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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (6578)	5/18/2004 1:44:14 PM
From: Earlie	Respond to of 116555

Haim: Whatever works. In 1987 I was carried out on my shield by the October crash. Many of my pals saw it coming and got out of the way. They warned me several times about what they saw coming, but my understanding of the "big picture" was minuscule and my ability to interpret facts related to same was even worse, so their warnings fell on deaf ears. It took me several years to recover from the drubbing, but several good lessons were learned. The big picture became a passion and much better research processes were developed, both of which have worked fairly well over time for this particular info hound. In a nutshell, the research objectives were re-focussed on endeavouring to get a handle on what is REALLY going on in the various economies (especially the USA) as opposed to using the "facts" provided by analysts and government bureaucracies. If a company makes products and those products don't sell or don't sell at a decent margin, then sooner or later that company will take it in the teeth, irrespective of aggressive accounting. I like to KNOW how well products are selling by going to where the selling occurs... Yes, I keep track of charts, especially in periods when huge percentages of the sheep believe in them (even though I think they are akin to reading chicken entrails), and yes, I pay attention to govt stats because again, plenty of folks get caught up in them and trade accordingly. That said, when I see products not selling quickly enough (and inventories building), or when I see excess manufacturing capacity being added to address already saturated end markets, or when the writing is on the wall with respect to the consumers' ability to continue to borrow, "Shorts are US". Of course, one risks being "early" and may need to leap from the tracks to the foxhole or weeds for a time, but in the end, it strikes me that a decent understanding of the more obvious economic fundamentals tends to serve a serious investor well over extended time frames. Best, Earlie