We've Stopped Counting at 19 Days

The word for today is “bevy.” Merrie has seen a bevy of doctors and had a bevy of tests.

The cardiologist came by and said that, from the perspective of her heart, she’s ready to go home. He says that her eventual goal is to walk for 30 minutes and, as long as she can do that, there’s likely no need for heart surgery.

The rest of her body is not totally cooperating. She has a slight, persistent infection, which has required a potent IV antibiotic. (Just when I thought we were done with beeping machines.) An endoscopy revealed a small stomach ulcer. And she had an abdominal CT scan to rule out the remote possibility of bleeding after last week’s angiogram.

We don’t know when we might go home, and I think we’re going to stop asking. Merrie is feeling feisty and is peppering doctors, nurses and sometimes me with questions, which is a very good sign.

One thing I remember from our time in the hospital in the early 1990s is that, just as we began to think we’d never get out of the hospital, the nurse would come in and tell us to pack up her stuff.

On another note:
I mentioned last week that I hadn’t heard reported the real reason the market went down 400 points last Tuesday. The reason is because it went down. That sounds glib, but it is true.

Investment managers often employ traders who use momentum indicators to automatically buy and sell stocks. In the 1980s this was called “program trading,” but it is much more sophisticated now. Simply put, these traders will buy when stocks are going up and sell when they’re going down. This means that certain kinds of rises and dips will be automatically accelerated.

The “trigger” for Tuesday’s decline may have been fear of excess in the Chinese market, but that would account for just 10%-20% of the move. The rest is selling because the market is going down. So, quite logically, the market went down because it went down.

Related to this, perhaps the most important piece of investment information comes from the movie Jerry Maguire. I’ll talk about that some other time.