An Investing Lesson From Would-Be Burglars

Andy Snyder|January 4, 2022

Oh boy… what a few days we’ve had.

We watched as a lady rose from the dead and, if that weren’t enough, we caught a couple of burglars trying to steal our stuff.

Reflecting on what in the world just happened, we think there’s a grand investing lesson in all of it… especially for the oddball times we live in.

We’ll start with the bad guys and how a slow afternoon turned into a manhunt with nearly a dozen cops filling our driveway.

With some chores to do, we took the road from one end of our property to the other. Along the way, we passed the building we run our flower operation out of. We saw two folks meandering outside, clearly on the wrong side of our gate.

We called Mrs. Manward to see if she was expecting any visitors.

She wasn’t.

We turned around and did what any self-protecting dolt would do. We snuck up on them.

By the time we got to them, they were in our building with the door shut behind them.

“Oh boy,” we said to ourselves. “This should be fun.”

We swung open the door, saw two bad guys putting our stuff into their bags… and went to work.

We escorted one fine fellow from the place with a hold that ensures any aggressive move is quickly met with equal and appropriate pain.

Not complying with our wishes wasn’t much of an option.

The other fella had eyes on his freedom. He took off like a rabbit just released from a trap.

With a bad guy in one hand and our phone in the other, we called our pals on the force.

The manhunt was on. They brought everything they had.

Within 30 minutes… the ringleader had been found.

“That was fun,” one of the breathless officers said.

Then the real problems started…

What Happened?!

It turns out that when a convoy of police cars speeds its way down country roads, the neighbors pay attention.

Despite the labor shortage, there’s nobody calling in sick at the ol’ rumor mill these days.

Production is at full capacity.

Within minutes of the police arriving, folks were taking to social media, wondering why there were helicopters in the air (there weren’t)… naming names (that were all wrong)… and lamenting that there were armed and dangerous burglars prowling the county (these dopey burglars weren’t armed, and they were dangerous only in that they were capable of the kind of blunders that led to Forrest Gump getting shot “in the but-tocks”).

If our little farm were a publicly traded entity… our stock would have lit up Reddit. We would have been the hot meme play of the day.

Of course, almost all of the rumors were false. There were only two folks who knew what really happened… and a third, angry fella who came in halfway through the scene… The rest had derivative knowledge at best.

Most had no real facts… only false rumors.

As we pondered it all, we came to the conclusion that it’s not all that different from the stock market these days.

There are thieves… good guys… and a whole lot of hype.

There are few facts out there. And the facts that are released rarely match the story on the street.

It’s quite a mess.

So we must answer what is certainly a thoughtful reader’s inquiry into it all.

“What are we to do?”

The markets make little sense. The heroes are left with little choice.

Stand back, and your life’s work will be looted. Stay out of the market, and rising prices will tax everything you’ve got.

But jump in, and you might just take a thug’s right hook to your jaw. Or worse.

But we didn’t hesitate. And neither should you.

You must make your move. You must get in the game.

But how? What’s the safe way to do it?

Remember the lady we said we watched rise from the dead?

She’s got the answer. We’ll share her tear-jerking story tomorrow morning.