Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The Sarcasm Report v.93

Macke’s Purple Crayon: Watch the Trendlines on S&P, Crude and Gold

Charts take out the emotion. A chart doesn't pass judgment or make fun of you. A chart just tells you when the trend has turned against your position. Never fighting the trend is the first thing you learn in trader school. Someday gold's trend will turn lower. When it does, I'll sell.

It doesn't matter if you're talking about a relationship, a fist fight or a trade. You can attempt anything you want as long as you have an exit plan. When I'm playing momentum my exit plan never changes -- when the trend changes, I sell.

In an uncertain world, the old reliable purple crayon method is a security blanket, a hug from mom and warm cocoa all wrapped into one line and a ruler. That makes following my purple crayon strategy the best value on Wall Street.

Disclosures: Macke is long GLD.


Purple

The imperial robes of Roman emperors were Tyrian purple trimmed in metallic gold thread. The badge of office of a Roman Senator was a stripe of Tyrian purple on their white toga. Tyrian purple was continued in use by the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire until its final collapse in 1453.

The Evolution of Crayon Colors

I wonder why, during the Great Depression, Crayola decided to double the number of colors. Seems like an odd time to innovate, due to higher costs, but definitely a morale booster during economic times, at least for those who could afford crayons. I wonder if the box of 16 became a status symbol.

One purple crayon is all it takes to attain wealth beyond all measure these days. No thinking. No analysis. If you can draw a straight line then prosperity is yours for the taking.

Crayola Crayons - Invention of Crayons

During the Great Depression, Binney & Smith hires local farm families to hand-label crayons. Each farm becomes associated with a different color name.

Thanks to the advancement of computer processing power, Wall Street's trading farms can now sell a nearly infinite supply of purple trend lines at amazingly low prices. You'd be a fool to not take advantage of their special offer.

Who knows, you might even become the
trend line master.

January 6, 2007


0:55 - 1:32:

It would be sweet if they had like this game called Trend Line Master. Everyone logged in and then they'd try to draw trend lines on these charts and you competed with other people and whoever drew the best trend lines was like the trend line master.

And I've been drawing trend lines for, you know, years so I think, I think I'd have a reasonably good chance of becoming the trend line master.

So I've been loading up on these Chinese stocks the last few days. Those Chinese stocks, man, that's one thing that never goes down. Chinese stocks.


See Also:
Trend Line Disclaimer

6 comments:

mab said...

Here's what the largest/top advertisement on the Yahoo!Finance webpage was today:

The Investment Insight Of Merrill Lynch

The Banking Strength Of Bank Of America

For You


Real life fiction! It's like the recent past never happened. Maybe Merrill and BofA have a bigger supply of purple this go-round.

Mr Slippery said...

He's baaaaacccckk. And with fully charged sarcastic and stagflationary batteries. Welcome back.

disclosure: long purple crayons

nanute said...

Mark,
I remember a parody of Kung Fu with "weedhopper." I'm thinking along the lines of: "master, when will I know it is time to sell." Master: "Weedhopper, when you can snatch the purple crayon from my hand...
Welcome back. Hope the visit went well.

Stagflationary Mark said...

Everything is better with purple in it!

The Color Purple

Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on female black life during the 1930s in the Southern United States, addressing the numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture.

The 1930s were at least as good as the 1970s. No doubt about it. Fortunately, we get a bit of both this go around. Woohoo! ;)

EconomicDisconnect said...

What about the Purple Peaople Eaters? Great to see a post, thanks!

Stagflationary Mark said...

GYSC,

I expect the markets to eventually eat purple crayon traders for breakfast. Does that count? ;)