There are many things I hate on Wall Street. Here is a list of four of them. Why do you care about that list? Well you don’t necessarily, but it is my blog and whether I want to post a list of things that I hate on Wall Street, soon after I will. whether you don’t want to read it, soon after don’t.

Fed Watching - I spend a considerably amount of moment hating talking heads on CNBC and Bloomberg espousing on the intentions of the Federal Reserve and its esteemed Chairman. Will they ease? Will they cut? Are they pausing?

The truth is, who cares what the Fed does? whether you can find a stock worth $10 a share selling for $8 a share, soon after the Fed chairman could stick his head up his ass and it won’t matter one bit. whether you are a day trader, thereupon I suppose you should care, but since I am not, I don’t. A case can additionally be made that the financial media perpetuates and reinforces deviant behavior in investing by devoting too much air moment to these events.

Smart Money - There is an enduring myth on Wall Street about “smart money.” The term is a little condescending as it implies that everyone else is not “smart money” but therefore is “dumb money.” The myth is that somehow, once an investor gets decent publicity and name recognition, and thereupon has a decent track record, next somehow that investor has some sort of mystical capability to choose stocks that will outperform. Just think of a herd of investors, and the “smart money” is a cow in that herd that stands out from the rest and once he or she moos, everyone pursues them.

So I don’t actually hate investors that are “smart money,” since most of them I have never met, and probably never will. What I hate is the concept, and the concomitant and Pavlovian response of other investors who blindly follow these public around without doing their own research or work. (Wow, did I really just use the word concomitant in a sentence?)

Catalyst Investors - I take in many investors talk on TV about a stock and how much they like it, etc. But thereupon they say something like that - “I really like the stock, but I just don’t see a catalyst for the stock going forward.” What does that really mean?

A catalyst is defined in science as “a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.” For our reasons it is a “thing that causes an critical change to take place.” Well don’t you get it, you jackass, whether you were a Value Investor, you wouldn’t need a catalyst. Your “catalyst” in fact, is the rest of the market finally realizing that the stock is undervalued relative to its assets or earnings ability.

The Market - There are many investors who use the market as a crutch or to defend their beliefs and/or stock picks. They will say “Well, that’s what the market thinks, or that’s what the market is saying.” The problem with that, of course, is that the market is dominated by short term irrational investors who herd en masse into stocks and chase performance. that plus makes and perpetuates investment bubbles. The fact that the market supports what you happen to be saying at that moment is not an investment thesis.

Original post by Eric J. Fox