What It Really Takes to Survive a Bear Market

Andy Snyder|October 27, 2022

We went bear hunting for a few days.

We loaded up the truck and winded our way up north. We drove past the jobs… past the crime… past the things that make for an easy yet corrupt life.

Up there, political yard signs don’t mention God or guns. Nobody dares to debate the essentials.

It’s a land that’s been deceived. Sometimes loved… sometimes scorned.

Most often, it sits idle and unused – a supposed sanctuary for nature. Other times, when the money is good, the topsoil is scraped away and the dark, rich coal is scooped out one shovelful at a time… until a whole mountain is ferried down south.

The latest whispers are that the boys will soon be coming back. The oily hills had been abandoned, with many holes left undug. But with the world in pain, those quiet mountains may soon be the opiate that relieves the suffering.

We tried not to think of it all, though. We had our own problems.

Our goal was to do the near impossible – to take down one of the state’s trophy black bears with little more than our bow.

Lots of folks try each year… and all but a thousand or so fail.

We are not among that thousand.

We didn’t see a single bear… or even spot any bear poop… or even talk to anybody who saw a bear.

For the spoiled and culturally soft, it’d be easy to deny their existence altogether – to seat the big bears right beside sasquatch in our cavernous imagination.

It’ll come as no surprise that we’ve heard plenty of folks blame the government for a bad hunt. “The bears are mismanaged,” they say.

Up north, it’s usually the same folks who use their EBT cards to pay for lunch.

It’s lazy thinking.

Hunting the bears up north is like so many things in our lives. It’s no different from raising good kids… building a good community… or getting rich.

It takes time, understanding and dedication.

Inspiration

As we drove to the big woods, we smiled at the size of it all. We always do. Our farm has trees… lots of them. But they’re broken up by fields, pasture and the curtilage of life.

Up there, the beginning has no end. The end has no beginning.

It’s an inspiring sight… and a daunting idea.

There’s nothing to say bears should go here and not there. And yet they do. There are sections of those woods that haven’t seen a bear in years. Other sections see them daily.

Some areas have food, shelter and water. Others don’t.

Our job is to find the right ones.

Again, we failed. We had just a few days to do our work.

We could have gotten lucky and fallen into it. But we certainly didn’t deserve to.

We didn’t do what we were supposed to… what we needed to do.

We pick stocks for a living. We don’t hunt bears. It’s a good thing. We’re far better at the former.

But the ties that bind the two exercises are thick, like the bark on an old oak.

The world is big. Our job is to fight like the devil to whittle it down to the winners and the losers.

The time away was immensely enjoyable… especially the pre-dawn mornings. We entertained ourself by counting the shooting stars and listening to the owls and coyotes compete with the deafening roar of silence. As the warmth of the rising sun tickled our cheek, our view of the galaxy was replaced with a view of our world.

Loose ends seem to cauterize out there. The calmness allows our mind to get its pieces back in order.

We see a world that’s had its troubles. But we see a world that is natural and clear.

Our stocks, our economy and our politics are a mess. There’s no need to argue about it… no need for a yard sign to tout our view. It’s the same as the neighbor’s.

Many will wonder about it all and blame external forces. They’ll poke the chests of regulators. They’ll wonder where all the boys with shovels went. And they’ll roll up their shoulders and say, “They just ain’t here.”

All of that’s true… and yet none of it counts.

What counts are the soles of our shoes and the miles that pass under them.

The rewards are out there. They’re not easy to get… nor should they be.

We must search for the water… the food… the shelter.

We must find the investments that rise when others fall… that pay out and pay off despite the conditions.

They exist. We have the proof.

Perhaps we’re biased, but we say our dear old pal Alpesh Patel has quite a novel approach to it all.

He’s done his homework… and written books about it. He’s run the funds… and told the queen about them.

He doesn’t much mind the news or the debates. His strategy remains firm.

We’re telling anybody we can about it these days.

His latest idea may be his best one yet.

We went bear hunting… and we found everything but a bear.

That’ll do.