THE MARKET ECONOMY

Periodically, I glance at the newspaper. On the back page of the front section there is always a headline about Wall Street.

I have noticed when I read the paper two consecutive days, the stock market is always doing the opposite of what was happening the previous day. If the paper says the market is up today, yesterday it said it was down – and visa versa.

I have suggested to my wife, who is a financial advisor, that we should be buying stock every other day and selling it on the days in between. She of course scowls and reminds me that people who try to play the market invariably lose money. Although it seems like it from the paper, the market is not really that predictable.

Then I think about all the people who sell their stock when the market is doing poorly, only to buy again when the market picks back up. I would like to make a proposal to those of you reading this that fall into that category. Between us, let’s assign a piece of paper a value of $100, and then trade it back and forth. On the days the market is down, you sell me that piece of paper for just $90. And on the days the market is up, you buy it back from me for $110. Forget the fact that I come out ahead $10 on every transaction. OK?