THE VOICE THE VOICES, TURN OFF THE VOICES!

The recent declarations by some previously unheard of "expert" group that the recession ended a long time ago drove me over the edge. What the hell good does some group of retrocats ( my word for after the fact bureaucrats ) like this do anyone by coming out so after the fact? I don't know what it is about the human psyche and this need for confirmation. If we could somehow rid ourselves of that need, we could rid ourselves of these clowns. Can you imagine that on top of the idiocy of this, they get paid to tell us this! By the way I will be announcing in December of next year that we had record high temperatures in Southern California yesterday, that will be about as useful as this recent declaration by these "academics." I have no idea if this proclamation is correct or not but I am 100% sure it is entirely worthless to know it now even if it is.

There are so many opinions out there about everything, it really serves us no good to seek them out or listen to them when we find them. I do understand the credibility that some people have who are successful in their lines of work, that their opinions in those areas would have some importance. However, I am so tired of all of these people who have never hit a ball out of the infield telling us all how to become .300 hitters. I think that anytime prior to issuing any opinion it should be required that they tell us how much money they have previously made through the use of their opinions.

I was watching CNBC the other morning and they had 2 "traders" on the floor they were interviewing. One had his badge on, his hair tussled, tie loosened, he was the real deal. He offered his current views on things. The second guy was dressed like an IBM salesman. Blue suit, red "power" tie. I have always wondered why an ugly tie is powerful? He was like Winthorp in Trading places. This guy I would bet my life has never risked a dollar of his own money, and likely possibly never made a single trade out of his own account. I am sure he has an impressive degree from somewhere. He of course took an opposite position of the trader and got into all this ridiculous jibberish about why he felt the way he did.

I really wish the trader would have just done a double leg takedown and flattened this pinhead. I would have rather lost money following someone's guidance who actually makes money doing his trade, than some punk academic who probably had a manicure appointment right after the interview. This is so typical of what we all run into every day, myself included. So what to do?

First if it is your need to have sounding boards, then find a limited number of them, make sure they have been successful with their own money not others only, then assimilate whatever you can learn from them into your arsenal. Aside from that you need to tune out the rest of the garbage. I can assure you that your own opinion on virtually anything other than nuclear fission, is likely to be just as accurate as anyone else's. It becomes way to difficult to make decisions when all these voices are in your head tugging you every which way. I constantly have to remind myself of this.

Now that we are on that subject, I mentioned yesterday that it is my judgement that there is an overly bullish sentiment pervading the investment community right now. This should lead us to a decline of some sort here. I was hoping for an upclose today to setup a sell for tomorrow. I don't know if we will get it. We had an early move down that was quickly reversed, and as I type this we are only slightly down on the day. We are still holding the trend line I have drawn on the chart, so I don't think anything bad happens until we close below that short term line. For today I do not have any new sell signals in the SP 500 but am hoping for something tomorrow.

That is my plan, and I do not have a red tie on or a manicure appointment scheduled later today.