Profiting, not Propheting
Why word choice is important
Everyone wants to predict the market. And I wasted my youth chasing that dream. Even if I am pretty good at it, at times I was horrible. My fortune changed when I realized that I am not God. And I’m not God and I’m not his prophet. And since when did Prophets predict the price of Cattle futures on a 15m chart?
Today, I was reading about Gideon and before he went to battle he asked for proof and reassurance before taking a few men with him to wage war with Midian. When you go out to the markets with your bag of cash and throw it in the ring, your values waged with dollars against the others wanting the same thing you do, profits (there is a pun in this).
Most definitely not the way the word was formed but if one profits, is it fair to say that you propheticized a future of gain?
And when your prophecy was successful, a halo of ego surrounds you, then you do it again and it turns on not to be succesful. And you ask forgiveness or another chance from the market Gods? So maybe there is an element of the religious in this endeavour.
The word profit is from “early 14c., profilen (transitive), "to advance, benefit, gain," from profit (n.) and from Old French prufiter, porfiter "to benefit," from prufit. From mid-14c. as "be helpful or useful, do good." Intransitive sense of "gain in a material sense, derive profit or benefit" is from c. 1400. Related: Profited; profiting.”
https://www.etymonline.com/word/profit
So if I understand it correctly, the original meaning is to “to do” good or be helpful. And I guess the theory is if you are good to others, good will come to you. And maybe that is why we view people with wealth as “blessed” as a touch of the heavenly is on this bounteous creature. We have seen in this era of amazing wealth how the wealthy are bestowing their money and their inheritance to others.
As we probably won’t be receiving a sign from heaven and only after the fact we would know that trade or investment was the winning ticket, I feel the secret is “humility.”
"lowness, small stature; insignificance; baseness, littleness of mind,"
I’m not saying not to have confidence, what I’m saying is to realize how little we truly know and focus on what we do and what we have experienced. And not to chase after things that were not in our hands anyways but keep growing, learning, experiencing and questioning. And if you read the good book, you’ll see the prophets never just accepted the word of God, they themselves questioned everything.
So it’s Friday and per headline “Inflation fell to 4.2% in March, according to key gauge watched by Fed”
The markets seem to wait on the God’s of headlines and government agencies to provide them bounty. I don’t think it’s just gambling, but idol worship.
The markets may move on a compelling news event but it’s not sustainable unless there is fundamentals and consensus to move it in a specific direction.
As an example, SONY, was viewed as a candidate as an investment and rose but rapidly gained with the recent Activision news. If we purchased SONY as a result of Activision merger news, then that would be considered gambling, unless you had concrete facts in your favor.
And look! what happened just as you thought that Sony has no place to up, they then released earnings that were not as expected and gave up the Activision
The investment was up as of last writing, but it’s the perception and reasoning behind it that I think is important to discuss.
Have a pleasant Tuesday.