Ann: Phoenix South-3 Drilling Update, page-171

no... no... no... don't misquote me.

your original post...

"So true Vlad, but we have to account for two important trading functions:
money and fear
If you take the sum, the result is stupidity."

it is YOU who implied that people were fearful of losing money and the sum of those factors resulted in stupidity. YOU.

i simply agreed, and said that if people who were scared of losing money stayed away from the stock markets (as they are volatile - given i didn't explicitly state that, but that is what i meant) we would not have had the stupidity of this morning.

in essence, i agreed with your post.

now, i'm talking about self regulation here rather than a regulatory approach. obviously!

to break it down even simpler for you...
if i'm scared of heights, i stay away from the edge.
if i'm scared of losing money, i should stay away from the asx.

simple really... not sure where your rainbow theorum fits into that... but good luck with that agent orange...

back to YOUR 'two important trading functions: money and fear'...
there wouldn't have been half the stop losses set as most people with a long term big picture view would have much much looser stop losses... if at all.

so this comment of yours... "Now you're saying that people are fearful, whereas initially you responded to take fear out of the equation."... is plain wrong.
you introduced 'people are fearful' in your original post... or did you mean that money and fear of spiders results in stupidity??

furthermore... i very much live in the real world... but i am definitely allowed to express a view on a more utopian investing world if i so please... especially when it feeds off, and largely supports, a post you yourself made on the topic of fear, money and stupidity.

i think you will find that my reasoning is just fine... and that it is the form of your argument that is severely lacking...

but like you said, you're probably a very nice fellow as well, and i wish you all the best with whatever it is you do.