Thursday, March 26th, 2009...11:03 pm
Horse Sense, A Rare Predictive Power
Meet Jack. He’s a horse (Belgian stallion). He can sense danger before it senses him. He can find his way home through a blizzard on a moonless night. These abilities loosely translate into “horse sense.” According to recent calculations, my content, on average, is six months ahead of the news. Now you understand the banner at the top of this page. Here’s more:
1. Take the consumer discretionary sector ($XLY) for instance: It was $30 when I showed it in August 2008 and it was $20 yesterday. Skip it, that is just a silly stock pick, anyone could have guessed that one. Moving on…
2. Today I heard a popular financial radio talk show host propose the notion of a possible revolution (French Revolution in that case - but it could have just as easily been in Russia or the Congo). Umm, I broke that story in September, 2008. Still not impressed? Try number three…
3. In mid-September, the title of this article includes “My Prediction“ - which refers to this line: “sometimes, just sometimes, economies collapse despite government intervention.” Raise your hand if you don’t see this happening. No? Ok, try number four on for size…
4. My Uncle Hal sent a patriotic chain-email to the family earlier this week. It emphasized a quote from Jefferson about banking institutions being the greatest threat to freedom - yep, the very same quote I published during the elections of 2008. Ok, ok, my uncle’s email isn’t exactly nation-wide “news” - but his recipients think it is and it really bugs me that my ENORMOUS family never reads my blog. Do you know how many Anderson’s there are in this world? (yes Dad, that includes you).
5) $AIG - On November 10, 2008 I predicted that the U.S. government couldn’t be forced to exit its interest in shares of American Investment Groupe. I totally nailed that one!
Now, while we’re on the topic of force, who would you prefer to have standing between you and your stock market investments:
a) A greedy, dishonest, unarmed bank that is self-regulated but also government regulated?
–or–
b) A greedy, dishonest, self-regulated branch of the U.S. Armed Forces?
I’m thinking that the separation of powers has some horse sense to it after all. Reminds me of the tune “Banditos” by The Refreshments. The line: “I’ve got the pistols so I’ll keep the Pesos, yeah that seems fair.”
A word about my other (less accurate) predictions:
1) I predicted that a new “digital standard” currency would be introduced by January 2009, but China’s central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan didn’t suggest the idea until yesterday.
2) Oh, and I confess that my prediction about ignoring occurred one month earlier than average (5 months vs. 6 months). Warren Buffet
3) And I have to admit that Iranian ADR’s aren’t flooding Wall Street to the degree I expected, but Iranian ETF’s certainly are.
But I got the pistols so I’ll keep the Pesos and that seems fair.
Post-script: Wife thinks that I should predict that in six months we will own the ranch. So let it be written, so let it be done. Hopefully this prediction happens early - like tomorrow…
