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We’ve always been lead to believe that commitment was a good thing. It often is cited as the only real thing that distinguishes us from animals, although that’s clearly an exaggeration, as most animals are incapable of ever winning two games of checkers in succession.

Curse that capuchin, especially for not agreeing to best out of five.

We all marvel when hearing of a couple’s impending 50th wedding anniversary. What a wonderful show of commitment.

In fact, as well all know the commitment is “until death to us part.” Commit or die. Commit and die. It’s all the same.

Using the new Google “Translate” module made for this blog, you can now understand that when I say “marvel,” I really mean “shudder.” and when I say “wonderful,” what’s really meant is “terribly sad and confining.”

“Shudder” of course, is just further code for” violently puke.”

Obviously, Sugar Momma has better things to do than read my drivel.

For many, the end to commitment came when the unwritten social contracts providing lifelong employer-employee relationships in Japan came to an end. If the employer-employee relationship in a land that the overwhelming majority of us will never visit, nor know is no longer sacrosanct, what else could be left for the rest of us?

A good point, for sure, but for me, the end came when new TV shows were no longer given the obligatory 13 episode production commitment. Thanks to the one-time sanctity of that commitment the cable TV archives can be filled with such past unrecognized jewels as “Camp Runamuck” and “I’m Dicken’s, He’s Fenster,” as well as some recognized disasters as “Dundee and the Cullhane.”

As an aside, I also don’t understand how “Dundee and the Cullhane” could have flopped. On the surface, it appears to appeal to every demographic.

With divorce rates now beyond 50%, TV shows getting cancelled after just a single episode and Japanese workers actually being laid off, there is obviously no love lost for commitment. The fact that paul Reiser now works at at Nagashima Datsun assembly plant is reason enough to decry the loss of our sense of commitment.

And then there’s “buy and hold.” A strategy which to me always seemed more commited to a specific stock rather than to profits.

I received some interesting feedback on Twitter today, in response to yesterday’s blog “Achilles and his Heel”  that actually was the impetus for today’s theme. Interestingly, that same Tweeter, Dasan, was responsible for the theme of the previous day, as well.

Follow him. I’ve said so before. He’s funny, insightful and humble. Plus, given his training, he probably knows at least a dozen ways to decapitate or incapacitate you in the event of a perceived need to do so.

The comments were related to the commitment and loyalty people had for Amazon and Jeff Bezos, in part, because they also believed that Amazon was loyal to their customers.

Whereas you can be both loyal and stupid, this is not one of those situations. Despite what may be a near term stumble with its Apple like hyped Kindle Fire, based on early adopter comments, the very idea that the loyalty is perceived to be bi-directional is beyond MasterCard “priceless.”

It’s almost like Japan redux.

I think that I’ve demonstrated commitment in the past.

Forget about the 27 years with Sugar Momma. That’s a walk in the park, especially compared to the 75+ years that her grandparents put in together.

Until they died.

Instead, let’s talk about things that really matter.

Earlier today, Mohammed El-Arian of PIMCO commented that “US economic conditions are terrifying.”

As we both continue to New York Mets fans, you obviously have to excuse El-Arian for his emotions getting the best of him. Continuing to be a Mets fan, even after moving far away and after such a performance drought, has to shed some darkness on your credibility and ability to critically assess circumstances.

But that’s commitment. Not the same level of commitment that he showed to the Harvard Fund, but far greater.

I don’t practice “buy and hold” and don’t have an emotional attachment to any of my shares, but I still think that I have commitment in that area, as well.

I certainly haven’t bailed on Amazon, which although up a bit in Tuesday’s trading, has had a bad recent stretch.

My tendency is to stick with loseres. Now that may be an example of where loyalty and stupidity do intersect, but I’m much more inclined to give up on winners in the name of profits.

A commitment to profits means letting go and giving up on the loyalty to your winners.

How ironic, especially if you take a superficial view of things.

In one regard, I suppose that I’m like Charlie Sheen, in that I don’t lke losing and I especially don’t loke taking losses. Again, not really a commitment to a specific stock, but rather a commitment to avoid losing.

Oh, and I also like hookers and crack.

In the case of Amazon, it currently makes up about 7% of my portfolio. At one recent point it was higher, as its price drop has outpaced the S&P 500. Although offset a bit by options premiums, that bit, in homage to the recently departed Lee Pockriss, is itsy bitsy.

I shop Amazon consistently. I hate going into stores and malls. Sugar Momma hasn’t bought a real book in a couple of years, although she probably buys two new Kindle titles each week. We give Amazon gift cards.

Get the idea?

Best of all, I sell more copies of the Option to Profit book on the Kindle platform than any other.

Did I mention that I like profits?

But all of that spells commitment.

Whatever happens to the Kindle Fire or any of its successors, if any, Amazon, as lead by Jeff Bezos will continue to reward loyalty, whether you’re a shareholder or consumer.

Yet, I look forward to the day that I can let my shares go. And really, I never ask for much. I usually am happy to see my shares go for whatever I paid for them, as long as there were plenty of options premiums in-between.

But when I do, I further make the commitment that I’ll re-purchase shares the very first opportunity that they’ve come down in price.

The nice thing is that there’s really not that much downside to commitment unless it’s stupidity that keeps you in the game.

In a totally unrelated Tweet, yet from the very same muse was the thought that there’s no reason to worry unless the SPX goes to zero.

That’s precisely why you need to follow him.

On the road to zero, and I have no doubt that day will come, there will be a near infinite number of other melt down situations that will cause many to give up their commitment and forever take it on the chin. That lack of commitment will just lead to a double dose of disappointment as the obligatory upswing is seen only with the eyes of a spectator.

You show your commitment by being a participant, even if that means “buy and hold.” You show your stupidity by “panic and sell.”

Would you like to buy Amazon shares from me?

 

 

Whether you favor classic Greek mythology or good old fashioned American superhero fantasy, there’s a heel or a piece of Kryptonite that’s bound to spell doom and spoil all of your hopes for mankind..

Was there ever a single episode or comic book story about Superman that didn’t contain some kind of Kryptonite or at least its metaphorical equivalent? It was so predictable. There was always something to stand in the way of justice reaching its just destination.

For me, the image conjured up by the designation “super-committee” has to be on par with the mythical heroes of generations past and generations lost.

Just imagine. A collection of seemingly normal people, collected together forming their very own band of super-heroes. As if one super-hero wasn’t enough, surely only good things can come when the many are united as one.

This august group of super-patriots assembled to save our way of life from the predatory grip of a growing and deadly deficit.

Surely, we weren’t Greece and we weren’t the Weimer Republic.

The task ahead of this Deficit League was no less than that of Superman faced with saving the world from impending doom as an earthly sized asteroid with our name on it hurtled through the vacuum of space in our direction.

A couple of months ago the expression “kicking the can down the road” got quite hackneyed, but that’s just what the not so super super committee has done. The only question left for our imaginations is how long and winding the road will turn out to be.

There are lots of jokes about committees and their outcome products. A camel has been described as the design work of a committee of experts. Those jokes are the corporate variant of the “How many X does it take to do Y” joke.

Those jokes never get old, but this one did and on top of that, it was never very funny in the first place.

Question: “How many super-committee members does it take to get nothing done?”

Answer: “Twelve.”

See? I told you it wasn’t very funny.

And there was no product, to boot.

Instead there was the hope that there was a possibility that a solution to the deficit issue might be found sometime in the future.

Now that’s funny.

Seems like the super-committee took a lesson from the European Union and the European Central Bank and tantalized us with the possibility that there might be a plan for a plan sometime in the future.

That kind of certainty sure spells “this is the right time to invest in stocks” to me. Where do I throw my money and how much will you take off my hands?

But like all super hero stories, there was a need for drama. No one wants a story where good wins against a trivial challenger.

The super-committe members suffered the effects of their own unique brand of Kryptonite. Their mortal enemy was the very thing that gave them strength,

Their ego and politics itself.

Given the hype and the belief that the super committee would come through with a judiciously arrived deficit reduction package, the market should probably have discounted the high probability of failure.

It doesn’t take much of a leap of faith into contrarian territory to know that there was no way that the super committee could molt out of its own skin.

I mean, just how do you stand up to ego and the politics of the moment?

In a world where Newt Gingrich is the candidate with momentum, at least at the moment, anything should be possible. But whereas there may have been an antidote to the Kryptonite that sucked the life out of Superman, there doesn’t appear to be any antidote to the butt sucking that “Realpolitik” demands.

While some super committee members can’t see a way to extricate themselves from the Norquist “No Tax Pledge” their committee objectives were bound to be unmet.

Yet the market, despite the conventional wisdom, didn’t see this one coming from even a few feet away as the deadline neared.

Despite the big market move to the downside today, I wasn’t overly distressed.

With assignmenrts of some shares of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Riverbed Technology and all of my Sallie Mae holdings, today was a good day to pick up bargains.

It’s entirely possible that they’ll be even greater bargains tomorrow, but I couldn’t resist pulling the trigger today.

In fact, I could barely wait a minute after seeing the inital 190 point drop.

Part of my eagerness was because I had a 9:45 AM flight Monday morning on yet another Southwest Airline flight without a Wi-Fi connection. I’ve been on 6 flights in the past 2 weeks, each one teasing me with the rollout of W-Fi to the fleet, yet none had seemed to make it to my air chariot.

So I made quick trades before they closed the cabin doors and I would be shut off from the sweet flow of data for 90 minutes.

As it turned out there were more shoes to drop, but I repurchased my Riverbed Technology shares at a lower price, added to my Freeport McMoRan and Textron holdings and re-established a positions in Visa and Caterpillar, at much lower price than their earlier assignments that I took just recently took.

Not bad for 15 minutes on the less than intuitive E*Trade interface on my Droid telephone.

By the time the plane landed, any angst over the 300 point drop was eased by silver’s fall and the ProShares UltraSilver’s rise.

Huh?

Before my scheduled meeting, at which I thought it might be rude to whip out the smartphone or netbook, I had a chance to sell options on the new Textron shares and about 20% of the ProShares piece.

In the meantime, there was just a bit of angst over Amazon, which was getting whacked yet again.

This time, the Twitter stream was filled with negative comments about the new Kindle Flame, even coming from those that ordinarily spout Bezos messiah-like chants, the kind that used to be reserved for Steve Jobs.

One 140 space story had anectdotal evidence of a USPS employee saying that he never so so many product returns when Apple released a new product.

That sort of thing can’t be good for a stock’s price. That’s the kind of hard data and fundamental analysis that’s so desperately needed.

Whoever thought that Amazon’s heel would turn out to be Apple? But Amazon will recover, it just may need to remind people that its core business is immune to Kryptonite.

The equivalent would have been if someone actually came out and said that Green Mountain Coffee was insipid, if made properly and even worse, if not. If you thought that Starbucks was Green Mountain’s Kryptonite, you’d be on the wrong track on the basis of product competition. No one compares the products. They just wonder what will be left when Starbucks pulls the rug out from under its agreement with Green Mountain.

That one would be hard to recover from.

But the same thing was said after the first round of accounting improprieties was alleged. Green Mountain recovered and then some and lived to see another day and another round of allegations.

Heels heal and Kryptonite, like all radioactive elements has a half life.

The same can’t be said about the egos of our politicians and the need to perpetuate their elections, at all costs. There doesn’t seem to be any resolution and there’s not enough spin to counter the dizziness and disgust.

Maybe we should just let that asteroid do its worst and move on. 



I was always a fan of Game Theory and especially of its derivative game, The Prisoner’s Dilemma, since I’m an avowed believer in Zero Sum kinetics.

 If you don’t know what any of that means, you’ll have to decide whether to admit it, based on what your alter-ego will decide to do, knowing that your reward or punishment will be based on what you both decide, in the seclusion of the recesses of your warped mind(s). 

In the event you have more than one alter ego it gets just a bit more complex.

Welcome to my world.

Game theory is much easier when your alter ego is perfectly in sync with your true self. It’s also easier in totalitarian situations, because in such cases people are afraid to go counter to authority.  

Assuming that you possess some level of sanity and don’t have to take into consideration the needs of your alter ego, investing decisions, especially buy and sell ones, should be pretty easy. 

“Should be” is the operative phrase.  

I’ve long known that I’m incapable of selecting a good stock.

When I appeared on Bloomberg Rewind a couple of weeks ago, the guest panelist asked me the worst stock decision that I had made.  

My first thought was “why is this a**hole asking me that question?” Besides, how do you trust a guy who’s not trying to grow a mustache during MoVember, as the host, Matt Miller was bravely doing, without going on a 3 week vacation to do so.

It didn’t take me long, though, to dredge up a near quarter century decision to purchase shares of L.F. Rothschild, a one time venerated name in investment banking. That particular year, it had the distinction of being the largest percentage loser of any company on the NYSE.  

II may be a lot of things, but no one can accuse me of not learning from my mistakes.

At least the big ones.  

Instead, I stick to my list of “Old Reliables” and rarely venture outside that comfort zone.

When I do venture, my timing seems to be highly correlated to short term unwanted price movements.

About a month ago, just as earnings season was getting underway I bought shares in Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Amazon and Netflix. Of those, I’d never owned Netflix before.  

I don’t know what made me purchase those. It was an uncharacteristic move for me to do so. 

What that triad had in common was great options premiums in advance of earnings. Maybe a little price momentum, as well. Amazon stood alone in that group by not having any black clouds hovering nearby.  

While Green Mountain delayed its earnings report by a couple of weeks, I had the opportunity to get three weeks of great premiums, but then came the news.

Green Mountain was already suffering from more doubts about its financials and Crazy Eddie like inventory issues.  

Prior to the live broadcast of Bloomberg Rewind the news came. Green Mountain’s disappointing earnings resulted in a $25 after hours decline. 

Of course, I had the lack of good sense to mention that I held shares on the program that evening, but I also mentioned that I didn’t buy into the Bernard Baruch axiom of cutting your losses at the 10% level.

Besides, with a cost basis of about $67, I’d already pocketed about $14 in premiums in that 3 week period. Still, Green Mountain opened at what would have been a 20% loss even when based on the net cost basis. I could feel Bernard rolling in his crypt. 

What I said on air was that I was going to stay the course and let emotions revert to the mean, just as prices do. The highs and the lows don’t last, except in the case of L.F. Rothschild and depression leading to suicide.  

My less cool and collected alter ego wanted to cut and run. 

I still have a hard time reconciling the fact that the investing cautious me, let’s call him “Louie”, is willing to have unprotected sex in a crack house, whereas the “no worry” investor me, “Ricardo”, would never think of doing such a thing.  

Then the realization hit.

It was Ricardo that made those uncharacteristic purchases and he now left me with the dilemma of what to do. Louis, on the other hand was smoking crack with the options premium money that Ricardo conjured up.  

The dilemma was created by not knowing what ultimate price would be exacted on any decision because there was yet another alter ego in the mix.

 This one was a nasty behemoth called the Stock Exchange.  

Great. Now I had to worry about what the macro-economic oriented market would do, as well as what that short sighted micro-economic Louie would want to do. Louis wanted to smoke his crack and have his stock profits, too.

Compound that with the fact that the market was beginning to react in an unprecedented way to rumors, news of possible news and news of real news.  

A purely rational person would have discounted the irrational market and made a decision purely on the remaining alter ego, being intimately aware of its thought processes. 

The investing cautious Louie would certainly look at the potential tax benefits of taking a strategic loss on Green Mountain shares and then take another long drag on that pipe, while taking care not to set his hair ablaze.  

The care free Ricardo would believe that tax consequences were irrelevant. In fact, the more taxes you had to pay, the better. That only meant that you had that much more in capital gains. 

“Laissez le bons temp rouler.”  

Did I mention that Ricardo actually had a Cajun alter ego, Ricardeux? 

Ricardo, for all of his subset personalities understood the concept of authoritarian rule. 

Khaddafi was on top of his game as long as he was ruthless. No one dared to question his decisions and he made them with impunity.  

Then he decided he had to get into the good graces of the West. 

We all know what happened then.  

So did Ricardo. 

As soon as his plane landed in Phoenix last Monday an additional lot of Green Mountain was purchased at $41.85 and weekly calls on that new lot were written at $42, while the original lot went unhedged. He assumed that Louie would be paralyzed by over analysis of the situation and would make no effort to counterbalance Ricardo.  

Louie was apoplectic, because Ricardo was right. And now, it was too late for Louie to do anything or to change his mind. There was no second deal to be made. 

At the very least Louie would have hedged the whole position, but that was now off the table, as well.  

In this game you have to be quick and ready to deal.

In the meantime, that nasty Stock Exchange decided to go into a mid-week funk, dropping about 3%.  

In the Prisoner Dilemma Game you also have to be ready for the unexpected. 

But the real unexpected was that even with walls of support crashing, Green Mountain climbed up to $51.

And so RIcardo and Louie were at odds again.  

Ricardo felt good about at least garnering some more options premium on the split holdings, not hedging the remainder and felt no remorse for foregoing paper profits.

Louis was unapologetic.  

He argued that the proceeds from selling the Green Mountain shares could have been plowed into the likes of Caterpillar, which was now trading below the $95 price at which shares were recently assigned. Besides the 2% weekly premium, theer were those tax advantages, too. 

And so, they were both right, at least for last week. Both had rational thought processes and understood the other’s positions and reasoning.  

But come Monday, the whole tug of war starts again. 

Both Louis and Ricardo will be aboard yet another plane when the Stock Market opens on Monday. In essence, they’ll be held hostage to the irrational movements of their macro ego.  

I wonder what would happen if I actually swallowed these green and white capsules?

 

  

 

  

 

 

 

Malcolm Acs served as today’s guest blogger. The views in this blog entry are his alone and do not represent the Disinfectant Industry, No molds or bacteria were harmed in the writing of this blog

Despite spending the last eight years of my life living in Washington, DC, I’ve managed to stay clear of any and all political involvement.

I voluntarily went into work during the Obama Inauguration. I avoided every form of public transportation during the Glenn Beck “Restore America” rallies. I was in the bathroom for most of the Larry Craig scandal.

Recently when I was asked by a complete stranger on the bus if I thought Obama stood any real challenges in re-election, I immediately retorted that I had voted for George W. Bush in each of the last three elections. Based on the abrupt end to our conversation, I think it’s safe to say that Bush will have my support once again next year.

Although I’ve been known as a bit of a hell raiser and a constant contrarian, I’ve always had very little tolerance for protestors in any form. My sophomore year of college the school hosted the “National Conference on Organized Resistance”, bringing over a thousand radical progressives from around the country for a week of discussing everything from authoritative veganism, homemade bomb making, and the evil of tampons. After being tired of the stench of over a thousand unbathed squatters spending a week inside of our building, I attempted to freshen the space with two dozen cans of Lysol. While I did not face any disciplinary action for assaulting the eyes of a few hundred occupiers, my actions were strongly condemned by the student newspaper as an act of ozone terrorism.

Now six years later, I tend to look at things a little bit more rationally. I’ve watched hundreds of inane causes bring people to my backyard, but after the weekend they always move on, leaving some trash on the ground but some dollars with local businesses. When the first tents started popping up next to my office as the Occupy Wall Street movement moved south to Washington, I assumed it would be as fleeting as every other movement and be over before it even really began. Each morning as I passed through McPherson Square (home of the larger of the two occupier camps, immediately north of the White House), I watched the infrastructure get more complex as their population grew. I couldn’t help but wonder if they knew how much Wall Street funding went to the manufacturers of the Eddie Bauer and Columbia brand tents that were popping up.

I became more and more uneasy with the entire situation and it showed increasing signs of permanence. This time however, I left the Lysol at home and took much more combative measures.

I invested every penny I had in Microsoft.

While occupiers have damned Wall Street for destroying wealth through mismanagement of assets and creating a “rich-get-richer” economy based on derivatives, Capitol Hill has struggled with companies like Microsoft bloating their balance sheets with cash that could otherwise be reinvested in job-creating activities.

At the recent shareholders meeting, Gates defended the $57B of cash on hand by claiming, “You want to retain enough (cash) so the company has the strength to be able to take big risks even in the face of some economic uncertainty”.

Microsoft? Risk? Big Risks? Unimaginable. Google Apps is quickly starting to eat into the MS Office suite. Apple’s OSX is growing in home computing and becoming the clear choice for executives, sales teams, and engineers. I’m far more likely to use a payphone and own a rotary phone than a Windows 7 phone.

Amazon Web Services owns the cloud and Google and Apple’s investments will be dominant long before Azure is even relevant. The difference between Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google is they respond to consumer demand and iterate daily. Microsoft updates its Office suite every four years.  The companies that actually take the risk to reiterate and reinvent have created enormous gains for shareholders.  Microsoft has traded between $20-30 for the last decade.

My father and I have a number of things in common, but the biggest one is our constant quest to make “easy money”. Since the day I started working, I’ve spent a ton of time scheming up different ways to stop working. When PNC Bank introduced ATM fee reimbursements I spent hours researching the logistics of owning my own ATM machines, charging myself exorbitant fees, and spending my days making $20 withdrawals and living off reimbursed fees. Several years ago as a borderline-suicidal Baltimore Orioles fan, I convinced my father to lend me $1,000 to screen print 200 “DUMP ANGELOS” t-shirts. After showing him that the profit from the first production run would be enough to buy six 1964 color televisions, he promptly funded the venture. We have a lot of shirts left. Four years later I have not repaid the loan, however in my defense I didn’t have time to research the definition of “negatively amortizing” when I signed the document. Why should I possibly repay a loan that is greater than the value of the shirts?

Despite the many past easy money failures (and likely even more in the future), Microsoft has been the closest consistent source. Two trading days before my first ever options-expiration-Friday, I’m sitting on the right side of $27 calls that I wrote less than three weeks ago with a 41 cent premium. Couple that with a 20 cent dividend payment from the $56B never-to-be-used rainy day fund and that’s a 2.3% return in less than three weeks.
Come Monday I’ll take my likely unassigned shares, rewrite a new set of contracts, collect my premiums, and start my work week. I’ll be confident that Microsoft won’t be able to innovate themselves above $30 or squash themselves below $20. Two months later I’ll enjoy the fact that Steve Ballmer truly believes that “We are in the Windows era. We were, we are, and we always will be,” by collecting my dividend payment in lieu of ever taking that big risk that they save every penny for.

One day the Windows era will be over, but at that point I’ll likely be far better for it, 2.3% at a time, every month, every time. Hopefully at that point PNC still reimburses ATM fees and Angelos still owns the Orioles.

Maybe I’ll stop tomorrow morning in McPherson Square and explain to the occupiers how they too can use derivatives and a dividend-capture strategy to safely increase their own personal worth at the expense of market-crashing speculators. I’ll probably just play it safe and stick with the Lysol.

“@malcolmacs is a former technology headhunter currently working within the e-commerce and social media industry in Washington, DC. He is a dual graduate drop-out in Quantitative Finance and Information Systems Management . His fund currently manages over $8,000 in assets. Do not follow him on Twitter.”

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Having spent the day in search of a mystical “vortex” high atop some mountain in Sedona, my eyes have been opened to a greater truth.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that the eye opening occured as direct result of the 11 AM wine tasting. There’s nothing better than a sampling of Arizona varietals to get you ready to hike up a mountain or two, or even better, to help you forget about hiking up a mountain or two.
I began to wonder at what point could you no longer justify starting to drink so early on the two hour time change.
7 years?
Guidance and preparation is the key to everything. We all need a personal Sherpa through all phases of our lives.
They do the work and you get the glory.
Everyone out here knows of the “vortex,” but their locations aren’t publicized widely. You have to find them on your own, given only some rough information.
None of the locals have ever gone to the sacred spots. That has to tell you something, but then again, it took my moving from New York before I ever made it to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
I’ll always be grateful to Sherpa Snoopy.
Aimlessly following along a path that took us higher and higher, a man in a strikingly loud blue sweat shirt, that seemed to blend in with the clear sky and carrying a hiking stick, appeared from nowhere at the very top of the mountain. He worked his way down toward us and then confirmed for us that the vortex was indeed at the peak.
What he didn’t confirm was that the vortex actually had the properties that everyone was seeking. Somehow, the “vortex” was supposed to  deliver vibratory sensations and emanate heat while to providing some magical renewal to the soul.
WIth the two hour time difference and the lack of connection to the world at large. I definitely needed something to renew my soul which was floundering in the void left in the wake of a vacation.
Climbing up a mountain in my all purpose penny loafers seemed to be the answer.
Not having tuned into CNBC or Bloomberg its been difficult to know what’s been shaping the markets into their action or inaction for the past two days.
Although I did ask, this particular Sherpa didn’t appear to be specializing in that particular area of my interests. I never even thought to ask him what macroeconomic issues were at play today.
As I stared into the incredible carved out red mountains against a sea of bright blue sky, there’s probably a greater chance of understanding how those were carved out than we’ll ever truly understand market dynamics.
I heard roughly equal number of comments about God and nature being responsible for the wonders before us. The beauty proved both sides of the argument to my satisfaction. In hindsight, it was probably a mistake for me to suggest that the rock formations proved that fetal stem cell research is ordained by a higher energy.
On these recently increasing days that I’m cut off from a reliable income stream the trades still need to be made. They’re not going to make themselves, although they could if someone would send an algorithm my way.
What I do know is I made a few trades as I occasionally got an opportunity to check in with my cell phone. I bought more shares of Netflix and Goldman Sachs, sold calls on those, as well as calls on Halliburton and Freeport McMoRan.
I remember thinking that there must be a higher order and authority. How else could a cell phone connection exist in such a remote area other than through divine intervention.
In a misguided attempt to make trades on my Droid phone, which is an entirely unsatisfactory experience, I also ended up buying calls on British Petroleum when my intention was to sell.
That, to me, indicated that there was no such higher authority. How could a loving Supreme Being have allowed such a travesty?
I’m certain that had my personal Sherpa been at my side that sort of thing would never have happened.
I never buy calls. He would have known that.
Having a Sherpa at hand can be very useful. Presumably, to be a qualified Sherpa you have to understand the challenges that lay ahead and then endure and conquer them.
To do so, you have to be prepared.
As we trekked up the mountain, my Sugar Momma, who is usually prepared enough for two, fell right out of her completely ridiculous shoes.
Fashion trumping function, those were the same kind of shoes she fell out of while pregnant with our oldest son many years ago.
So that should answer that question.
In this case, she forgot to change into hiking shoes as we left the car.
Fortunately, the outcome was just embarrassment in front of a  gaggle of Taiwanese friends re-assembled for a college reunion.
We eventually reached the summit together and found the “voretx”. The Taiwanese felt the glow, the vibration and the heat.
I’m not surprised. They also don’t feel the acupuncturist’s needles.
I felt nothing, but I did get a cell signal, so at least I felt the joy of being able to read the morning’s Daily Dilbert, high above the roadside.
With SHerpa in hand, I’ll be better prepared for tomorrow. I’m certain that my guide and protector will awaken me before the opening bell in New York.
That didn’t happen this morning. I actually missed the first 30 minutes or so and whatever opportunities may have come along in that time.
The SHerpa will also guide my as we travel to the Grand Canyon tomorrow, to be certain that I methodically check the settings on my Droid app, so that I don’t make the same mistake twice and once again purchase a worthless call option.
In the meantime, Sherpa and I can celebrate the ultimate victory.
Even with Tuesday’s little erroneous trade mishap, I hit a personal best month ever in terms of options premiums with the most recent trades.
Even if we fall off the cliff, they can’t take that away from me, but of course, if that does occur, the loyal Sherpa is likely to break my fall.
And that’s exactly why selling covered calls is like having a personal Sherpa. They protct and guide you toward a defined strike price.
As Green Mountain Coffee Roasters took that huge earnings related hit last week, that fall was nicely cushioned by lots of options premiums the previus three weeks.
Cost averaging down on Monday and selling even more call actions at the lower price strime just served to further reduce the cost basis. Now, despite that $25 drop, the shares are no longer a losing proposition.
The options will expire and no one will ever really remember that they existed. The glory is all mine and I live to trade another day, as long as those calls are out there to protect.
Now, if only I could get a Sherpa to protect me from Sugar Momma’s ire as I play with my various “devices” while I’m supposed to be communing with nature and the energy of the vortex.
That would truly be something special and a worthy cause.
Until that time comes, I’ll attempt to sneak peaks at what’s going on in the markets and attempt to squeeze a few more trades out before the November cycle ends.
Besides, I have to pay for this vacation and Sherpas don’t come cheaply, either.
 
 
 

I’m no longer at a stage in my life that I fantasize about becoming a member of “The Mile High Club.”

As I look around the bleary eyed passengers of a 6:15 AM flight to Phoenix, Sugar Momma’s present company excluded, no one really appears to be Mile High appropriate.

Part of that assessment may also be related to the fact that Sugar Momma is peering at the screen and another part may be related to the very cramped spaces in the airplane lavatory.

America is not a thin nation. Airplane lavatories that may have sufficed a generation or two ago just won’t do it anymore.

Combine that with the fact, as I’ve previously made clear, that I don’t use public restrooms and you’ve got a non-starter kind of situation.

If I had the ability to read minds, my guess is that anyone on board thinking about entertaining in a Mile High fashion is equally disinterested in me, although to my credit, I don’t take up much space.

But that’s not the Mile High Club that I was hoping to be part of this morning.

As we begin a few days trip, here we are on a Monday morning, when I would normally be very anxious to trade in on the good names of my holdings and sell whatever call options as I could.

With a monthly record of accrued options premiums already safely at hand, I’m within distance of achieving a 100 on the 1964 Color TV Metric for the November 2011 option cycle. That was a figure that I could barely even fantasize about.

There was an extended period of about 7 years when I flew twice a week but never really gave any thought to what I was missing in the world of streaming data by virtue of being aboard a plane. Besides, back then we were lead to believe that an Internet connection of any kind was incompatible with flight safety.

Back in those days I flew after the markets had closed and besides, options only came in the monthly variety, so I would have a flurry of activity on that first Monday and Tuesday.

Not so this morning.

I’m still anxious, but unable to perform.

Actually, that sounds like the situation for the original Mile High Club, as well.

Having started the morning off so promisingly, seeing the CNBC logo emblazoned on airport newsstand, I was so hopeful that the Southwest Airlines flight would be Wi-Fi enabled.

I had flown the previous week to Nashville, but did so on a late Thursday morning, usually a slow time for my kind of trading activity. It really didn’t matter to me that there was no Wi-fi on that 2-hour flight.

Today, I just knew that it was going to be different.

Despite the fact that the cashier at the CNBCstore gave me a blank stare when I asked for her advice on Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and snapped at me “what do you think? Do I look like friggin’ Herb Greenberg to you?”

As it turns out, those people aren’t really employees of or contributors to CNBC, although the cashier looked strangely like James Altucher.

If I’m not mistaken, Altucher did once have a blog entry entitled “The 12 Things I Learned from the People who made Impulse Purchases at the Register before Boarding their Flight.”

So, it could have been him,

Yet, despite the lack of helpful guidance at the CNBC store, I still held hope that everything would fall into place today.

I was completely prepared to stream CNBC, engage that trading platform and join that Mile High Traders Club, ready to pounce and thrust trades out from this ad hoc trading machine.

I even had visions of having a celebratory cigarette afterward basking in the glow of victory.

Well, guess again.

First of all, it turns out that there is no smoking allowed on airplanes.

Secondly, no Wi-Fi.

To make matters even worse, next to public restrooms the thing that I like the least is making casual conversation with strangers aboard a plane.

In several hundred flights over that 7 years period, I probably averaged 7 words per flight, usually related to the offering of peanuts or a beverage.

While Sugar Momma slept with her head on my shoulder, someone asked what I did for a living and I was begrudgingly engaged me in conversation.

I can’t remember the last time anyone really asked me that question and I really didn’t have an answer.

Without giving her reason to ask, she then told me that her husband, a physician, as if I had cared, wanted to invest all of their money in gold.

She wanted to know what I thought.

Odd, Is what I thought initially.

See he wasn’t there to defend himself, I gave my opinion.

I then made the mistake of mentioning stocks and options.

But I do enjoy rambling on about that topic until she asked me if I only bought shares in corporations that were socially responsive.

I gave her the same “are you serious look” that I’ve given to others on other occasions. I like to make money with my stock investments, and not see them predictably trail the indices.

She had no concept of opportunity costs, when she countered that “if stocks make 10% and your investment made 7%, then you’re not really losing money.”

I tried to tell her that when purchasing shares in Altria, for example, that was a hands off transaction for Altria. They didn’t own the shares, someone, perhaps me, owned those shares. A buy or a sell was transacted with another individual or  institution, and not with Altria.

Donate the capital gains to charity, was my solution to any pangs of guilt.

How I wanted that conversation to end.

But first she had to tell me that what was necessary was a boycott of stocks. She used flawed history to point to the case of South Africa and how people got the system to change.

She had mistaken consumer boycotts for a stock boycott.

Of course, I never wanted to point out the socially irresponsible way that gold may be mined, yet that was there “go to” investment strategy.

All I really wanted to to get off that plane, forget about any hopes of joining the Mile High Club and get on with life.

We landed at about noon New York time. Plenty of time to make a couple of trades. Adding shares of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and JP Morgan, certainly among the most socially responsible corporations out there.

With quick sales of call options on both it was then time to meet up with friends and head out for a day of hiking.

We didn’t make it very far on this first day, but tomorrow, we all plan to join the Mile High Club together.

I think I mean that in a literal sense, but there’ll be lots of Margaritas, so you never know if the figurative interpretation will show its face.

Tomorrow’s another day. I’m still a bit shy of that 100 Color TV mark, but am hopeful.

Socially responsible or not, someday I’ll reach that Mile High Club, even if it’s by myself.

How universal is that theme?

How many times have we been fooled, or used our best judgment and made a mistake that we’ve come to regret?

Ask Eddie Murphy that question.

What do you think would pop up first in his mind among the mistaken paths he’s taken?

Beverly Hills Cop 3, Pluto Nash, transvestite hookers, accepting hosting duties for the Academy Awards or walking away from hosting duties?

He’s only human, as are we all, so there’s probably many more regrets in the mix.

Until I started writing this blog I never realized how obsessed I must be with Eddie Murphy, as he’s been cited now for a third time and on the other two occasions his was the illustrative photo.

Not so this time.

I’ve learned my lesson.

As a product of the 60’s and 70’s the classic song from “The Who” always comes to mind. Certainly Peter Townshend learned his lesson and now probably removes all traces of child pornography from his computer.

After all, isn’t “learning your lesson” the desired endpoint of any mistake?

The depressing close to that song is that what we think of as change is most often not.

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” also has a universal truth about it. That and the fact that we always do get fooled again.

This weekend we learned that Billy Crystal, the one time host of the Oscars is coming back to rescue the production after the surprise departure of Murphy.

The surprise departure came after the surprise selection.

Meet the old boss, same as the new boss.

And then comes news that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was truly resigning his position following Parliament passing economic reforms. He didn’t use Twitter to make the announcement as he had earlier to deny the announcement.

Instead, Berlusconi blamed “transformati” as the reason for his sad state. That is, the tendency of Italian politicians to change their policy positions based on shifting winds.

He described his decision to resign as being a “generous act.”

Replacing him and seeking to pull off the same kind of rescue as Billy Crystal is expected to do, is Mario Monti, a past member of the European Commission and who just a week ago was appointed Senator for Life.

With that a”Senator for Life” appellation also goes the title “Colonel”, befitting such previous lifetime luminaries as Moammar Khaddafi, who also had quite an Italian connection.

I’m not certain what the designation entitles the bearer to, but it would look great on a desk nameplate. Monti has already asured the populace that he will devote his complete attention to the task of rescuing the Italian economy.

Those efforts are already being hailed as “The Full Monti.”

After 20 years of dealing with the antics of Berlusconi, Italians are now ready to go back to their old ways and form a new government every few months. Even then, the unifying theme was that the old boss was the same as the new boss.

Monday is the start of yet another week and I’ve had a personal best for total options income generation, even compared to some options cycles that were 5 weeks long.

Sounds great, but I’m wondering whether I’ll have the strength to resist the lure of Berlusconi-like generous option premiums or whether I’ll get fooled again.

At question is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.

This week, I’ll have only cash that’s been made available through the assignment of my Caterpillar shares. Every other holding that had calls written against it are still right where they belong. Still in my portfolilo and very close to their most recently written strike prices.

On Fridays that end like that I want something other than a “Down Monday”, which typically gives the opportunity to repurchase shares.

This week, other than Caterpillar, there’s nothing to buy back.

The prudent me would do what I’ve done the past few weeks. In fact, this has been the third time in 3 weeks that my Caterpillar shares have been assigned. Each time I’ve bought shares back and resold options. Along the way, I’ve been very happy as the “in the money” weekly options provided an adjusted 2% ROI.

To buy shares back again seems like such a “no brainer” especially if they open lower than the price where exercised, as they did last week.

But then there’s Green Mountain just waving at me, sort of like those underage hookers that Berlusconi seemed to favor.

In return for picking up shares about 3 weeks ago, I received a 6-7% premium each week. But likewise in return, the devil required accepting a 35% share price haircut.

So with so much uncertainty and questions out there regarding Green Mountain, is it possible that a momentum stock can actually be a value, or is it destined to spend the rest of its existence along with the heap of one time momentum stocks that never see glory days again.

I know that I should stick with Caterpillar or some other proven cyclic winner, but human nature refuses to believe that lightening will strike twice. Even if it does, human nature then tells us that we won’t be the unlucky guy who keeps getting shown in the Guinness World Records for the number of documented times he’s been actually struck by lightening.

Alright, so there’s human nature, but there’s also that need to “do as I say” kind of thing, as my segment on last week’s “Bloomberg Rewind, where I mentioned that I was holding Green Mountain and would continue to do so even after the precipitous fall, was replayed the next evening.

As Rick Perry would say “Oops”.

To compound things a bit, I’ll be enroute to Arizona when the market opens and am sitting on a number of new short call positions that I was hoping to open. With luck of the draw a week earlier I’d boarded a Southwest flight for Nashville that didn’t have Wi-Fi service, but it was an otherwise quite Thursday.

I’d missed nothing on that day, besides most of my weekly trades come on Monday and Wednesday.

There’s not too much that I can do about tomorrow’s flight. That too, will be hit or miss, but if a miss, our feet will be on ground before noon, NYSE time. At that time I can decide whether to ignore what common sense tells me to do.

In the meantime, I’m still somewhat confused by the goings on in the GOP quest for the Presidential nomination.

In that regard, it’s hard not to get fooled again. What other choices are there? The perfect example of how an intelligent person doesn’t get fooled again is to consider whether you’ve ever re-ordered from Godfather’s Pizza.

Without a single real vote being cast, the infinite number of debates, the most recent on The Cartoon Network, it appears the the choice is narrowing down to a steady and unexciting Mitt Romney or a ridiculously resurgent Newt Gingrich.

Either way, that represents getting fooled again.

The reality, though, is that American politics, sometimes those who lose in their quest to become boss, eventually do become the new boss, so giving up is never a good idea.

Look at Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Using Berlusconi’s view of politics, Romney’s perceived shifts are reflective of “transformati”, while Gingrich’s dogmatic adherence to 20 year old policy positions are the sign of a principled politician.

And if anyone knows a principled politician, it’s likely Berlusconi, as he’s purchased many over a lifetime of public service.

I suppose that many are saying the same thing about our current President, but many will likely change their minds if we can string 3-4 months of good employment numbers together.

In the meantime, knowing that giving up is never a good idea, there may be hope for Green Mountain, yet.

Maybe so, but I can tell you that regardless of what I finally do with the money, I wont get fooled again, again.

That gives me at least one more opportunity to take a stab at Green Mountain. If shares have at least another week of life left in them before the expected implosion, there may be very good opportunity to sell in the money weekly calls and erase some of last week’s loss.

If that strategy works, all that will remain is wondering how long to keep pulling that off until I do get fooled one last time.

 

 

 

 

We’re Americans.

We love excess and excesses and are probably harboring lots of pent up need to exercise excess, just waiting for an economic turnaround to finally get here.

In the meantime as those parts of the world that were once derisively referred to as “third world” are discovering the joy of excess, we still know how to party with the big boys.

I’m not certain whether I meant that literally or figuratively.

On Wednesday and Thursday my oldest son and I were in New York City, a place I rarely went to during all of the years spent growing up in the Bronx.

Of course, back then, the only places in “the city” to visit were things like museums and art galleries and they always seemed to take their child unfriendly causes to excess. Even the dinosaurs were a bit much, as if bigger was actually better when it came to extinct species.

Some of the great homes along Fifth Avenue, past residences to the Astors, the Morgans and others weren’t appreciated by me back then, either.

Not even the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a display of inflated cartoon characters taken to excess was enough to attract me to see them on anything other than a TV set.

They didn’t have things like Bloomberg News and CNBC back in the old days. Not just to watch on TV, but to physically step foot into.

Those are great attractions. I’d see them any day. And that’s exactly what we did while visiting the past couple of days.

Sure, Wall Street was always there, but I never knew about Wall Street when growing up.

The funny thing is that I still have no desire to actually visit the epitome of capitalism. No desire to have the obligatory bull and bear picture taken. I did, however, want to have a picture taken with some Occupy Wall Street protestors, especially since they are, among other things, protesting the great excesses of Wall Street and banking.

Maybe next year,

Ah, but a picture of a real New York corned beef sandwich. Now we’re talking pictures.

On the way back home we stopped for New York deli food. Not to be overly chauvanistic, but you really can’t get that kind of corned beef or pastrami anywhere else. The nice thing about the New York delis is that they don’t offer corned beef sandwiches with a choice of cheeses or breads.

You get a choice of pickles, or if you don’t like choice, you just get them all.

Talk about excess, but at least the elimination of cheese respects your need to maintain healthy cholesterol levels and the pickles must do something good.

I think that they’re meant to be swallowed whole to help propel the other ingested contents toward their ultimate destination.

The corned beef sandwich shown barely captures half of the entire sandwich.

No match for these delicious monstrosities, we gave in to woefully inadequately sized stomachs and sheepishly asked for doggie bags.

I was never so embarrassed, having always finished all of my restaurant meals in the past.

We placed the leftovers in bags and put them into the car trunk and just watched the rear chassis sag and groan a bit. A sight and sound very similar to that which we observed in many of the deli’s patrons.

The deli trop was a fitting end to the previous day when the market fell 394 points.There were lots of groans.

Talk about more excess.

Yet another day where the end result was one of an over-reaction, except there was really nothing to which the reaction was in response. Not even a rumor about a plan to have a plan to solve the Italian debt crisis falling through.

In professional trading circles that’s referred to as a third derivative.

I can understand that kind of excessive reaction only because it’s not very rare anymore, but I still can’t understand the root cause. How is it that all of these very smart people who are driving the trading decisions of the big money players so rapidly fleeing their convictions?

But still,  I can also understand the excessive reaction of Green Mountain Coffee Roaster shares after announcing  poor earnings and questions continuing regarding accounting regularities.

Of course, when I bought my shares a few weeks ago I was fully aware of the overhang and the possibility of finding a chalk outline on the floor of the board room. That kind of unpleasntness could easily send a momentum stock reeling.

And it did.

But nearly 40%? After already suffering a 40% or so decline from its recent high?

Excessive?

Earlier in the morning I was sitting in the parlor of the cute boutique hotel in which we stayed and was watching the ticker showing Green Mountain’s descent.

It was ironic that while I was stirring my coffee with what appeared to be a genuine silver spoon that my Green Mountain daily disaster’s bitterness was being tempered by silver’s own descent.

Of course, silver and its wealthier cousin gold, have seen their own recent share of excesses, as everyone seems to hunger to own them, as well.

Since I now own a sizeable piece of the ProShares UltraShort Silver ETF’s, I like it when silver prices go down. So as silver was doing just that, after a recent climb, my small Green Mountain piece, which has been nicely hedged with weekly options over the past three weeks was less of a nuisance.

In a show of true excess, Bloomberg Rewind actually lived up to its name and then some. On Thursday, it showed a clip of my Wednesday appearance on the show talking about the impact of Green Mountain’s after hours announcement.

Sort of like Bloomberg Meta Rewind.

Although the clip seemed to indicate that I wasn’t worried about the then 35% after hours price drop, I think it was taken out of context.

What I had actually meant to say was that I violently vomit at the very thought or taste of Green Mountain Coffee.

But I can see how they might misinterpret my words.

When the day finally settled, some of Wednesday’s excess was sucked out of the system, although Green Mountain decided to just settle in near its low for the day.

Normally after having a stock take a big hit like this  I would exercise the “Having a Child to Save a Life ” strategy. But with Wednesday’s broad drop and Thursday’s half hearted recovery, I may not see any cash free up from assignments to pick up additional, but now discounted Green Mountain shares.

That prospect leaves just as bitter a taste, because an opportunity is a terrible thing to waste.

Or I could choose this opportunity to follow the Bernard Baruch axiom of selling when you hit the 10% loss level.

Conveniently, I’ll include my options premiums received over the past 3 weeks in the calculation and ignore that advice.

I suppose that you could possibly stick to your process to excess and inadvertently create a new dogma.

I’m not a fan of dogma of any variety, unless it’s potentially my own. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough adherents to be able to call it “dogma.”

A cult? Maybe, but it might just be a cult of one.

But if I did have real dogma and it really became popular, I think I would call it “Hot Dogma” and see to what excess I could get people to suck it down. It definitely sounds more palatable that way.

To make it all easier, have a little Green Mountain Coffee to wash it all down. That’s much better than the Kool-Aid the other guy was offering.

I had a flashback this morning.

It had been nearly 50 years since I’s been on the Palisades Parkway in New Jersey, the road that hugs the Jersey side of the Hudson River.

Obviously, we didn’t get to that side very often and with the exception of an enduring admiration for Bruce Springsteen and his endless stories about his home state, I’ve never had reason to return.

I’ve made it a point to avoid all New Jersey public restrooms along the way as I’ve made the journey from Washington, DC to New York

The last time that I can recall being on that road was part of a family outing that took us to the old Palisades Amusement Park. Like Freedomland, an amusement park in the Bronx, Palisades Amusement Park has long met the wrecker’s ball and real esate speculator’s grasp.

Unlike Freedom Land, at least Palisades Park has found immortal fame by being the title of a rock song from the late 50’s by the Coasters.

For all I know, it may have been the Platters and it may have been in the 60’s, but you don’t pay good money to read this blog for certified details.

As a child, I also remember going through what turns out to be a series of universal beliefs among children, up until reaching a specific developmental milestone.

My Sugar Momma, with whom I celebrate our 27th wedding anniversary today, will gladly volunteer the opinion that I’ve never reached certain developmental milestones.

Nonetheless, I believed that the person appearing on the television screen could see what I was doing, because all kids believed that.

Captain Kangaroo must have thought that I was a sick f**k.

And like all kids, I also believed that everything that occured in life happened because of something that I had done.

Sort of like Laszlo the Dog believing that the FedEx guy left his turf because he barked loudly and ferociously in his direction, each and every time he comes.

That’s the same reason why kids always believe that they were the cause of their parents’ divorce.

I continue to grieve over the Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher divorce, even though there little rational basis for feeling that way.

But here I was today, a very exciting day for me, but now one tinged in shame and a feeling of personal responsibility once the market decided to have a seizure.

My bad.

Thanks to the entirely accidental efforts of my publicity agent I found myself appearing on Bloomberg Rewind, hosted by Matt Miller.

As a strong believer in mathematical modeling, I can state with great certainty that every time I appear on Bloomberg Rewind, the market goes into a tailspin.

The facts bear me out on this one and I understand that it can only be my fault.

There I was to promote myself, my book and my fervent belief that the GOP debate should have included Joe Paterno and should have not been influenced by the sad reports and allegations.

Anyway, the past couple of days I had moaned about just how boring the past two days had been, but I’ll still take the 200 point gains, thank you.

Driving along the Palisades Parkway and following the market’s dreadful action, I couldn’t help but believe that I was responsible. The images of childhood came back, but along with them were those developmental traits that had been long buried.

What had I done to cause a 400 drop? Was there anything that I could do to make things better? Could I have been a better investor and not such a disappointment to the market’s overlords?

How did this child bleed them?

Surely things would get better when cooler heads prevailed. Of course, that’s what most believed 2,000 years ago, as well.

When the market opens on Thursday, that may well be the case. But as far as Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, things aren’t likely to work out that way.

After delaying its earnings release by about two weeks and being in the crosshairs of David Einhorn, today was a bad day to announce disappointing earnings.

In general, you know that it hasn’t been a good day when the best news was that Groupon’s share price didn’t fall as much as the overall market.

“Yes, Mrs. Lincoln, but his tophat is untouched'”

It was also a bad day to own Green Mountain shares, although Thursday will be worse as the institutional sellers begin to bail. Now might be a good time to scrap that strategic deal with Starbucks and instead infuse those soon to be non-proprietary K-Cups with some Diageo offerings or maybe some brown heroin.

But still, the thoughts haunt me.

Was there anything I could have done about that? Was that my fault?

Surely I could drink more coffee. Increased risk for prostate cancer may be a small price to pay for a couple of dollars rebound.

Besides, I already have the mustache and already donate to my namesake, the American Cancer Society.

Or I could not have gotten myself so enthralled with the $5 weekly options premiums over the past 3 weeks that it would have wiped out all feelings of guilt and responsibility.

Granted that those premiums bought the cost basis down, but still, I have to take responsibilty. I mean, why else would this company with questionable accounting and a questionable story ahead of it, just drop off the cliff?

As I deal with today’s plummet, I also dealt with that childhood belief that the TV characters were seeing me and watching everything that I did.

Still, if that’s what it took to be on good behavior, maybe that’s a childhood trait that we should retain forever, maybe helping our weakened super-egos deal with all of the temptations out there.

And do, today I was on good behavior.

I even wore a sport jacket and tie as I learned that the people on the TV screen were actually three dimensional characters. Not only in their appearance, but in personality, as well.

Knowing that my segment would be up against yet another GOP candidates debate, I tried to fight off the guilt that I was responsible for the sorry state of the candidates.

Who shall lead them?

No one seems to really want it.

It just amazes me that people are beginning to talk up the Newt Gingrich surge in the polls.

What I’d really like to see, now that I’m in New York for a couple of days is a Rupert Murdoch New York Post inspired front page shouting out that “The Troll Rises in The Poll.”

Granted, the extremists that seem to prop up the most unlikely of candidates have already backed away from that ocularly crazed Minnesotan, although that could just as easily describe Jesse Ventura.

Watching a replay of the debate after arriving back at the hotel following Bloomberg Rewind, it was clear that the candidates were there own worst enemies.

Especially Rick Perry.

There’s no plausible reason for anyone else to take blame for his belief that he could lead.

With a market selling off 400 points lots of people are ready to fall into the “follower mode” and persue their need to panic.

As long as everything remains on paper, and paper only, why not pay attention to what technicians are always telling ius?

Not only do stock prices revert to their means, but so too should our emotions.

Whether feeling giddy about a couple of hundred points climb or in panic over losses like today, common sense should tell us that even those emotions should seek to revert to a mean, especially before doing anything stupid.

Like dumping shares wholesale.

Or you could just pop Zoloft.

Ultimately, I don’t know if another “child shall lead them.”

That would be sacrileous to think so. It’s bad enough that I was in Cirque in NYC laughing at what appeared to be a statue of a Hindu God.

I disown those moments. I feel guilty about them.

But the child in each of us, the child that reacts based on an undeveloped system of cognition will definitely bleed us, if we allow it to happen.

Take today’s 400 point loss on paper and only feel guilt if you choose to join in on the fear. Instead prey on the greed and the fear that others exhibit.

Lead yourselves out and everything else will follow.