Anger, Fear and Greed

March 26, 2010

Violent incidents are all expressions of anger, whether that anger can be characterized as temporarily out-of-control upset or as blistering, white-hot rage.

While the markets are traditionally said to be controlled by fear and greed, we don't often find anger mentioned very much. It's usually not something that we have to reckon with in our efforts to understand the markets.

In essence, though, anger is really just a highly-motivated expression of fear. We only experience fear when we feel that we are somehow being attacked, either by market manipulators, by political crooks, or by blind circumstances that arbitrarily treat us unfairly.

That self-defensive fear moves effortlessly into a fear of loss, which is when it can trigger panic selling in the stock market. If we are afraid that our losses will grow, we join others in dumping stocks, and market prices decline. It is only when we see the potential for turning bargain-basement prices into juicy profits that optimism is restored, setting the stage for a fresh dose of greed to take over and drive the market pendulum back in the opposite direction.

The secret to effective trading, of course, is not to participate in either swing of the emotional pendulum. We can reap the biggest profits when we leave the madness of crowds to the crowds themselves, and learn to chart our own course based on independent thinking and individual analysis.

When we add astrology to the trading mix we automatically bring in a broader perspective, one that encompasses complex planetary cycles and long time frames. That makes it easier for us to remain emotionally detached, and our performance in the markets inevitably improves as a result.

But when we see violence and threats of violence, we are not only seeing embarrassingly irrational behavior and its unfortunate social consequences. We are also being given an opportunity to remember that all this anger is simply an expression of fear-the same fear that can destroy our portfolios and undermine our trading confidence if we let it get out of hand as we encounter the markets day by day.

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