Morning Market Thoughts
Good morning. Looks like a pretty flat open today, and I don’t really see any market moving news. CNBC is still talking about the “Boeing Twitter Renegotiation”; and I see that the Supremes have overturned the patent infringement case by Apple against Samsung; and Jack Dorsey is saying that Twitter (TWTR) is not responsible for Donald Trump’s win. Irrespective of where you are on the political spectrum, you’ve got to admit that it’s pretty funny that Twitter would even feel compelled to deny responsibility. It’s a platform where any user can type 140 characters and send it out to all their followers.Back in the early days of Twitter, it seemed like Facebook-lite. Everyone was taking pictures of their dinner plate at a restaurant and tweeting it out to their followers, somehow, amazingly, and wrongly believing that others would really care about what they were eating. Others would tweet their daily activities — in less than 140 words, along with a picture. “Leaving the house to go for a walk with little Austin in the stroller. It’s a beautiful morning here in Smallville [insert pic of Austin sucking on a pacifier here]” Of course, everyone who saw the tweet said one of two things: “Oooooh, he’s sooooo cute.” Or, alternatively, “Ugh. Does she really think I give a rip about when she walks the kid who puked on my carpet the last time they were over for dinner?” [unfollow!]
Now, Twitter is being used by a person with a very rudimentary filtering system to bypass the entire press industry. Only in America.
But consider the evolution of Twitter for a second. It is being used in ways that few ever contemplated. But, when used to its maximum effectiveness, which would include tweeting videos of meetings and statements by the President, his press secretary, etc., and links to documents, budgets, press releases, etc., Twitter could be the catalyst for the destruction of an entire industry of reporters. I might be stretching a bit, but isn’t this the dynamic that pushes us forward?
Bill Gates formed Microsoft after IBM decided not to buy Bill’s MS-DOS operating system that was being used in the PBM PC, instead choosing to license the software. Fast forward…and Microsoft changed the world. In no way am I comparing Twitter to Microsoft, nor am I comparing Jack Dorsey to Bill Gates. Twitter is twitter, and I suspect most users are going to continue tweeting their dinner plates and pictures of their cute baby. But leave it up to the collective imagination of a free society and you’ll be surprised at how things can evolve.
Consider the implications of the evolution of Twitter as a dominant source of news. One guy with a hyperactive iPhone is now threatening the entire news industry. Why? Because that industry was not serving him the way he wanted. He believed that he was at a disadvantage, so he found another way to accomplish what he wanted. That’s the story of industry. If you aren’t growing and adapting, you just might be closer to dying than you realize.
Apply this to your trading. Always be looking for a better way to accomplish your goals. If you aren’t accomplishing your goals, then you might need to do something different rather than just working harder at the thing you are doing. If the thing you are doing isn’t working for you, stop doing it. Sell options rather than buy hope. Change your holding period. Improve your vision by looking at more than charts.
If you can open your imagination, there is no telling what you can accomplish.
See you in the forum.
Dan
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