“Greece is the word … “

“Syriza for the Win? Anti-bailout party on course to form government”

CNBC, we pardon the pun (emanating from the title song “Grease is the word,” from the 1971 musical “Grease”). These clever folks are using this headline to help launch the next-big-thing to worry about after Eurozone Quantitative Easing (When? … How much? … too much / too little? …too late?). I mean, will any of this make any difference if Syriza, ‘the anti-bailout party’ gaining control of government, takes Greece out of its Eurozone bail-out deal, or worse, out of the Eurozone completely? I’m not certain; but, I don’t think it will be the end of the world or the end of the Euro for that matter. Trust me, that is not going to be the way they spin it in the wake of the Syriza victory.

Moving On

We have posted 142 kortsessions since we began this blog in February of 2013. In an effort to move on (plus, I’m tired of counting) theses posts will no longer be numbered.

Some really stupid stuff

Aside from trying to deal with the major media obsessions and misinformed opinions that steer investors in the wrong direction, sometimes I just can’t resist taking a poke at the ‘really stupid’ stuff that is presented.

Along these lines we got a ‘two-fer’ last week from our friends at MarketWatch, both on Friday January 23.

“If oil drops below $30 per barrel, brace for a global recession,” continues to push the idea that oil’s collapse is a result of slack demand, a proposition I don’t buy. None-the-less, this article was one of the top-trenders on MarketWatch, both Friday and Saturday. I guess bad news sells page views. BTW, this sign of global recession was obtained from a survey of 306 ‘financial professionals’. They did not indicate what kind (i.e. stockbrokers, analysts, portfolio managers or financial planners). At any rate we all know how prescient all of the above can be. What a joke (also a scary precept) this is. If every-once-in-awhile MarketWatch did not put up some credible work, this inanity would drive me away from this rhinestone in Rupert Murdoch’s media tiara (which also includes the The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s).

My final piece for your consideration (another top-trender) is this beauty: “Opinion: Stock Market’s fate depends on the next six days.” this article in premised on the ‘January barometer’–‘How goes January, so goes the year.’ This is really useless information when you get right down to it, helpful neither to traders or investors. According to the article the average gain in a year (since the beginning of The Dow Jones Industrial Average, 1896) where January was an ‘up’ month was about twice that of a year where January was down. More importantly, the average January since the beginning of the Dow was UP! It did not make a difference whether January was up or down. You would have made money owning stocks if you owned stocks January 1. The only difference is you would have, on average made more money, if the month of January were positive. Methinks that “Stock market’s fate depends … ”  is a bit strong.

What do you think?

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