I was staring at the ticker yesterday and it took a lot of restraint for me not to buy a load of WM at 2.10. This morning it's sitting at 2.33 and rising.
I happen not to be playing the markets, in fact I haven't for some time. I don't feel like it's gambling, more like gaming. But I don't want to game with my moola, not that I have so much. The other day I met a very well dressed gentleman in the elevator on his way home. I asked him if he had lost his shirt today and he misinterpreted my comment to be about the weather. It reminded me that most people don't play the market. Nevertheless, I've been watching very closely this week.
Every time I hear the exclamation marks about the economy going down the tubes, I think about how large the market is and how little the fundamentals of all businesses are like those which are failing. It's rather like when celebrities die. Everybody says they die in three when in fact they die by the dozen. Only the media will pick up three at a time after the first notable dies. One of these days I might begin reading the obituaries, shopping for opportunities. That's market watching too, and this kinda stuff goes on every day. I do still enjoy, though I don't trade, looking at the market heat map at Smartmoney.com
This morning I found the first generic spammy search website that had some actually useful information. It's called http://www.bankswd.com/ and it lists the names of banks that I had long forgotten. Obviously somebody hacked up a database into a halfway decent CMS and spewed out the website, but I have to say not bad. Once upon a time I worked at City National Bank - which was the 10th largest bank in California. Nobody ever heard of them because they didn't do real-estate. It made them relatively profitable. I always remember that CYN resisted the temptation. These days they're doing fine, as is Union Bank. But there are so many California banks that have gone by the wayside over the years, even banks that had their logos on the tallest buildings in the state. Security Pacific, Crocker Bank, First Interstate were all serious major banks. Those institutions have been outlived by buildings constructed since I was in high school.
It's awfully inconvenient to have to change banks. I don't. My money is in Wells Fargo and Bank of America. They're not going anywhere. But I am really gobsmacked that Morgan Stanley is on the block. That's Mr. Jones' boss. I'm fairly sure that he's going to be fine, as he has rather hand-picked his clients. Still, that's a lot of American institution changing hands. It's starting to feel like the 80s when the Japanese were buying up American real estate.
I have a sort of scientific appreciation for markets and financials. They are part of our basic understanding of society - of how we value each other's lives and work. In that regard while I know they can be very complex, the fact that we can feel them means that we are rather innately wired with them. Like a flower or a dog we understand money and that understanding is universal. So I'm not going to panic. The other day I told my new friend Dan about my theory of America - that it's not built for us, but for the rich. Like the interstate superhighway system was built so that tanks could roll from coast to coast, we get the benefit of rolling our beaters down them. The thing is that all of us know how to be rich, it's easy. How to get rich, that's hard. But Americans all think about being rich and so the overwhelming majority of us react to money the same way. We all know that somebody is going to get rich, and they'll eventually drive their tanks down our superhighways, and we'll follow along in our beaters just the same.
Welcome to the cycle.
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