curious cat

9 Reasons Why We Are Close to, If Not Past, the Bottom

"luck favors the prepared mind." i spent many years playing the horses in chicago, when i was a young man. my personal dot system, assigning different values to race factors, allowed me to pay for my student loans. i never worried about crowd sentiment. if they made a horse "the favorite" and it was not my favorite, it just improved my horse's odds.

one bitterly cold winter, some horses began running with an improved single shaft sulky, which cut seconds off their times. the crowd did not consider this to be a significant factor in a race, but i did. horses dropping down from canada had been accustomed to facing the cold northern wind. when they joined horses from florida, i gave them the edge. however, when a horse coming from canada wore the single shaft sulky for the first time, i loaded up! (later, when the crowd finally took note of these factors, these changes were factored in and everyone began betting on these game changers.)

in the stock market, a few significant new factors will complement each other to make some stocks overwhelming favorites, in the face of long odds against. when the wind begins to blow cold and the mudders, whose mothers were mudders, are assigned a new post position or the fed changes just a few rules to accomodate them, place your bets and pay your bills.

i still remember being outside on a bitterly cold day, when the number eight horse, romped home ahead of the field, at eight to one, with my hundred on his back and the announcer screaming in disbelief, "here comes... ben loooogan!"
the cash lines are always shorter than the bet lines. so, remember these rules:

1. never bet the milk money.
2. never bet the chalk. if the odds are too short, stay out of the race.
3. "pattern recognition is the hallmark of intelligence."