Come May, Run Away

Topic: Timing is Everything
Key Words: Foul play, Macking, Mojitos
Word Count: 619
Next Likely Topic: Drew Barrymore

Well I survived my birthday, though I hear Jonathan and Yuriy though I might have expired when I mysteriously wouldn't pick up my phone when the carpool arrived to pick up Leon and I. Naturally, like most old people, I was in the can .... foul play was not afoot.

On my birthday night, a group of us went out to eat and a smaller subset to Harry Potter V afterwards. I thought the boy wizard's fifth outing was a bit of a disappointment, especially since he ended up macking with the chick who was dating his rival who he saw killed and especially since he brought said rival's body back to school while holding the cup that ultimately got them him killed. Yeah. Sounds like a relationship with a sound footing, though hey, your young, the room of requirement is f'ing with you, and your rival "accidentally died at the hands of the dead dark lord" (yeah, right) .... so why not go for it and have some fun? Hopefully the seventh book will be better than the fifth .... one week from Friday.

I used my birthday as an excuse not to exercise yesterday. Tonight I used .... ahhhmmm .... my birthday, have I used that one .... to not exercise. I thought Tuesday - Thursday would give me a good chance to truly rest the hammy and see if it improves. And tomorrow is Friday; there's no exercise on Friday! If I'm not too fat to run, maybe I'll test the leg over the weekend.

Bad timing may be screwing over my Chicago marathon, but you've got to accept that these things will happen, and take the long term view that short setbacks are acceptable for the health gains and for the fun of training and competing. And of course, as mega rich Oprah's financial planner would tell you, the stock market takes the same kind of attitude. Today's rally of the market (up 2%! that's huge) is interesting due to some age old stock advice: "sale in May, run away, return in November". This adage says that the stock market is generally down over the Summer, and most crashes happen in September and October, so you should simply sale ALL you stock come May 1, sip some Summertime mojitos and margaritas, and pile back into the market come November. Of course, there are years, perhaps many, where this works. There are also fee and tax obligations (particularly if you do this outside of an IRA) that no one likes to mention (dumping all your stock and buying come November could run you 100s of dollars in transaction fees alone). And by sitting on the sidelines, you would have missed on one of the largest rallies in memory ... Wall Street's belated 2% increase celebration of my birthday (my birthday didn't officially happen until after the markets closed on Wednesday, I understand the delay). Admittedly, tomorrow will likely bring a pull back, as greedy folks look to lock in profits. And also, the market might suck it up for the next few months, making those on the sidelines happy campers indeed. Still though, today's market move reflects the potential folly of trying to time the market, and I think it's applicable advice to most parts of life. If something has a positive long term return you should keep at it, even if a certain time looks bleak, as you never know when things might turn around.

I must admit, this whole being lazy thing is kind of cool. I could get used to it :o)