What would it be like to not think about money for a month?

[scaredyclassic]

In the past, i dont recall everyone knowing where the market and various asset prices were daily.

Normal people nowadays check the market multiple times a day.

Or if they dont actively, are blasted with market news online in a way old papers from the 80s and 90s just didnt do. You had to dig. Remember? It was at the back of the paper. Really dull. Cryptic. Thousands of individual stocks with price info, printed in tiny type. Who proofread that?!

I have been attempting to remain wilfully blind to market news for a few days, then a few weeks at a time. its not easy. Its everywhere. Its in my bank account! Blocksite.com helps. I cant reflexively look at marketwatch.

Of course maybe people who never care to know never get fed any information. But i think market info is just part of generic news feeds.

It is interesting, how normalized market/asset price talk has become integrated into normal news and general conversation. Hell i know poor people without a dime who engage in market chat.

Imagine a whole year passing, with no idea where the stock market was. Or years! Weeeeeird, right? Almost hard to imagine.

I think even kids know nowadays. Retirees actively monitoring their portfolios daily

Perhaps the markets unreality has become palpable, and our collective fear of its detachment from reality causes people to believe it will continue to flourish only if we “keep an eye on it”. Akin to saying the rosary for anothers soul? An eternsl candle of vigil like attention …

Its a kind of madness. Perhaps “Financial trauma syndrome” will make its way into the DSM.

What can seeing daily price action do for anyone? Nothing. Remember old photos of the intense emotions of floor traders on the exchanges, how crazed they looked? Comically anguished or elated, bare knuckled fighting for survival?

We are all floor traders now.

I imagine not knowing to be immensely freeing. Not knowing, not caring, may only come with death.

I did not know about the djia until 1988 or 89. . It was a decade later, at almost age 40, that i remotely cared about stock prices. I had no money to care about.

I was trying to explain this passbook savings account i had with an actual little book to my kids. They were baffled.

A booklet. Where they physically wrote your balance. Hahahahaha. I think it paid 5%? I never made much, the balance was always low.

I recall being very resistant to online banking. Look at this baby. Pleather bound. Balance written in pen. Real. Realish anyway. 1961. Someone saved it 60 years.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Third-National-Bank-Savings-Passbook-1961-Retro-Mid-Century-Nashville-/174688250020?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292

If youre not about to do anything, and probably even if you are, does financial news information have any value, other than to trigger a fleeting emotion.

It may trigger small anxieties or a dopamine rush of pleasure, a sense of safety, or fear, or being smart, or being dumb, and makes you feel perhaps you should act…but how?

Is financial news a form of pornography?
Or a form of prayer?
Or a drug. Fast money, like meth, distorting perception.

What was the world like when money was slow? I cant recall.

[Snick]

Financial news may be a tool to induce churn. The more sales, regardless of the reason, results in more commissions. Similar to real estate.

[Escoguy]

I recently went a few days without checking and it was refreshing.

Ideally would get it to once a week or so.

Checking monthly would just be a matter of shifting psychology.

Starting to go back to the gym now.

I recall when I was 17 and in pretty good condition, “what good is it to have all this money if you aren’t in good physical condition?”

I’m in fair shape now but can certainly improve.

One’s physical and for that matter spiritual condition should be more paramount.

[ucodegen]

[quote=Snick]Financial news may be a tool to induce churn. The more sales, regardless of the reason, results in more commissions. Similar to real estate.[/quote]
I don’t know if the actual intent is to induce churn, though the results are often churn. There are multiple forces at work. There are purma-bulls and purma-bears each wanting to voice their opinion/get their name in the paper. There are hedge fund managers trying to move the market (down so they can buy in, higher so they can sell out) by ‘leaking’ misleading info to reporters who really don’t do any research. The result though of all of this and people with poor long term memory – is churn. These days, there are not many commissions on stock transactions and what commissions there are, are very small. The bid/ask spreads are also much smaller. In the early ’80s, to sell $100K of stock would mean commissions of around $1,000 (1%). Bid/Ask spreads were 1/4 to 1/8 a point at best – more often 1/2 a point ($0.25 to $0.125 a share, more often $0.50/share). As a result, there is not too much profit in ‘churn’ itself. There is more profit in short term manipulation.

I do check daily, but only very quickly. I have a file ( *.txt or *.docx.. etc) that I have notes for everything I currently hold and currently am watching and what my plans are for that issue(stock/mutual fund/etc), as well as what to look out for. I review the prices, news, etc with that note file open and cross-checking notes. I avoid most news that are not releases from the company I have invested in. Max time is about 1 hour, average about 10 min or less. Then I log out and close the file … and fuggetaboutit. No point in getting stressed out on anything I can’t do anything about.

[Snick]

That you ucodegen for providing an example of the news being used as a tool to create churn:

“There are hedge fund managers trying to move the market (down so they can buy in, higher so they can sell out) by ‘leaking’ misleading info to reporters who really don’t do any research.”

Commissions may have appeared to vanish. They are just baked in some other way.

[Author]

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