Daily Content
Fleck's Thoughts
Appearances

Fleck's Thoughts

A reader was kind enough to send in a collection of his favorite "thoughts" from Bill, which are reproduced here.

  • Spending too much time on your mistakes can wreck your confidence, which you need to have for the future.
  • You'd be shocked how little I trade when I'm not short (when you're short, you have to constantly tweak positions).
  • You have to treat every position as though it's a big one when it goes against the rules you have established. I didn't do this and it cost me some money. It isn't a big deal, but it was still dumb and just goes to show how you can make mistakes even when you know you're making them.
  • One's amount of financial independence impacts the ability to remain calm to a certain degree.
  • The stock market has literally become a video game.
  • When the Fed loses control of the bond market...means they try to ease and bonds sink because people no longer trust the Fed's policies because they see that they produce inflation and misallocated capital.
  • All roads lead to more inflation, IMO.
  • People become fearful of inflation, currency debasement, wars, etc. Fear drives the buying...(of gold/silver).
  • G7 CBs have no need/desire to suppress gold. They see it as a pet rock. What they believe in are their own precious models (not precious metals), and their own infallibility.
  • It seems that gold bulls are so worn out that they are worried about the functional equivalent of an alien invasion.
  • Collapse of the dollar is just a theoretical possibility at this point. But if it happens metals and miners will do well.
  • The crosscurrents are too extreme now with virus vs. economy vs. Fed vs. fiscal stimulus vs. panic...
  • This 20% bear/bull market number, as I have said many times, is pure bullshit made up by the media. No serious person thinks those numbers define anything.
  • Sometimes I amaze myself at how dead wrong I can be.
  • In a world of QE, there are no top indicators that matter...Only signs of failure count.
  • Some people walk in each day looking to trade something. I do not. A great day for me is one when I do nothing.
  • I trade defensively, not offensively, meaning that I trade to reduce risk, not with the idea of trading to create profits. My investing or speculating decisions are meant to make money (as opposed to just reacting to price changes).
  • Great traders are like great hitters: born, not made.
  • [To be a good investor] you have to dig for the data, but you also have to be patient and disciplined, yet flexible to change your mind if the facts change or your thesis is wrong. It's hard to be disciplined AND flexible.
  • You can't think longer term when you trade option. It's all about speculation, so you must trade them with a short-term perspective.
  • People need to be prepared for volatility and have a game plan, and how to deal with it, because when the markets get really wild, you're liable to make a mistake. That said, a game plan could be as simple as sitting tight.
  • Managing your own psyche is far more important than most investors realize.
  • [RE: valuation methods/metrics] It depends on the projects/mines, but earnings and cash flow are what I care about, not NAV.
  • The Fed will create more QE if the economy or stock market weaken. They aren't out of bullets, their bullets just don't work very well after all they have done up to this point.
  • People won't buy bonds anywhere near current yields if psychology changes on inflation, even a little. NO ONE is bigger than the market when psychology changes.
  • Bond vigilantes never existed, that is an urban legend. It was all about the shape of the yield curve.
  • The market doesn't really trade fundamentals consistently. It's more about "flows" than research, I'm sorry to say.
  • In the current environment, "dislocations" are impossible to predict due to the forces at work that are so mechanical in nature. We need a real catalyst that triggers enough selling to cause an impact in the stock market.
  • [Re: Bitcoin] Look, the way to think about it is, what will I do if I own it and it crashes or just has a big slide. Do you believe it enough to sit through what you have had to do with gold? I don't, so I know I can't own it. I'd puke it on the first setback. When you think about longer-term positions long or short, you must know yourself well enough to predict what you will do when it goes against you. If you know that, then you have a better chance to win.
  • Valuation is the single worst reason to short something. There are literally hundreds of examples of absurd valuations that just keep on climbing.