I am somewhat occupied today but since we are clearly heading into rough waters I decided mix things up a bit and do a blast from the past which may benefit especially some of my newer readers. If you think the past year has been rough for you then understand what may loom straight ahead will test your mettle and skills in ways you may be unprepared for. This post aims at highlighting a few common misunderstandings and confusions that traders from all stripes seem to chronically fall prey to.

We all wish we could predict the future. After all trading would be a hell lot more profitable and given a year of prescient entries/exits we’d be able to retire in comfort on our own private islands. Unfortunately it is exactly this deep-set desire for clairvoyance mixed with a healthy helping of hubris that more often than not drives us to engage in hare-brained campaigns. What’s worse however is when you get exactly what you wished for. The tape turns almost exactly where you thought and your ego instantly puffs up like the chest of a male frigate bird.

Burt Reynolds was a veritable force of nature, a man’s man who even performed many of his own stunts. To say that they don’t make ’em like this anymore would be an understatement given the limp-wristed lineup of pubescent Hollywood soyboys we have had to content with over the past decade or so (with the exception of Tom Hardy perhaps).

Burt’s death yesterday, at the young age of 82, deprives us of yet another male icon that teenage girls and above used to swoon over back in the 1970s. Life of course will go on, one way or the other, but Burt’s career actually has an important lesson to teach us traders and market maniacs:

I hope you all had an eventful Memorial weekend, yet still managed to spare a few minutes of appreciation for our proud fighting men and women, here at home as well as abroad, in times past as well as at the present. Wherever you went, I hope it wasn’t Chicago.