Alexander Wissel, Editor in Chief, Investment U
Do you smell that? In some places the smell is subtle, faint. In others it’s a nauseating fog. Make no mistake, what you smell is real and it’s worse than you think.
It’s fear.
The streets are awash with it – from Wall Street to Main Street. Offices are clouded by it. And even worse, the airwaves (be they digital or otherwise) resonate with the sound of fear. Jokes are made around watercoolers, over lunch, and during the workday. But they’re made to break the tension, to ease what has become glaringly apparent.
Ferret’s elf. (Say it fast, or slow – you’ll get it.) Fear itself, has gotten out of hand.
Consider that 98% of metropolitan areas have seen their jobless increase in number, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the first time is at a 26-year high and Wall Street has been compulsively obsessing over ever latest earnings report.
But these aren’t really bad headlines. Or are they? The fact of the matter is that most of the financial world, and the population that funds them, are looking like shell-shocked veterans rocking themselves in a corner. And if you found that funny – it isn’t.
Like the onset of hypothermia, millions have become numb to the damage in their portfolios. And just like the symptoms of the “cold killer,” investors have become disoriented, irrational and have lost perception of their environment.
In fact we’d be willing to wager that the pessimism/optimism readings are way off. It’s because most investors have become so disassociated to their finances. Like children covering our eyes, millions have turned a blind eye to their portfolio balances.
Too many don’t want to know the extent of the damage. And that’s too bad. It prohibits them from acting them like rational investors, and looking for new opportunities.
And that might be the only way out of this fog.
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