Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Wednesday, Sept 11
I have stood aside from trading most of this week, reluctant to test my emotional stamina in the throes of remembrance.
Being in the Northwest hasn't buffered me from what happened on the East Coast. Even so, seeing the programming today has brought home to me the terror felt by those trapped in the buildings, fleeing from the crumbling rubble, or helping others...so many that helped others. It also revived the deadly realization I knew the moment those buildings were hit that "an enemy of the US" had done that with intent and purpose and that the beginning of a very long war was only just unfolding.
Those events are shaping a generation, much like WW2 and WW1 shaped our parents and grandparents generations, and the cold war my own. I recall diving under my desk in grammar school, learning evacuation routes, and wondering who in our neighborhood had actually built bomb shelters. On the heels of the revelations of the dreadful images of the WW2 holocausts, the thought of missiles pointed at "us", locked and loaded with a shoe-pounding Kruschev at the trigger did not help to foster trust in a friendly world of the future. Luckily for me, the concept of choice, choice of living in fear or in courage, came early, thanks to my own family.
Looking at 15 minute charts for a living, it can be easy on a daily basis to set aside not just what happened, but to neglect to see with clarity the historical context in which the chain of reactions are happening. Traders like going UP or going DOWN. But in between trends, the market pauses, consolidating in anticipation of "what next". Churn and burn...commissions and patience mostly! These are periods of uncertainty and must be recognized as such so as to "live to play another day".
Political agendas, be they liberal or conservative, continue to be overtly enacted in the markets. Skeptics didn't need the Enron, WorldCom, Imclone, etc etc scandals to teach them that there are real creeps out there. But as chartists, we have the potential to see price and price alone speak. It is a life raft in a stormy sea.
The emotionally charged events of this week cannot help but have put static into the signal. The signal to noise ratio will further erode as significant political and economic news Thursday (Bush at the UN) and Friday ( a whole slew of economic releases) will no doubt serve as short term catalysts for yet more volatility. The wall of worry won't crumble at the end of this week, but we'll have climbed a bit higher, allowing a clearer perspective. Stay focussed and keep your powder dry!
From Shadow to Light - a "Macromedia Flash" presentation of images from September 11, 2001, courtesy of Time magazine
