It’s my birthday today. Hip hip hooray. Let’s talk about Santelli’s rant and buying low and contentment.

Santelli’s Rant

Anyone interested in the markets must have heard about if not seen Rick Santelli’s rant on CNBC. At the time I thought it was disgraceful. I thought we should organise an alternative Boston Tea Party where we throw Santelli overboard along with all his friends who have greedily hoovered up tax payer’s money to keep their sinking mismanaged companies afloat. No I don’t think underwater mortgagee holders should be bailed out, but that is a tiny fraction of funds already committed.

Fortunately for those of you who don’t read Playboy for the articles Barry Ritholtz at Big Picture does. Over the weekend he posted about the Santelli rant being faux. It seems Playboy has uncovered a conspiracy and Santelli’s rant on CNBC may have been orchestrated.

Buying Low

Over breakfast this morning I talked to my five and seven year old about investing their saved money. I’ve talked to my seven year old on and off for almost a year about investing, he has always loved the idea of buying companies whose products he likes. This morning’s conversation was lots of fun and for the first time I saw real interest from both my kids.

Their interest sparked when I drew them a rough graph showing the long term averagereturns from investing in the stock market, along with the “actual” path of the market. I explained fear and greed, reversion to the mean and how now was likely to be one of the best times in their lives to invest in the stock market . Actually I simply drew the picture and they led the rest of the conversation.

Some of their comments were priceless. My daughter, who loves to shop, pointed to a peak in the graph and said “and that’s the time to sell, right?” I replied “You’ve got it darling, why did you say that?”  ”Well” she said, “because that’s when you’ve got the most money to go shopping“.

They couldn’t believe that adults would buy high and sell low. I explained how it was based on news flow, with people buying when times and news were good and selling when they were bad. How people bought out of greed and sold out of fear.  They still could not believe adults could be that “silly”.  

My son asked me to look into Lego and Disney, my daughter suggested Skechers, her ludicrously overpriced shoes which are similar to her mums.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

My dad had a small stroke on Saturday, which has effected the language area of his brain, back left side. I’m sure he’ll make an excellent recovery. On the way back from the hospital we were talking about my birthday. My daughter piped up to say “Old people want to be younger and young people want to be older, I can’t wait to be six.” Everyone thought that was sage, but it was my sons reply that I thought wiser. He said “I love being seven, I don’t want to be any older“. I wanted to stop the car and kiss him right then. That comment totally reflects my sons contented nature, he is generally happy with what he has. He always loved to say “You get what you get and you don’t get upset“. As I said my daughter loves to shop, I hope one day she too can find contentment in what she has and be happy with where she is at. I thougth the first part of her sentence was a sage insight into human nature. I’ll now try to teach her that it’s good to different and to think and move against the crowd. I fear contentment will be a harder trait to teach. If you have any ideas I’d love to know.

Did I mention it’s my birthday!

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