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Economic statistics and reports. Reports of the most bland and esoteric kind that in the broader scheme of things are relatively unimportant but can shake a jittery market. These short-term reports sometimes have an inordinate impact on the market when traders are looking for the least signs of a changing economic climate such as whether the economy is heating up, etc.
Any direct or indirect, live or delayed utterances of the all-knowing and all-powerful Oz. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, arguably the single most powerful mover of financial markets in the free world. To a lesser degree, comments and proclamations made by other "Fed-heads" (members of the Federal Reserve Board).
Seasonal patterns of buying and selling within a sector or whole market. For example, retail during the holiday season; strong technology sector in the fall; tax-loss selling toward the end of the year; "January effect," superstitious beliefs about anniversaries of past market crashes, etc.
Unpredictable, arbitrary, and gratuitous mentions. Comments by CNBC commentators or guests that can immediately influence buying or selling by both traders and investors, rumors, touts by guests, innuendo by analysts, general emotional demeanor about market when things are good or bad and how this demeanor is projected to listening audience.
Trying to predict trend direction. A stock in a fast market, where prices are moving so fast that you won't be guaranteed anything by anyone at any price. In the world of stocks, nothing is more chaotic and out of our control than a fast market, motivated by panic buying or selling.
International economic, business, and political news events. Such events may not be immediately relevant to the U.S. market but are acted upon first by traders in a knee-jerk fashion who ask questions later.
Because of all of these concerns, we need to be able to clearly recognize what we can and can't control, and how to deal with all these variables that are truly out of our control. To do this, we must have a view of control, and specifically a yielding mode of control, that is positive and actually helps us feel more in control.
Even if it is not our more common mode of actively working to effect change and to feel more in control, we must begin to understand the paradoxical nature of the positive yielding form of control. We must see that the acceptance of that which is out of our control may be done in a way that actually makes us feel more in control.

 
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