The market is supposed to be depressing at this juncture. It is meant to be dissuasive, seemingly dishonorable and unworthy of investment dollars beyond what one would consider allocating into a keno tournament. There is no other way to put in a sustainable, mind-numbingly solid long-term bottom in a secular bull market other than to undergo the conditioning process we are facing at present.
If you are not depressed by the market action at this point, you are either a) not watching the markets closely or b) completely incapable of normal human emotion. I'm as bullish as can be going over the long-term and I've found myself drifting off into visions of the bliss that would be a job that doesn't involve red and green fluctuations in wealth. Anything but wondering when normal price action, sensible observations and a propensity towards discounting fear instead of embracing it will return to the markets.
The separating factor between the winners and losers of the current act of monetary malice is very simple: Those who come out ahead are the ones who will realize that their depression is a necessary part of the process. In other words, those who realize that their emotions are converging along consensus extremes, deciding to move in direct opposition to that consensus will secure a substantial victory in the form of outsized profits.
Those who allow the markets to manipulate them along consensus extremes will end up with conventional returns going forward, which are far below any major benchmarks. And this precisely describes the plague of the current financial community that is hindered by convention masked as pedigree.
