US Stocks Hit All Time High

Bugra Bakan

“The secret of all victory lies in the organization of non-obvious.” Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor 161  – 180)

I only discovered Marcus Aurelius in 2000 Ridley Scott movie, Gladiator. I can’t forget the scene, in which to his son Commodus, he says: “Commodus, your faults as a son, is my failure as a father.” He openly and honestly acknowledges Commodus’ shortcomings, doesn’t sugar coat a thing, and accepts full responsibility as a father; my kind of guy. These two characters in the movie are portrayed quite accurately against historical facts. As a philosopher, Marcus Aurelius points out in his quote, to the importance of the non-obvious; the unknown. If you think you’re smart by knowing all the economic facts and you’re ready to invest, think again. All the information available to you (except insider information, which is illegal) is also available to everyone else, and most likely already factored in. The key question is: what might the other investors be anticipating with this information? Because if the known has already been acted upon, the unknown is where the victory lies.

Now, of course this doesn’t diminish the importance of research and collecting data. Even to anticipate others’ actions, you need to know what those actions might be based on. A reaction to certain set of facts, also called a trend, could be identified by looking at historical data and matching similarities to gauge what could be next. This is called a technical analysis, which is always confused with charting. Charting is a small subset of technical analysis, and nowhere near as reliable as trend analysis.