There is nothing 'new' in Wall St...

From Adam Hamilton, Wisdom of Jesse Livermore

(Chapter I) … "Another lesson I learned early is that there is nothing new in Wall Street.  There can't be because speculation is as old as the hills.  Whatever happens in the stock market to-day has happened before and will happen again.  I've never forgotten that."

 

Oh, what a priceless opening lesson!  It reminds me of ancient Israeli King Solomon's unequaled wisdom stating that "there is no new thing under the sun."  In the last few years literally trillions of dollars have vaporized, shattering countless families' precious hopes and dreams, because investors foolishly believed the silly new-era hype surrounding the doomed NASDAQ tech-stock bubble.   

 

Booms, bubbles, bursts, and busts have been around for centuries and will continue into the future.  Every major stock-market bubble is heralded as a "New Era" at the time before it bursts.  Everything investors and speculators are witnessing in today's markets has come to pass before.  Even though technology relentlessly marches forward, there is one ultimate driving force behind the endless financial-market machinations that never changes.

 

This force is the human heart.  Every speculator is both blessed and burdened with one.  As long as humans trade, the titanic warring emotions of greed and fear will lead to endless waves of overvalued then undervalued markets, booms then busts, rallies then downlegs.  A greedy or fearful trader today behaves no differently than a greedy or fearful trader 100 years ago or 100 years from now in the future.  There is nothing new in Wall Street.