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It’s been kind of a wild ride on the old investment train these past few weeks, eh Bubba?  Not for the faint of heart, no sir.  But if you’re the sort of person that hits a golf ball at the trees and just knows it bounced into the fairway then you are sitting like the fat man at the all you can eat buffet.  There’s a lot of opportunity – all it takes is the hunger to go make it happen.

Winston Churchill said it pretty well:

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Ain’t it the truth?  Every technical analyst will tell you the market is oversold and now that the credit markets are slowly getting straightened out, well, the sidelines is not where you want to be.  No, I’m not betting old Rancho Deluxe here on the market but I am buying.  Slowly and carefully.  You all know that for all those folks rushing to sell and running like roaches from a spotlight someone had to be buying.  I’m with them – maybe not in the short (2-3 years) term but for sure in the long term.

Stand on a short par 3 tee – say 130 yards or so.  Almost every golfer I know under the age of 80 can hit a ball that far.  Maybe a little left, maybe a little right, but most can do it easily.  Now surround the green by water like 17 at TPC Sawgrass.  OMFG!~ But it doesn’t even have to that extreme – just a small pond 15 yards in front of the green will cause panic in those golfers that see only the hazards.  You and I know they should be looking at the green – that’s where we want the ball to go, right?

Business and investing should be approached the same way as that par 3.  Look at the green.  Yes, be aware of the hazards and make an intelligent decision about how to attack your target with them in mind.  But you can’t just sit in the cart!

Especially not when you have a tailwind and a soft green.