Always Consider the 'Human Element'

Editor's note: In today's Weekend Edition of Empire Financial Daily, our friend Greg Diamond over at our corporate affiliate Stansberry Research is back to explain how the "human element" can take investors by surprise... I have a confession to make, and it might change the way you think of me... I'm a New York Jets […] Not rendering correctly? View this e-mail as a web page [here](. [Empire Financial Daily Weekend] Editor's note: In today's Weekend Edition of Empire Financial Daily, our friend Greg Diamond over at our corporate affiliate Stansberry Research is back to explain how the "human element" can take investors by surprise... --------------------------------------------------------------- Always Consider the 'Human Element' By Greg Diamond --------------------------------------------------------------- [The 'inflation-proof' stock no one's talking about]( Legend who bought Amazon at $2.41 and Apple at $0.35 is [pounding the table on a $4 inflation-proof play](. --------------------------------------------------------------- I have a confession to make, and it might change the way you think of me... I'm a New York Jets fan. If you're familiar with football, that might have made you chuckle. If you don't like football, you probably don't care. But I'll explain how it relates to what's happening in the market – whether or not you like the game. Now, I'm not a sports "fanatic" in the true sense of the word. I like sports, have played sports, and think sports can teach valuable life lessons. But I won't paint my face or watch every game. The truth is, the older I get, the less sports I watch. With a demanding job and two little kids, there's only so much time to go around. And watching my football team lose consistently year after year isn't exactly how I want to spend a few hours each Sunday. But what I'm going to explain in this essay combines sports statistics and market statistics. And I'll show you why you shouldn't always trust what you see in either... On September 18, I was out with my family and knew the Jets were playing against the Cleveland Browns. I happened to check the score and saw the "win probability" for each team. Simply put, this is the statistical probability of a team winning. It's based on certain criteria that a computer or algorithm applies throughout a game... As you can see, the Browns were favored to win throughout most of the game. In fact, the win probability hit 100% with just a few minutes left in the game. That's when I checked the score. I figured it would be another loss for the Jets, and I would just get on with my day. But beyond probabilities and statistics, there's a "human element" that computers, analytics, and algorithms just can't calculate... Never giving up. The game isn't over until it's over. The Jets scored a barrage of points within the last few minutes of the game and pulled off a miraculous win. --------------------------------------------------------------- Recommended Link: [New Dot-Com Crash Kicking Off January 17?]( Mark Cuban made $1.4 billion when the dot-com bubble burst. With a potential new tech bubble bursting right now... And a select group of tech stocks possibly poised to crash starting on January 17... No. 1 ranked Bloomberg economist Andrew Zatlin is showing how YOU can profit from it too. Without being a wealthy, business-savvy billionaire. [Click here now to see how](. --------------------------------------------------------------- That's great... But what does it have to do with the markets? It comes down to the same principle – that beyond the calculations, the human element can take you by surprise... On September 9, investment research and analytics firm SentimenTrader highlighted the chart below. It noted extreme readings in hedging positions (when institutions buy put options) for the past 20-plus years. Looking at this chart, you can see that the panic-hedging in early September was 3 times more extreme than the one in 2008 (the height of the financial crisis)... Now, the contrarian trader or investor would think this is an easy trade... by taking the opposite side of all this put buying (in this case, buying stocks or call options). When the crowd is bearish, it pays to be bullish. It's what we expect with a rally. But that's not what happened... Below is a chart of the S&P 500 Index from January 2022 through its October low. As you can see, the index is in a bear market. The black dashed line marks lower highs of that downtrend. I highlighted this simple analysis throughout 2022 in my Ten Stock Trader service. The record number of hedges from traders (marked with the red arrow) was followed by a small rally... before stocks kept declining. Take a look... So what's the takeaway? Sometimes the crowd is right. As the saying goes – especially in sports, but also in the market – some records are meant to be broken. And in almost every new bull or bear market, it happens all the time. 2022 was no different. The bear market isn't over until it's over (just like a football game). And despite what appears to be a record number of short positions and sour sentiment, the trend could remain in place longer than some think. The statistics can be misleading. As a contrarian investor, you're usually going to make good trades when the statistics and probabilities are in your favor. But that's not always the case. As with everything in the market and investing, nothing is guaranteed. Looking ahead, I'm expecting more volatility and new lows in the majority of technology stocks. Regards, Greg Diamond January 14, 2023 Editor's note: Greg predicts that we're on the verge of a massive turning point in the markets. It's one that would leave millions of people behind... including you, perhaps... for a simple reason: You won't see it coming until it's too late. In a brand-new presentation, he shares how to prepare and how to position yourself for big gains as it all unfolds. [Learn more here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- If someone forwarded you this e-mail and you would like to be added to the Empire Financial Daily e-mail list to receive e-mails like this every weekday, simply [sign up here](. © 2023 Empire Financial Research. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, copying, or redistribution, in whole or in part, is prohibited without written permission from Empire Financial Research, 380 Lexington Ave., 4th Floor, New York, NY 10168 [www.empirefinancialresearch.com.]( You received this e-mail because you are subscribed to Empire Financial Daily. [Unsubscribe from all future e-mails](