The Tortoise and the Hare

For the momentum players, "buy low and sell high" is a principle that simply doesn't exist in their universe. By definition, all momentum players buy high: They jump on the bandwagon of asset classes that have already soared in value, simply hoping that this momentum will last long enough for them to (a) make a profit, and (b) make an exit with their profit before the inevitable "correction" occurs.

Why did the Wall Street crime syndicate and the corporate propaganda machine consider it essential to manipulate the sheep from being buy-and-hold investors to momentum-chasing gamblers? The answer should be self-evident: It's much, much easier to cheat gamblers than investors.

For those for whom this is not self-evident, I'll elaborate. Buy-and-hold investors are comprised of two closely related sub-categories. There are the "value investors" who look at the present (discounted) value of a particular asset/investment versus its current valuation. When the value of the investment seems to significantly exceed the current valuation, they buy.

The second group are the "fundamentals investors" who look at the market/economic fundamentals for a particular asset, and when they perceive fundamentals that make it very likely/near-certain that an asset will rise in value over the longer term, they buy.

More generally, both of these classes of investors are people who always "look under the hood" before they buy anything. Pretty hard to cheat such people.

Then there are the momentum-playing gamblers. They're not interested in the actual value of assets. They're not interested in silly fundamentals. How do you entice a momentum-player to part with his money? Just ask the bankers.

"Look how far this has already risen in value," they hiss. "Look how much further we predict it will go up." Those are the only lures required for the banksters to hook their fish. The evidence of this paradigm shift is overwhelming.

Turn on any of the business news channels. At least 90% of the time is spent doing nothing more than simplistically looking at price action in various markets, and no more than 10% of the time is ever spent in discussing archaic concepts like "value" or "fundamentals."