Hooked on a Feeling: It’s What Separates the Best from the Rest

Do you want to know what investing is to me? It’s a feeling. To have a feeling for the market, like sailing a boat, is to separate the good investors from the greats.

Why is it important to get a feel for the market? Because the knowledge we seek is not always available in reports, and often it’s distorted by reporting bias.

It’s why I personally favor anecdotal evidence for the truth about the markets.

For example, nothing in the world can replace conversations I have with my clients or emails from you. They give me on-the-ground intelligence I never, ever find in daily stock quotes.

Let me share with you what I mean by this.

Recently, I had a wonderfully informative conversation with a client involved in a family gun business. I told him I was constructing an index to measure the overall investing landscape and tone of the country—my RAGE gauge. The idea being to provide you with a wide array of data in an easy to understand format.

I asked my client about the tone of his customers. What are they sayin’ and what are they buyin’?

There wasn’t even a pause.

He said, “E.J. I can’t keep single-stack handguns on the shelves. As soon as they come in they’re sold. When customers tell me they are concerned for their safety, they buy handguns and preferably ones that can be easily concealed (single-stack).”

That’s it.

That’s all I needed to hear.

As soon as we hung-up I looked up the FBI background check data for handguns. Background checks give a pretty good indication as to an eventual sale.

And sure enough, they’re way up.

For the month of May 2011 background checks for handguns were 307,929. This May they were 512,406. You and I know tension is high in this country.

We now have some more data points for the index—a tool to help give us a better feeling for the markets.

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

E.J. Smith is the Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH, where he completed course-work in Practical and Defensive Handgun, Conceal Carry Pistol, Shotguns, Precision Scope Rifle and Kidnapping Prevention. E.J. plays a Yamaha Recording Custom drum set with Zilldjian cymbals. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com. Sign up here to receive all the best content from Richardcyoung.com each week.