Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Day 925

I met with my financial advisor today. I know that I gripe and complain about this guy occasionally, but basically I still think he's pretty sharp. The market has just become so completely irrational in recent years that it is almost impossible for even the best of analysts to be a consistent winner. Especially in the short term. Almost every day, something unpredictable happens that throws the market into a turmoil. Hopefully, over the long term, the laws of sanity still apply.

Today, we were evaluating some new positions and my advisor showed me some advanced software he was using that he said could help predict future performance based on a huge array of past historic data. I think he called the program Backtrack or something. I told him there was a basic flaw in this type of strategy. He needed a different program called Forwardtrack, that could actually look into the future. That's the trouble with all these predictive models. Nobody really has any idea what is going to happen in the future. Nobody even knows what is going to happen tomorrow.

The best thing my advisor has been able to do for me is convince me that it's a fool's game to chase the evening news. Day traders try to do this, and most of them just can't react fast enough to emerge as consistent winners. I try to take a more disciplined long-term approach, following some basic investing principles year in and year out. Occasionally, there is a year like this one where nothing seems to work. It can be very frustrating.

The dogs were frustrated by something a lot more basic than stock market gyrations tonight. It was the heat. Even at 8 PM, it was over 100 degrees. Everyone brought water for their dog and we had frequent water breaks in the training routine. The dogs weren't really into the training exercises though and I can't blame them. It was just too hot.

If anyone knows of a completely pet safe way of treating white grubs, please let me know. I really hate to see the pretty St. Augustine turf I installed just a month or two ago start to deteriorate already. I've been told that beneficial nematodes are a safe and effective way of controlling grubs, but it's already too late in the season to apply the nematodes. Nematodes don't like the Texas heat either.

Rascal is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day