Today as I watch a former holding (TAS) plummet after being promoted last week on the heels of watching the gold ‘community’ get Ukrained and FOMCed in a double barreled assault, I am reminded just how dangerous herding behavior has become in the social networking phase of the information age, where every genius has got a pitch and a play, every news outlet has got ready made reasoning and the whole cacophonous mess needs an ever more finely tuned Bullshit Detector.
Hence last week’s opening NFTRH segment. And by the way, I do not view Dan Norcini as any sort of a hype monger. Quite the contrary. From what I have seen he is a well grounded and honest person.
Tune Out the Noise, Follow Technicals & Macro Fundamentals
Mail from a subscriber highlighting Dan Norcini’s view of the precious metals rally being little more than Ukraine-inspired hedge fund short-covering is but one of many inputs I have either received or seen on the internet that for my purposes at least, will be tuned down. I don’t doubt that Mr. Norcini has good experience as a professional trader, but I do question the importance he seems to assign to what the “hedge fund community” is doing at any given time.
Other inputs received or observed range from the utterly ridiculous ‘China copper demand is declining, so a decline in China gold demand will push gold prices down’ to a wide range of bull and bear rationalizations that vary from unlikely to plausible. They have one thing in common; they serve to amp up emotions.
Consider this post-2009 litany: Flash Crash → QE2 → Euro Crisis → Greek Austerity Vote → Cyprus → Operation Twist → Fiscal Cliff → QE3 → Taper → Ukraine → [today we can add in the Yellen ‘you know, like 6 months after taper ends, sort of…’ rate hike hysteria]
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