I've created a link above for any interested, but here's a blurb
Chippokes Plantation, a 1,400-acre farm located opposite Jamestown Island, has been the site of an active agricultural operation for nearly four centuries. Unlike many large plantations along the James River, it was never a family seat during the 17th or 18th centuries, but changed hands frequently, serving as a secondary plantation managed by overseers or farmed by tenants. Named for Choupocke, an Indian chief friendly to early English settlers, early owners of Chippokes included Governor Sir William Berkeley, who acquired the property in 1671, and the Ludwell family, who owned the property from 1684 to 1824. Chippokes Plantation consists of 20 historically significant buildings and structures, including two plantation houses. The River House, the oldest dwelling on the plantation, is a vernacular frame building that was doubled in size in the 1840s. Architecturally, the River House illustrates the continuation of a Virginia Tidewater vernacular tradition, whose beginning can be seen in earlier frame homes, such as Belle Air and Kittiewan.
The park is open all year, but annually, they host the Pork, Pine and Peanut Festival. It's an amalgamation of arts and crafts as well as food that includes barbecue, pork loin or pork chop sandwiches, peanut pie, and fair-food such as blommin' onions, elephant ears and such. The barbecue is always wonderful.
They also have entertainment. Our last visit, there was an Elvis impersonator and some guys playing banjos on a small platform. This year, The Marshall Tucker Band was the featured musical event. The place was mobbed! There were about 3 times as many folks there this year than my last visit.
Lots of folks like ourselves went by boat and anchored in the shallow waters to wade in. Mark said there were about 500 boats, but it looked like half that many to me. However, I do not pretend any skill in estimating crowds--of people or boats. The ride was a wee-bit rough as the wind was blowing a bit. But it was not bone jarring. The day was just one of those wonderful weekend activities that totally takes you out of your element and allows you to be with friends and other people.
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My posting of late has been sparse, largely due to my not having any real focal point to write about. I'm trying to find a more balanced perspective about the market---meaning I'm trying to find the right way to weight the obvious hand-wringing items with the obvious possibilities. I know for a fact that I've overweighted the hand-wringing items. While these worries are real, they do have an incubation time by the market.
Here's my mental model:
- Worries are identified (subprime, recession, overvaluations, fill-in-the-blank).
- Average investors embrace these worries; seasoned investors commit capital in knowing that the worries are real, but early.
- Market carries along with no manifestation of the "worries" in stock prices or performance, but the average investor still harbors the worry and stays on the sideline. Seasoned investors continue to commit capital.
- The average investor begins to question validity of his/her worry, but this is the time that the seasoned investors know that the worry is coming to fruition.
- Average investor is "in" the market, worries abated; seasoned investor is out of the market because the worries are now manifesting.
I'm sure that this is so straightforward to many of you, but it was not straightforward to me. And, in fact, I've not seen that anyone has really stated it this way. But it makes sense to me.
6 comments:
Rather than focus on the worry, why don't you find the positives that are important and balance them out with the negatives that are important? Everything else is noise and needs to be identified as such. At that point you will know how to make intelligent decisions with a reasonable degree of correctness
Leisa, over at CR the worry is focused
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/calculatedrisk/6700413638996546791/
Anon 12:56--Thank you for your comment. I think that part of my "weighting" is very much speaking (in my round about way!) toward seeing and weighting the positives along with the negatives. I didn't say it as clearly as you did! But the negatives that I've noticed have mattered and have been fingered as noise by others. So there is an art (I've not mastered it; I'm just finger painting!) to understanding the dynamics of weighting the good v. bad.
Anon 3:21--yes, CR is very focused. They are a terrific site. I've consciously pulled back on some of my internet reading, particularly sites that have a mono-tilt. I feel like my objectivity gets impaired.
Yes you have to watch you so you can distinguish the mark to from the market. Just thought that since you have talent for separating the accounting wheat from chaff there could be some productive threshing around the hat tip action.
Hooray that you've pulled back on internet reading! The majority of these experts aren't worth the ooze in their soapboxes, and neither are their writings.
The art that you mention is really enlightenment garnered from experience. The experiences, or finger paintings as you call them, are the only way to learn the difference between things that matter and things that don't. If your work builds confidence, then you are on the right track.
Anon 12:56
I have to say that my favorite market commentator is Gary Kaltbaum. I'm listening to him now. Of course, if one is dismissive toward technical analysis, don't listen. I don't always agree with his political commentary, but I think that his market commentary is so good, I'll glad listen through. His show is taped, (which you can find at GaryK.com) and you can listen in the a.m. or later p.m. and skip through both the commercials and the tangential commentary.
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