Can the Trend be Your Friend?

Back in the day, as a resident estate planning specialist with a major securities firm, my office was right next to the commodity office and the “squawk box” that routinely issued breaking market alerts and trends. The futures market had a famous and classic mantra that is still a bellwether icon even today.

"The trend is your friend" is the magic slogan that the futures market lives by every minute of every day. The odds do not favor negative market patterns or consistently mistaken decisions made by management, or major red flags from any of a zillion other categories. Betting on the future of a commodity can be a costly and even dangerous game. It’s a world where leverage and timing rule.

During my many years with that organization, I personally witnessed a trend that was consistent on a different level. It was amazing that a particular client would come in and high five about the killing that he was making as if it would never stop. I got to be friends with several of them. And, when I stopped seeing them come around, I would question their broker. The typical response was “he bought the farm…he went belly up…but most often, he ignored the trends.” Many of them lost it all.

The futures market is a good barometer of what is going on right here and now. We are looking at several trends that can only be labeled as alarming. We will all have our own pet topics, but the elephant in the room is also one of leverage and timing (as above). The upcoming election will be upon us very quickly, and much like the futures market, we will be faced with a decision that will have consequences no matter how we respond.

This may be the very time in history to divorce ourselves from party affiliations and pre-set agendas and look independently at the trends. If you see and feel that what is trending is leading to an economic or personal catastrophe…“let the trend be your friend.”

Unlike the commodities market and the requirements to become a player, we will each have an equal stake in this decision that will only require our vote.

The leverage of your vote, and the timing of this election cannot be more important.

As always…you decide.