A Brave New (Broken) World

I said it the other day, and I'll say it again.

The markets are broken.

It's not that they're not functioning on a daily basis, pricing risk and assets and performing their price discovery duties. They are doing that - or at least trying to.

Those are the little, daily things that markets do, and there are things there that are broken. (I'll get to those things another time.) Think of these little, daily things as the "hows" or the "mechanics" of buying and selling.

Now think of the big things as the "whys" or the "psychology of investing."

Those are the things that are broken.

Until they are fixed, or "things" change drastically, we are in for some really wild swings in the months, quarters, and years ahead.

I'm going to point out all of these big things to you, over time. But right now, I'm going to focus on just two.

No More Buy-and-Hold Believers

First, there are two types of players in markets: investors and traders.

It used to be that investors dwarfed traders - by a huge margin.

But that's all changed.

There aren't that many truly long-term investors any more. It's too dangerous to be an investor in the traditional sense. That's why most investors, at least those that call themselves investors, are really all traders now.

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About the Author

Shah Gilani boasts a financial pedigree unlike any other. He ran his first hedge fund in 1982 from his seat on the floor of the Chicago Board of Options Exchange. When options on the Standard & Poor's 100 began trading on March 11, 1983, Shah worked in "the pit" as a market maker.

The work he did laid the foundation for what would later become the VIX - to this day one of the most widely used indicators worldwide. After leaving Chicago to run the futures and options division of the British banking giant Lloyd's TSB, Shah moved up to Roosevelt & Cross Inc., an old-line New York boutique firm. There he originated and ran a packaged fixed-income trading desk, and established that company's "listed" and OTC trading desks.

Shah founded a second hedge fund in 1999, which he ran until 2003.

Shah's vast network of contacts includes the biggest players on Wall Street and in international finance. These contacts give him the real story - when others only get what the investment banks want them to see.

Today, as editor of Hyperdrive Portfolio, Shah presents his legion of subscribers with massive profit opportunities that result from paradigm shifts in the way we work, play, and live.

Shah is a frequent guest on CNBC, Forbes, and MarketWatch, and you can catch him every week on Fox Business's Varney & Co.

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