9/20/18

Chicken Little Fails for the last time

Dow hits record, surpassing January High 

Chicken Little will never leave his wingman again


Paraphrasing this scene from The Rainmaker, I must be stupid stupid stupid.



On January 25, 2018 I posted, "Chicken Little is not bullish on US Stocks."

After being bullish on US stocks for almost 2 years, I noted a convergence of frothy sentiment, and rapid price increases that caused me to no longer be bullish. Here are the prior posts on bullishness.



a. May 18, 2016: Criteria for bullishness.  
b. July 14, 2016: Chicken Little buys US stocks (Dow 18,300)
c. November 9, 2016: Chicken Little predicts Trump rally. (Dow 18,000)
d. January 30, 2017: The Raging Chicken Little Bull. (Dow 20,000) 

On January 25, 2018, the Dow closed at 26,392. As I write today, on September 26, 2018, the Dow sits at 26,385. So the Dow has gone exactly nowhere in eight months since I made my "not bullish" call in January. Why do I feel stupid, stupid, and more stupid, and not like a genius? 


Oedipus abacinated himself

I feel very bad because in the middle of the January 25th post, I made the statement, "This is the top." January 2018 turned out to be *a* top, and not *the* top. 

So I feel bad because I was wrong in calling late January 2018 as the top. Furthermore, making predictions about precise market tops and market bottoms in not my game. So by making such a statement, I violated my own discipline. 

While my game is not point prediction of tops and bottoms, I will continue to change my views and investment positions. For example, I sold bonds and committed to no more purchases in August 2016. If you read that post (Chicken Little Falls out of love with bonds), you will see no bold prediction of this is the top in bonds (although it was). 

I hereby commit to making no more such point predictions. I will never fail in the same way again. 






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