Unpopular Opinions
Yesterday after the close I strolled out digitally for a bit of slumming over on ZH. In a comment to a post regarding a purported mini flash crash in the silver futures I pointed out that silver had gone exponential and was due to correct. My suggestion was that being long precious metals in general was risky right now as the boat was extremely one sided and that short/medium term traders should be prepared for a little shake out.
Well, it took about three minutes until I had accumulated the junk limit required to bury my comment. As suspected my opinions on silver were as welcome as Jaja Binks at a Starwars convention.
Sorry for being Mr. Buzzkill – but I do these things for a reason. Yes, I do enjoy being unpopular – it’s all an integral part of being an ‘evil speculator’ and self anointed market megalomaniac. Having an unpopular opinion tells you a lot about yourself as well as about the degree of herd thinking among a population of market participants. Of course this swings both ways – when everyone suddenly agrees with you then it’s usually time to get out.
The focus is on the word ‘everyone’ – see we all live on our respective monkey spheres and your perception of ‘everyone’ may not exactly match reality. See, if you’re currently a bear you’re probably going to talk to a lot of other bears – if you’re a bull you naturally feel at home amongst other bulls. The trick is to step outside your bubble and do a sampling beyond what you perceive your personal comfort zone. Personally I don’t have no allegiances to any camp and thus I’m perfectly at home among market whores, strippers, and cheap skanks. Trust me – the parties are much better.
Of course in life timing is everything and as with yin and yang there are two opposing forces that need to be balanced. Scott put up a little piece by George Soros which I believe elaborates on this point perfect, and since I couldn’t possibly do any better than ole’ George I’ll repost it right here:
I am often asked how one can be a trend trader and contrarian at the same time. Well, there’s your answer – it’s all a matter of timing! Follow the trend when the trend is strong – abandon it when the market is ready to embrace reality and buy into a new lie. In other words – there comes the day when the trend is not your friend anymore 😉
