Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Introspection

From a link over at Sudden Debt, I found this quote today at TheStreet.com:

While many pros have been spending their time telling us why this market can't possibly continue to be so strong, the foolish bulls who harbor no doubts have been racking up some great profits. With the credit problems, slowing economy, real estate meltdown, high oil and weak dollar, it has been very easy to make a strong case that this market will likely crack and start downtrending. The logic is compelling but for one very important fact: prices keep going up. For whatever reason, buyers continue to buy.

I always worry about the fact that we have a tendency to be so stuck on our biases and preconceptions of how things are and how things work that we fail to see other truths beyond our scope of vision. In this Information Age, we are prone to congregate with like-minded people. As a result, we reinforce each others beliefs. However, because we think so much alike, we fail to take into consideration entire chunks of information outside of our predispositions.

I have generally been in the bearish camp in economic matters. I have thought that the amount of debt that is outstanding is unsustainable at either a personal or national level. However, I come to the table with my own bias of having been a bankruptcy attorney and having a series of tragic incidents color my judgment. But now that my luck is starting to change, I am starting to wonder if such beliefs will prevent me from maximizing my opportunities.

Let me make it clear: I still think I am right, but I am open to other information that would change my bias.

2 comments:

P M Prescott said...

How many people were making a killing right before the crash in '29 and with the dot-com bubble then lost it all?

Independent Accountant said...

I am "bullish" on stocks. Why" Because they are not bonds. As I posted at Naked Capitalism, we can have a "hidden" bear market. How? Gold goes to say $4,000. The Dow, now at 13,000 goes nowhere. The gold "price" of the Dow has fallen 80%. Think about it. Better to own stocks than bonds.