E-piphany

What am I doing, writing a commentary again?

You would think that my better judgment would prevail after years…years…of writing market commentary and whining about the amount of work it is. Now, as a co-owner of my own firm, there is no one who can force me to write.

And yet, I write.

Perhaps it is that I just enjoy reading my own writing. Surely, hubris and exhibitionism must play some role in the decision of any blog author to offer his product (at least, for those who offer their blog free and by so doing wave dismissively at any suggestion that they might be adding actual value to anyone). But in my own case I would like to think there is more: as a trader, it is a helpful discipline to put one’s thoughts down in an orderly rhetorical structure, to see if those thoughts withstand even the basic rigors of elementary logic. I could, though, do that privately with none the wiser.

It is, I think, a bigger test to throw that rhetorical argument out there, to the world, where the argument will be examined – sometimes to be confirmed, sometimes ridiculed (and usually both). Over the years I have written less and less to ‘hear’ myself talk and more to make myself listen.

This is my first time, however, to completely expose myself to the chaotic democracy of the Web. This may not be a great decision, but we will see. My former commentaries have always been directed at other market professionals so that the feedback I received – positive or negative, insightful or obtuse – was at least generally polite and on-point, and I enjoyed a productive discourse with hundreds of my colleagues and clients over the years. To be frank, I read other blogs and some of the posted comments are…well…let’s just say they can be impolite and off-point.

This is also my first time I have written outside of a firm’s infrastructure, meaning that I lack (besides an editor) the oversight of overbearing and hyper-sensitive compliance departments and well-meaning senior management with carefully-cultivated Spidey senses about the risks to “firm reputation.” I don’t really think I will miss those guys. They are, after all, the reason that Maestro, My Ass! was not published when it was written, but only this year. But the only reputation at risk now is mine, and the only limitation to my topic is my common sense.

Uh oh!