Howard, I never get tired of the market. Sometimes when I was working full time, I got tired of BS from bosses, regulators, lawyers, accountants, salesmen and, more rarely, from customers. But I always loved playing the market. One reason I like it so much is that I play a lot of areas, and when US tech stocks bore me, there is always commodities, intl. issues, CEFs or fixed income trades to catch my eye.
I do think that some of us become too caught up in the market to the detriment of other aspects of our lives, but, also, to the detriment of our portfolios. A person of many interests has more and better ideas than the person who is focused on one area, IMHO. That is one reason I left research for portfolio management. I loved research, but, to make it in that world, you have to follow a narrow niche. Also, in those days, portfolio managers made more money. <g>
As a portfolio manager I was very lucky to have my fingers in a lot of different pies. I am one of the few people I know who had the good fortune to manage large equity portfolios, convertible bond funds, a huge Godzilla of a fixed income fund, and futures and options portfolios. And, I also got to swing from spec portfolios to ultra conservative portfolios. That is rare. Today, I see these poor, bored-stiff guys on CNBS who say stuff like "our fund is a domestic value stock fund with market caps greater than $500 million and less than $2 billion and pe ratios less than 90% of the market pe as measured by the Value Line Index." Ugh! I would slash my wrists if I were that limited in my scope of operation.
However, money isn't everything. It isn't even the most important thing. I would much rather be healthy, spiritually, mentally and physically, than wealthy. Two times in my life I dropped out and spent most of my money having fun all over the world. In fact, it is possible that my early retirement is much the same deal. You have to have other interests that are more important than money. That also allows you to take the market much less seriously. If you owned Micron and making money was your only joy in life, then when it fell from $95 to $17, your pocketbook was not all that felt the pain. It could hurt your self worth. And your portfolio and your self worth should never be connected.
One good thing is that trading only takes place 6 1/2 hours a day and does not happen on weekends. Yes, you can trade more if you are an addict, but the limited hours for most trades does provide a great excuse for walking away for awhile.
I know this is general BS, but I think we have to have many other interests and not become investment nerds. If for no other reason than that investment nerds don't do that well in the market.
MB |
