Mini-Madoffs Relieve Anxiety (Until They Don't)

One reason -- probably the most important one -- why people trust their money to brokers and other investment advisors, many of whom are Mini-Madoffs at least in terms of results they achieve even though there in no willful intent to defraud, is the anxiety one has to confront when making one's own investment choices. This is particularly true on days when everything, well let's not exaggerate, on days when a number of things are going wrong. Take today for instance. One of the stocks I am long in was downgraded by an analyst this morning and is down six percent on the day. And the industry sector I'm shorting is going up significantly today, which means I'm losing money on that position as well. As was true in my last posting I have no clear sense of any compelling investment opportunity so I'm not buying anything. I did sell one tiny long position at a loss after finally realizing that it was clutter. Even if it did go up significantly my holding was too small for it to have any meaningful effect on my portfolio, so it really made good sense to get rid of it and leave the money in cash until I can figure out what I want to do with it.