Life can be simple or you can make things complicated and noisy. It's up to you.
What business are you in? The business of trying to make money in the market or the business of making and/or consuming noise?
I was out in Greece on my honeymoon for a couple of weeks last month, but I was keeping an eye on what was going on. I love the market and I enjoy observing human behavior. So why should I completely shut myself off from something I like doing?
Now that I am married, I would very much like to keep my wife happy, and I also think it's important to get away (see here). So appropriately I shut things off and enjoyed my time in, what are now officially, my favorite islands in the world. It was funny because some of the locals in the Cyclades Islands were telling me how much they wanted to go to the Caribbean. I was like, "Naw man, stay here. Trust me!"
If you still think the media is there to provide you with useful information, there is little I can do to help you. It's 2019. They're only there to sell you Buicks and razors and whatever else they can shove down your throat.
The content they provide is designed to get you to consume it for the sole purpose of selling your attention to their sponsors. That's just the business.
You have two choices: You can just take it until your punch drunk or you can take what you consume into your own hands. It's up to you.
Phil and I sat down for an interesting chat about this very topic:
I know some people who haven't taken a vacation in years. The excuses come in all shapes and sizes. For me, I think that does much more harm than good. I know this for a fact because I used to be one of those people. I used to think that I didn't deserve a break. "I'm not there yet", is what I'd say. I skipped vacations with my family and encouraged them to go without me. I've regretted those decisions ever since.
Over the past 5 years I've made it a point to get away regularly. I've written about it the benefits before and I feel more strongly about this than ever. Even if you take a week off where you just stick your computer in the closet and make it more of a staycation, that works too. It's important to be self-aware. I know myself enough that I do not have the discipline to stay away from my computer if I'm home. I like my work. I know I'll jump on and check out some charts. I can't help myself. So I need to go away completely to accomplish my goal of 'getting away'.
Phil Pearlman has always been a good guy to talk to about a lot of different things. I know for a fact that a lot of your favorite fintwit personalities would agree with that.
Phil doesn't do a lot of media anymore like he once did, but I do get to catch up with him quite often and we publish our conversations as The Money Game Podcast. You can check out all of those episodes on Technical Analysis Radio and iTunes.
Today we're talking about what little Daisy Pearlman the puppy taught Phil about life:
In early June I'm coming to Europe to talk charts, meet with clients and try to learn as much as I can. I've been incredibly fortunate over the years to be able to speak at events and meet with investors all over Asia and around America. My trips to India, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines have been great experiences that help me throughout my process every single day. Learning and experiencing as much as I can has easily been the most rewarding investment I've ever made.
My goal on this trip is to finally get to meet with people I've been interacting with regularly for many years, catch up with old friends who live there that I only get to see in the States, and getting new perspective from local clients and colleagues. That's the whole point. If you only hang out with people from New York, or the U.S. for that matter, you're only seeing things from that same lens. I want to know how other people look at things. That's how we grow.
Every few weeks I get a message from someone asking a question along the lines of "Should I enroll in the CMT Program?" As with most things, the answer is it depends on your individual situation.
While I can't offer personalized advice to everyone, I can discuss my experience and the key benefits now that I've completed the process.
This post is going to be split into two parts; one where I explain my answer to the question that prompted this post, and the other where I summarize my actual experience in the program.
Paul Ciana and I go way back to 2006 when him and I were studying for the CMT exams together. Today, Paul is the Chief FICC Technical Strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research. In English, that means everything outside of equities. It's nice to see your friends succeed and watching him crush it is definitely one for the good guys.
About eight months ago Patrick Dunuwila from The Chart Report introduced me to a new data visualization platform called Koyfin. Two month's later I met Rob, one of the co-founders, at Stocktoberfest West. He walked me through the product and what they were doing and I was sold.
A few months later we had the opportunity to invest and we jumped at it. We loved the product and the team, so it seemed like a natural fit.
Today, Koyfin is an irreplaceable tool that I use alongside Optuma as my main tools for charting and analysis.
I get a lot of questions about how I use it, so I wanted to write a post answering just that.
Today we sit down with the newest (and likely youngest) Chartered Market Technician (CMT) Mr. Tom Bruni live from Washington Square Park in New York City. The CMT program is different today than what it was 12-13 years ago when I first went through it. I wanted to pick Tom's brain about his experience and what advice he has for others thinking about sitting for the exams.
Back in March I climbed up the Highlands Bowl in Aspen for the first time. 4 or 5 turns in my skis popped off and I tumbled down the entire mountain. About 100 yards later, there I was hanging off the side of the cliff waiting for ski patrol to come help me. Miraculously, it took them less than 20 minutes to find us and bring my skis down to where I was. Even though I was perfectly fine, my body overreacted to the existential risks and the primitive parts of my brain took over the duties of what other parts usually handle. I've had similar feelings before after experiencing a bad loss in the market. Phil does an amazing job in this one in explaining the differences and similarities between these two types of risk and why my body reacted the way it did.
