CNN tracks how the market is trading through the creation of a fear and greed index. They rank whether the market is at either extreme, normal fear or greed, and finally balanced. Right now the market is at extreme fear. Every positive is turned into a negative, every negative amplified, and if something is neither then it is clearly negative.
The really interesting part is the amount of fear on social media. That is what I find very interesting because it all seemed to start when rumors started about renewed hostilities with Iran. All of a sudden there were posts everywhere that this is it. This is the bubble. Time to run. Which is weird because this happened back in June as well, but that turned out to be a forced liquidation.
Something is fishy once again. The last time this happened I kept thinking I needed to buy more Microsoft but kept buying Amazon instead. Both have been good for more, but Microsoft has been a bit better. Right now I am thinking Google is the big opportunity. Part of that is one of the factors sited as evidence by the speculative fear mongers is Meta had negative cash flow in their latest report. Google had that last quarter. If Google shows back in the positive this quarter then the stock could quickly reverse.
And yes I answered speculation with speculation of my own, but that is what the market is. Millions, if not billions, of people trying to guess on millions if not trillions, of possible futures. Some might even say the market is the embodiment of the paradox of the infinite hotel.
Since I have a plan centered around a collection of what is now 12 stocks my actions don’t need to change. What happens now is I have an opportunity. That is what this type of speculative fear creates, and I already named what I think it is. The market needs sentiment to shift to have things run again, and it will. It always does. The question is when. It could be today. It could be five years from now.
I think it will be next week. Google and Amazon report and the fed meets to hold rates. Those three things will combine and then lead into the midterms. The market hates uncertainty and the possibility of renewed hostilities and midterm doubt is leading to rabid speculation and it happens to be of the fear variety.
