Emergent Strangeness

Strangeness is a property of quarks, a fundamental particle, which combine to make up protons, neutrons and mesons which in turn combine to build the nuclei of atoms.

Strangeness also seems to be an emerging property of today's "rational" and "efficient" markets, through the reaction of stocks to news. CSCO says that next quarter's sales will grow 10%, gross margins will stay around 65%, and 60% of its business is now outside the US. Not bad, an "OK" report. Before earnings, CSCO stock price was down to 23 from a high of about 34 in October. So that's a drop of 32% that the "efficient" market has built into its "rational" expectations of future earnings. Since 10% revenue growth for the next quarter would be an odd "recession" - more like a mild slowdown - one would think the stock would pop up. Nahhhh ! The beefers hit it and the stock traded down 7% to the 21 area.

So the quantum property "strangeness" has emerged in stocks and their behavior to events and news. Fascinating ... mirabile dictu ! New phenomena appearing before our eyes ! What a wondrous time to be living !

Ok, that's enough sardonic commentary. Ms. Market is still in a bad mood, seeing every bit of news as somehow bad. It's no time to be a hero. Just be patient and buy high quality stocks on inevitable dips. And do not buy a stock before its earnings report.

PS: this morning's unemployment claims reports will be important. As will the Bank of England and ECB interest rate decisions.

PPS: I see gold is over $900 ... good, as I will sell another slug of my gold and use the money to buy stocks. This is a reallocation trade in my Krypto Fund, where gold is still very overweight.

Word of the Day - "sardonic" -adj. [$10]
"Sardonic" means "scornfully derisive" or "disdainfully or skeptically humorous: derisively mocking". This word is somewhat difficult to distinguish from sarcastic, which is an adjective derived from the noun, sarcasm, meaning "the use of bitter or wounding, eps. ironic, remarks". Some dictionaries give "sarcastic" as a synonym for "sardonic".