The Great Depression

It has been difficult looking at the portfolio. Lots of paper value gone. And yet I am not that concerned about it. The market will come back. Maybe not as quickly as I would like but it will come back.

Jason Zweig had an interesting piece about the market. Here is an excerpt:

“Investors hate uncertainty.” Well, that’s just tough. Uncertainty is all investors ever have gotten, or ever will get, from the moment barley and sesame first began trading in ancient Mesopotamia to the last trade that will ever take place on Planet Earth.

If tomorrow were ever knowable with absolute certainty, who would take the other side of a trade today?

The financial future is no more uncertain now than it used to be; in fact, it’s far less uncertain than it was in the summer of 2007, when the Dow shot above 14000, the future seemed bright, and utterly no one foresaw the disaster that would befall the financial system. The absolute certainty of blue skies ahead was an illusion then, and the notion that we all know that worse misery lies in store is an illusion now.

The only true certainty is surprise.