| "Nobody knows nothin'."
- Jack Bogle Vanguard's legendary founder, Jack Bogle, once relayed a story that when he was first starting out in the investment business, his mentor told him to remember that "Nobody knows nothin'." When it comes to Wall Street's top professionals, it's important to realize that - as usual - Jack Bogle (along with his mentor) was right. This weekend, I read through Barron's Roundtable, an annual discussion among some of the smartest people on Wall Street where they share their forecasts and picks for the year. I've been in this business long enough to know that the best investors get it wrong and that their words are not gospel. But even I was surprised at how wrong they were in 2025. In last year's Roundtable, only two out of the 11 experts said stocks would go up in 2025. (The S&P 500 ended the year up 16.4%.) Not one of them mentioned gold or silver, which were the best-performing assets of the year. I've seen so many times in my career where the markets behaved in a way that seemed to run counter to how they should. The Fed has lowered the federal funds rate three times since September by a total of three-quarters of a percentage point. You'd expect other interest rates to follow. However, the 10-year Treasury yield only fell after the first cut (from about 4.3% to 4.0%). After that, even though the Fed reduced rates two more times, the yield on the Treasury bounced back to nearly 4.2%. The market is made up of millions of players, and they do not all behave rationally. If you've ever played poker, been in a negotiation, or, really, just lived a day on this planet, you have probably thought to yourself, "What in the world is that person thinking?" That is why, very often, the market moves in directions that aren't rational. For example... - Republicans are supposed to be good for business... but the market performs better when there's a Democrat in the White House.
- The economy is strong and inflation is low... yet gold and silver are ripping higher.
- Dot-com stocks went insanely high in the late 1990s and early 2000s... despite most rational people realizing there was no underlying business behind many of these stocks.
In order to avoid investing according to how things should be instead of how they are, I use technical analysis (the study of stock charts) to frame my thinking. | 
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