Good Tuesday morning. I’d be remiss if I didn’t start this mornings Letter without a thank you to my first mentor Ted Parsons. Even from the grave, Ted continues to influence me and have a positive impact on my life. “Never sell on a Monday” held up again (with a 1500 point swing in the Dow Jones and a 900 point swing in Nasdaq). Newbies to the VRA may not know this story, but on black Monday, October 19th 1987…as I was in my 2nd year in the business…Ted pulled me in his office as the selling began to overwhelm the markets and said “let’s just sit back today and watch brokers make some very big mistakes”.

Limit orders weren’t be accepted…the systems were overwhelmed…so brokers were forced to enter “market orders”, which felt like a safe bet at the time. What investors and brokers didn’t know at the time was that their sell orders would be filled at the lows of the day. Most sell prices weren’t reported back until late Tuesday/Wednesday, so by the time they found out the price they s...