Back in the day - in my semi-innocent but definitively extended mid-thirties youth years (I was a late bloomer and didn’t much really crest the maturity hill until my late 50s or so; although, it should be noted that the All-Too-Lovely would certainly scoff at the notice that I have stumbled into any semblance of maturity) - I had the opportunity, such as that turned out to be, to lead a rag-tag basketball team into a minimum security Federal prison for an exhibition game against an inmate team.
Now…the Federal prison there - at least at the time, was a co-ed institution and one of the nations minimum security federal prisons where folks went if they weren’t really all that criminal - just perhaps a little criminal and not all that evil - just perhaps a little evil:
Anyway - nothing to be worried about and completely safe - until we actually got to the gym. The gym was in a basement accessed by numerous twisting and turning hallways with bleacher style seats enclosing the court with the inmates maybe 5 feet from the playing surface. And they were there in droves as evidently there isn’t all that much to do in a prison; albeit, in a loosely supervised minimum security co-ed prison my later opinion based purely on observation was that there was actually a quite lot to do there. They were loud - and rowdy, and evidently wanted us run out of the gym.
And They had cheerleaders that would make the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders blush. But that’s another story.
So anyway…there was this rule posted on a white metal sign that the inmates could not sit behind the visiting teams bench. Big white sign with Big Red Letters. And - as soon as we got there and started warming up the entire area behind our bench was teaming with prisoners. Nothing ominous and most of them were pretty nice guys - caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing: stuff that a lot of us already done did also too but just didn’t get caught. But being so close behind us made the guys a little nervous…you know, just a little nervous. So…
I called the Refs over - all the refs were also inmates, and pointed out the sign and the rule and asked for the group directly behind us to be moved. This is almost verbatim how he replied: “Oh…we don’t obey no rules especially if they are just rules on signs.” Just lovely.
All of which leads me to one of my very own investing rules that I wish I hadn’t felt the need to follow today: Adding to key High Confidence companies when they give up 3 or more points. But since most of my investing rules seem to play out - one way or the other, I went ahead and indulged; but, with a moderate level of slight trepidation if not outright gloom and doom:
Added to MNDY at 119.47
Added to NET at 58.90
Added to IOT at 19.67
Added to CRWD at 122.12
Added to S at 16.53
Added to ZS at 92.84
…
Added a Scout Team position to the roster: MBLY
The thing is - I am absolutely confident that I might possibly be really pretty sure that the markets - despite some of my subscription services saying that we are in a upward trending market - that actually we have some more roller coaster type plunges coming. You know - where the coaster clinks and clacks slowly up to the peak before plummeting madly down. Anyway, so one might ask why - if I thought the market is slowly eroding - and I can potentially recognize the difference between poo and shinola along with a marginal on-high-alert tingly flight or flee instinct - did I move forward. Well because - thats why.
I have been following the same basic Add/Trading Block rule for quite a while now - with just enough borderline insight and ignorance to overcome any fear and/or trepidation in doing so. And if I changed up the process now - then my Rule wouldn’t be a Rule any longer which, if you might possibly follow along with this line of thinking, would make my day-to-day Trading Block program rule more of a maybe it is a rule and maybe it ain’t. Which - to my thinking would upset the entire apple cart - such as it is because then I would have to spend more time thinking about what could possibly happen instead of depending on High Confidence stocks to eventually rebound regardless of what happens in the next half hour or day or so. So theres that.
Oh and the basketball game: We were actually pretty decent team. Going into the exhibition game against the inmates our overall record was 16-5 or something very close to that as I recall. Anyway - the Refs managed to foul out our top three scorers in the first half and the prisoners coasted to a 60 something to 40 something win. And even though we lost - it was the most fun basketball game we had all year.
All the Best,