Years ago, early in our marriage, my wife and I went to a car dealership with her dad to make one of those all important, young couple purchases: a new car.
While my wife and her father were chatting with the salesman, I was all over the car pushing every button, pulling every lever and opening every compartment. I wanted to know what was what, where things were, and how it all fit together. The three of them were a bit taken aback as I moved from the front seat to the back, methodically finding knobs and uncovering compartments that the salesman didn’t even know existed.
Our marriage survived that episode and I’ve got a great relationship with my father-in-law but we didn’t buy the car.
I am a tinkerer by nature. My dad once rebuilt a motorcycle engine in the living room of the small apartment he shared with my mom shortly after they were married. The point is, I like to know how things work. I’m not afraid to pull something apart, look at the insides, and then put it back together. I always use all the screws and only rarely does a spring or ball bearing go missing.
So when it comes to the markets, I’m also interested in pulling indexes apart and looking at trends among and across various components.
Here is a behind-the-scenes look at my process: