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They said things like, "The bubble won't last, everyone will end up losing when the correction begins. It's far too speculative, the bubble will burst." And how could it not burst after being up 86 percent for the year? The tide finally turned with at least three very ugly days of brutal sell-off during the first week of January 2000. But their ideological thinking stopped them from participating as this sector surged upward. Their fears prevented them from taking calculated, hedged, and reasonable risks that could have been very profitable. |
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While Wall Street tends to live in the future, with one eye on the next quarter's earnings warnings and one foot always out the door, ready to sell, Zen might question whether this attitude of worry and apprehension is really going to be the best approach. Zen would coax us to find a way through or around the "wall of worry" that the market is always having to climb. It would remind us that if we have constructed our view of the market as being composed of a wall of worry, then we will always find something to worry about, and therefore, a wall that needs scaling. So, the Zen master might give us a koan, or riddle, that can't be solved through the intellect but only by a breakthrough realization: "Ah, how do you realize your Buddha nature when you climb wall of worry?" |
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As we have made clear, the online investor needs to muster all the rational thought he or she can so as not to be overwhelmed by the power of emotions such as fear and greed. The fast pace of the market, as we have said, almost begs us to leap to action before we may be ready, and always with limited information. If we are to hug the emotional flatline, we need to temper these strong emotions with the strength of clear thinking. Thought allows us to hold back from impulsive reactivity. It creates the mental space necessary to act from conviction after due consideration, not from the anxiety of the moment being dictated by the herd mentality. |
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The strengthening and application of rational thought encouraged by cognitive psychology, however, is viewed with suspicion in Zen. In fact, Zen offers methods for cutting off thoughts at their roots, just as if they were tenacious weeds. It focuses more on attaining a state beyond thought and warns us not to take our thoughts as being "really" real. This is why I suggested the exercise of shuttling back and forth from the data on the screen to your inner world, always monitoring how your thoughts and fantasies are affecting your decision making. |
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Again: Most day traders and serious online investors have no idea how much time they are lost in fantasy while watching the market. |
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