Shawn: Gus, I’ve had a catheter!
Gus: You mean catharsis.
-Psych
The good times are coming. Must find sunglasses.
That was me about a week ago, because I realize that I have been kidding myself here. For some unknown, unholy reason I have been trying to make this place the most boring place on the planet. Sure I offer investment advice and things dealing with money are to be taken seriously, but I don’t need to be boring. While I should avoid being purposefully incredulous and confusing readers, I can still be myself. It was like I was writing these articles for panicky people pulling out their hair and were from the 1850s. It was stuffy and overly formal. I am just not that kind of person.
You are not going to see me in a fake office with a fancy suit. You know what I am talking about. The guy in the fancy office? He sits behind this mahogany or oak desk with his $5 smile. He gives you the impression of being friendly, but trustworthy. His newsletter costs $500 a month, and he is about as accurate as the free information out there. The time it takes does not warrant the cost either. Trust me, I’m doing research and releasing it for free it does not take that long to be good. I have seen quantitative, computer-generated “research” taken from public sources selling for like $100. I mean my god people are buying that. It is all about seeming trustworthy and consummate. That office is probably not even a real office. It looks like a law office, because the books in the bank look like they are part of a series. Do your book shelves look like that? Maybe if you bought the entire set of encyclopedia Britannica. Unless you went to law school even textbooks are vastly different. I’m not gonna rent an office. I might hang out at a Starbucks in flip-flops. If me liking flip-flops somehow makes me less credible as a source of analysis, then you shouldn’t be listening to me anyway. The voice I write in aside, it is who I am. I doubt any one reading this is that offended by flip-flops though. Lets say flip-flops a few more times for effect though. Flip-flops.
My audience is not the fancy institutional investors though. It is not for the dusty old money with their smoking jackets. I am writing for the flip-flop crowd. Obviously, some investors will not be from my flip-flop wearing generation, and that is fine too. I will be presenting as much information as possible with as intelligent an analysis as I can give, but I’m going to do it in MY voice. Not yours and not that guy on the corner over there. Go look out your window, he is standing there, on the corner of all of our streets. I have no idea how he does that.
I am probably smart. I can’t be sure, since I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust the stuff I read. I need multiple confirmations and even after all that I know I am just guessing. It is my best guess, but if I knew the future for a fact then I would not need risk management. I am not here to cram trades down your throat. I prefer to present the information and my choice of direction. I want to analyze things to death and look at it from every angle. McDonald’s is offering premium but cheap coffee to compete a bit with the morning Starbucks crowd? It probably won’t matter overall. It won’t detract from Starbucks and it will not be the driver for McDonald’s. However, I tried the coffee. Its not bad, but its not Starbucks. However, McDonald’s have drive-thrus and those are not to be underestimated. Now does that mean something for the stock? How should I know? All I know is that I do not have the time or the desire to get out of my car every morning to pick up a coffee. Also, certain Starbucks have limited food choices. If I want a croissant with eggs, cheese, and sausage I need to find the right Starbucks, aka ones with an oven, or ANY McDonald’s. Now I am not sure what impact that will have on the stock price, I am not Nostradamus. If I had to choose I am closer to Nostradumba**, because my ability to tell the future is next to nil. I know what I MIGHT be doing, but I’m still not entirely certain.
I have it! I know where my pants are! Thank god, I’m getting all prune-y!
The point is it’s a factor that makes me sometimes pick McDonald’s more too. I know people are addicted to coffee and since the coffee is passable, especially if you take it black, McDonald’s might win some points with the in a rush or I am too lazy to get out of my car crowd. Go find a computer generated report that will say that. In fact go find any written report that would incorporate something like that into its analysis. Is it relevant? Possibly, but its conjecture. You can’t give revenue projections off that. I have not read a report that discusses something like that. I got a million of them by the way, about many companies. Even some articles are written in that stiff boring style.
This place needs to be livened up and in my voice. There are more people like me out there, the internet proves it. It isn’t even a question of age. There are plenty of people who like top quality information that does not make investment research such a pain. Besides I want to make a community here, and that’s not going to happen if I use a generic boring voice. I have to find people who like the way I am and will enjoy reading my work. So I apologize for all the stuff written so far. It is written in the voice of most others out there. There are thousands of investment sites. I would love one that made reading it fun. I have found a few, and like me they are smaller sites. They do not charge $500 for their information either. Nothing I say could be worth $500 unless I traveled to the ends of the earth for mystical secrets hidden from man. The Mayans predicted Netflix by the way. It was on the tablet that was less well known. End of the world is sexy, because humanity is obsessed with its destruction. Netflix spiking upwards? Not as sexy.
So lets put these dark times behind us and move forward. Clearly, I’m just as chatty as ever. Hopefully, though this long post was far more interesting to read than the boring ones that just shoveled information to you. A caveat though, I do write for some other sites, and my writing for them will be a bit stiffer. The more support I get here the less I write for them. So maybe I will create a donation link. Then I can write here and still pay my bills. There are also some other developments that I hope offers a lot of value to you. More on that later.
For now show your support by liking The Market Archive on Facebook. We have our own page! So like us. Its right there! One button on the right near the top-ish! Thank you in advance.
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