayzi*, it’s a fake.
Mark Hanna: *Fugayzi*, fugazi. It’s a whazy. It’s a woozie. It’s fairy dust. it doesn’t exist. It’s never landed. It is no matter. It’s not on the elemental chart. It’s not f#cking real.
===
From the movie, The Wolf Of Wall Street.
There’s a lot of truth in that little exchange.
The stock market is a harsh mistress.
Just when you think you got her figured out, she whipsaws and wipes you out.
It could take 5 years. It could take 10. Maybe 20 (that’s when it REALLY hurts).
But eventually, it happens.
The reason it doesn’t happen to the richest investors is because they buy insurance against this sort of thing (yes, even Warren Buffett).
But most people don’t do that.
Instead… they speculate. They wanna know…
“What’s hot?”
More:
Most people also (sensing they don’t have the chops to become the next Peter Lynch) settle for hiring a hot shot investment advisor.
It’s a very “hands off” approach to money management and not one I advocate round these parts.
I know. Heretical.
I’ve taken a lot of flak over this position for years. Every so often, an ex-spurt will call me up on the phone, or somehow weasel their way through my email maze, and b#tch and moan about how Yours Unruly is wrong and ruining the profession.
Weird.
I didn’t think I had that much influence.
I’m just some crotchety old dork sitting in an office twiddling my thumbs all afternoon.
Every once in awhile I’ll break out the slingshot and shoot a pebble-sized article at one of the major blogs…
But… that’s about it.
I don’t even go to the industry conferences anymore.
But I get what they’re saying.
I don’t have my securities license anymore so I don’t typially tell people how to bypass their broker so they actually own what they buy (did you know when you buy investments through your broker, you don’t actually own them?).
Instead, I cull the Interwebs for interesting, like-minded, folks who want to take back control of their finances.
It’s (unfortunately) a thin crowd.
But if ye be one of the few, the proud, and the brave, come check out what we’re doing over here:
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