ONLY TWO WEEKS AGO, when I posted The Sun, the Moon, and the Truth (https://www.moviesmarketsandmore.com/1838-2/), it hadn’t occurred to me that the financial sector might slip in at the back of the alternate reality parade and march into make-believe with other swarms of society.  In hindsight, there was already a “mania for the ages” in progress (https://www.moviesmarketsandmore.com/a-mania-to-rule-them-all/), and what is a mania if not an alternate reality and a distortion of truth–in this case truth as value?  One source I trust cited a pandemic-induced surge in day-trading as a source of fuel for the markets (most day-traders play the “long” side only–they are buyers who follow an uptrend or  “momentum traders.”).  This surely helps to explain the near vertical rise in the S&P500 index

IN THE COLLEGES where I learned and taught, students were required to write papers and reports to demonstrate their understanding of topics or concepts. The emphasis was always to support a premise or an argument using credible sources: facts and authorities, proven theories or accepted logic, studies, and experiments. The strength of a paper or report relied upon the foundation of existing knowledge–of Truth.  Almost all we  can point to as human progress is a result of the process of establishing what is True and then building on it. The structure of human advancement is a citadel atop a mountain of Truth. Certainly the leaps in sciences could not have occurred if we had designed our cars and boats and planes  based on how we

IMPORTANT SPIRITS FROM OUR PAST summoned their experiences, perspectives, and talents to deliver blessings and admonitions—invaluable gifts–to posterity. Homer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Hugo, Sappho, Simone De Beauvoir, Ursula Le Guin are just a few that come to mind. They used books, plays, and poems to craft messages and warnings that would be relevant for millennia. After all, the human drama is nothing if not a series of remakes and sequels. Because human group behavior is so repetitive, many such messages and warnings have the clarity of a premonition or a revelation. I just finished reading the George Orwell (his real name was Eric Blair) classic 1984 for about the seventh time. I have read it every four or five years since I was in college and

    “We have to live without sympathy, don’t we? That’s impossible of course. We act it to one another, all this hardness; but we aren’t like that really, I mean…one can’t be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold…d’you see what I mean?” “I can’t talk like this, Control. What do you want me to do?” “I want you to stay out in the cold a little longer.”                                         –Control and Leamas, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold   On Sunday, my favorite author died at 89 years of age. John Le Carre’, born David

[Note: This material is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please consult an investment  professional before making any investment decisions] “BUY THE RUMOR, sell the news.” If there is one mantra that has held up since trading in financial markets began, this is it. We are all aware–especially the more romantic among us–that once it arrives, reality is not as potent as the anticipation of it: it’s an anticlimax. But how does that make for a trading opportunity? The answer is simple: potential supply and demand. Almost thirty years ago, a client of mine called in to place to buy two thousand dollars worth of stock options in advance of an upcoming “XYZ” company earnings announcement; he was the manager of  a distribution center that

I DON’T KNOW if it’s because I haven’t spent much time watching movies in the last six months (having been otherwise engaged in reading old books or gorging on empty-calorie news), but I was particularly impressed by Enola Holmes, a movie based on more recent fiction stories about a much younger sister of the great sleuth Sherlock of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fame. I was intrigued by the cast as it featured some heavies like Helena Bonham-Carter and Henry Cavil, but the lead actress, Millie Bobby Brown as Enola, was captivating. I expect she will do much more on the big screen. The theme follows  a burgeoning trend I began posting about many years ago, namely stories that focus on female protagonists in roles that

      I WAS A FAN of Matthew Rhys from having watched The Americans series and then had no choice but to rave about him in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. His typically somber and introspective character is perfect for the tone of this series. The measure, for me, of the strength of a series is how deeply I pine for the next episode and I pined (silently) like a hound for the chase. This Perry Mason genesis story has all the things I like: it’s a period piece, it’s noir,  has good casting with several plot points converging. At a time in our country when Justice and Truth are struggling to take a form we can all recognize, what better way to put them into

STOCK MARKET CHARTS  tell a story. Of course on the surface, most chart styles show a continuous map of prices over a period of time. But what a chart actually depicts is a series of collective (investor) responses to the flow of new information about the earnings potential for the companies involved (e.g. DOW or S&P 500). OK, so what? Well during the evolution of a mania or bubble, there comes a point when prices are driven not by the potential for earnings but by the price action itself. In other words, more emphasis is placed on the rising prices than on the reasoning behind them. Perhaps my favorite definition of a bubble is purely psychological – as it should be: a bubble happens when

  [Authors Note: With the calamity-induced emphasis on teaching remotely, I remembered, fondly as with special friendships or past celebrations with family, a short story I wrote about teaching online and perhaps about “connecting” in that context.  It occurred to me to dust it off and share it with readers of this blog.  Because it is longer than the usual fare,  I attach the PDF.]   MORE CERTAIN THAN HOPE10  

  NOT BECAUSE I JUST EMERGED from long hours indoors during the Wisconsin winter, but rather because of the self-quarantine brought on by the Digital Age and social media, I find it ironic that many people today will easily adopt to their new lives under government-ordered quarantine: after decades of mass human migration toward self-confinement inside the virtual world, a decree, for many, would be a mere formality. Meanwhile, in the same fashion that a virus in your computer can completely disrupt a computer network, the novel coronavirus shut down society. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not the virus can be removed and the network and data saved relatively quickly, or whether the equipment is useless and the data lost.