A Havenstein Moment.

A Havenstein Moment.

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A Havenstein Moment.
A Havenstein Moment.
A little perspective...

A little perspective...

"Mass delusions are not rare."

Rudy Havenstein's avatar
Rudy Havenstein
Feb 01, 2024
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A Havenstein Moment.
A Havenstein Moment.
A little perspective...
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Oh, no rate change today.

“Mass delusions are not rare. They salt the human story. The hallucinatory types are well known; so also is the sudden variation called mania, generally localized, like the tulip mania in Holland many years ago or the common-stock mania of a recent time in Wall Street. But a delusion affecting the mentality of the entire world at one time was hitherto unknown. All our experience with it is original.

This is a delusion about credit. And whereas from the nature of credit it is to be expected that a certain line will divide the view between creditor and debtor, the irrational fact in this case is that for more than ten years debtors and creditors together have pursued the same deceptions. In many ways, as will appear, the folly of the lender has exceeded the extravagance of the borrower.”

Garet Garrett
The Bubble That Broke The World (1931)

"For the past five years, valuations haven’t mattered a bit. Over the last five years in technology, deciding something is overvalued has been a terrible reason not to buy. Look at Microsoft, or Cisco, or Yahoo.”

- Henry Blodget, January 4, 2000

Henry’s timing was interesting:

"Valuation, I find, is a useless tool. If you base your investment decisions on valuation, you are never going to make money."

- Mark Schmehl, portfolio manager at Fidelity Investments, in an interview with the Globe and Mail (2020)

Recent history has prove Mark Schmehl correct.

“Don’t short price, short participation.”

Jason Shapiro

I like the Shapiro quote. Now, how to determine participation… (he uses Commitment of Traders reports.)

So the other day AMD was in the news, and since I hadn’t looked at that one in a while (but remembering it from previous bubbles), I figured I’d look at a long-term chart (In both linear and semi-log form, so as not to upset anyone.) No position in any of these fyi.

Advanced Micro Devices

Image

Also, by request, Nvidia…

And the S&P 500 since 3/9/09, when history began…

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(Re: The cat photo. I’m still confused.)

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