Poll of the week: Who are you in this market?

A couple of weeks ago, my colleague Carl Capolingua – and the person who taught me how to trade two decades ago - wrote an article about the six best trading books for ASX investors.

That wire jogged my memory of an anecdote I recall from my own reading over the years. For the life of me, I can’t remember what book it was from, but the gist of it was as follows;

There is an analogy about a cart rolling slowly through town with a man shouting through a megaphone: “Get on board, the stock market only goes up!”

At first, a few curious souls climb aboard. As prices rise, more people run after the cart and haul themselves in. Soon it’s jammed with latecomers, all convinced they are financial geniuses.

The cart starts to wobble under the weight. When it finally tips over, the people who piled in last take the worst of the fall. The lesson is simple: by the time the loudest voices are begging you to jump on, the real opportunity has usually passed.

With all the talk of bubbles, this analogy couldn’t be more apt for the world we find ourselves in right now. We’ve seen a diverse range of opinions on the Livewire platform of late, ranging from those going completely to cash, versus those who remain hardcore bulls.

Even the heightened interest around Nvidia's results is a bizarre product of current conditions. The fact that the world collectively held its breath waiting for the results of just one company, only to enthusiastically press the BUY button (at least in Australia) immediately after the numbers beat expectations, suggests that we’re not in a normal environment.

The question is, who are you in this market and how are you playing it?