The title of this post is the funniest thing I’ve heard all day in response to the relatively large worldwide drop in stock prices that we saw today.  I was home for lunch today and I saw that the Dow Industrials were off by just over 200 points and that program trading curbs were in effect.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen that.  I thought about my stock portfolio at that moment, and decided that this was the perfect excuse to sell the stock funds in my taxable account and roll them into my FX trading capital.  I have enough invested in stocks via retirement plans as it is.  So for once, I actually did some profit taking in the stock market…my long term record in that arena is NOT stellar. :-)

 There were no other actions to take that would be reasonable, given that my retirement investment horizon is 30+ years and I’m comfortable with my asset allocation. 

 But enough about me…

 You know, on days like today, when the market is down sharply, we always hear stories about computer glitches and other hocus pocus that was the ‘reason’ for a sudden break in prices.  Even more often, we’ll hear analysts parroting that nothing has fundamentally changed.  It’s BS.  Look, when the market breaks lower, the vast majority of investors feels pain and we are undeniably poorer…and fear never rides a tortoise out of town.  This may be a buying opportunity and it may be the start of a global double digit decline in prices…that part really isn’t important to me.  The thing that bothers me is that these “fundamental” cases are brought out on a day like today, and such stories imply that *yesterday’s* prices were the rational ones, not today’s lower prices…uh huh.  Could it be that the market was not rational yesterday and it isn’t rational today either? 

 Before making any changes to your portfolio, consider your alternatives.  For me, selling some stock today in my taxable account was a no brainer because I have an attractive alternative in my FX system.  Doing nothing in the 401K was also a no brainer, since I’m trying to build retirement wealth over the next few decades…in that context, checking the account even more than once per quarter is counterproductive, because it can only lead to fear-based emotional decision making that could be hazardous to my long term financial health.Â