COMMENT: Well, Ray Dalio was short the market, missed the rally, and lost almost 5% for the first half of the year. Obviously, they don’t use Socrates – lol.
LB
REPLY: I do not advise Bridgewater and I have no idea if they even subscribe to Socrates. But what you have to realize is that a lot of these hedge funds form their strategy based upon opinion for the broader view. When you have a portfolio of that size, you cannot simply trade it back and forth for each move. The question becomes critical as to where to draw the line to realize your broadview strategy is wrong.
I have stated many times that the trend does NOT begin to shift until you reach the Monthly Level. We saw that in Gold when it finally got through 1362.50 after nearly four years of bouncing off that number. In the case of the Dow Jones Industrials, our hedging models for institutions were long one month from the low and has remained in that position. This is just a hedging model which is either long or short. It at least tends to keep institutions on the right side of the trend for long periods of time.
Aside from the Reversal System, the Energy Model is extremely helpful in identifying the position of the market and if there is a risk of a crash or a rally. The Energy Model turned negative, demonstrating that there was no possibility of a crash as most analysts were forecasting from a gut perspective. A crash would have been possible ONLY if the Energy Model was at a peak. When it is testing the lows or a negative, it is warning that the energy in the market has already dissipated.
We are simply headed into a Monetary Crisis Cycle where the majority of people will never be able to forecast what will unfold from a personal gut perspective. This is not a time for lucky calls. We need objective time-tested analysis that is not clouded by human bias. This is when we need the global approach to let Socrates simply correlate the world to enable us to see the real trends that are in motion. The worst thing you can do is ASSUME you have missed something, as that is typically the kiss of death for investors where they inevitably buy the high or sell the low.
