Well I guess I should be huge short, but I’m not. Risk is extreme in both directions. Good time to stay safe, IMO, and protect my profits. Trying to nibble on the long side hasn’t worked so far, but the market is crazy oversold and I’m really reluctant to sell “into the hole.” I do have a long position in gold stocks, actually GDX, the ETF and that seems to be hanging in there. Gold is up after hours, so hopefully this might be a bright spot tomorrow.

I hate crashes like this. They’re too hard to trade. However, could be worse, could be looking at a 401(k) or something down a lot. For example, Fidelity Magellan, my benchmark, is down 47% on the year. That’s real pain if you were planning on retiring on that money, it has to double just to get back where you were.

The real lesson here is, of course, that “buy and hold” is dumb. D-U-M-B. It is an invention of the industry that allows them to sell you a mutual fund and then sit back and rake in the fees every year for not doing very much, and especially not taking any ownership of making money for you. “Asset allocation,” they say, ” is not our responsibility, we just stay fully invested in stocks and leave the rest to the client.” That’s the 401(k) tragedy. Back in the day, pension funds were responsible for providing a certain payout which you could more or less rely on - and if the fund didn’t perform, the company made up the difference. Thanks to Wall Street, which wasn’t making enough from that model, it’s all gone.

Now there’s a mass of people who were fooled into believing that asset price appreciation - stocks, houses, whatever - was going to replace savings. And if they wanted more, all they had to do was lever up with borrowing, both to own more “appreciating” assets and to sustain a lifestyle not justified by their current income. They’re going to be sad. And angry. There really should be some consequences for the people who did this. But I doubt that there will be, they’re long gone, with their loot, leaving their successors to attempt to clean up the mess.