Emotions.

One year ago to the day I wrote this

"Have you noticed how easy it is for people to become tied into a downward spiral of emotion as much as an upward spiral of euphoria

Either way it is not just the company performance that feeds it. Emotion begets emotion. Instead of dealing with facts, analysing things and making rational decisions it leads to over buying and over selling. In either case HFT adds an element that makes active use of the sentiment

Sure there are things that Alexium has not done well and I think communication is one of their weak spots. They haven't connected progress to expectations they have created and they haven't always achieved what they said they would

But ultimately the facts, in my opinion, aren't as bad as the doom and gloom being expressed and encouraged on other threads.

We managed about two weeks of looking more optimistically. Now we are back to the weeping and gnashing of teeth. This my friends is how mass psychology works. "


Well here we are back again.   Things are in fact better in every respect than when I wrote that comment.  I haven't seen one single negater explain, with sound logic and good data, why the share price is "right"

In fact it rather seems there are two patterns in the comments:

• The mean spirited traders or shorters who are highly effective in distracting from the good, diverting to doubt and spreading gloom.
• The people who take the share price fall to somehow be proof that the company isn't performing

The first is inevitable.  Take a look at many of the experiments on mass psychology and manipulation and you will be clear that this is a technique only - though effective.  That doesn't make it right.  The jonestown suicides were not right - all that happened was that a group of fearful people took their own lives.  The gas chambers weren't right - but plenty of people fell into line and expressed their darkest thoughts and fears.  Well capitulation may seem sensible at the time and somehow safer but it seems to me that all you are doing is putting your own head in the noose, getting the cyanide pill out of its case of joining the ranks of the executioners.

The second is actually nuts.  Poster after poster has shared information to show that the market is not rational.   There is no "right price".   There is only what the market thinks at any one time.  

Is Alexium truly worth less now than it was 18 months, 12 months, 9 months ago?   How can it be?  The prospects  haven't changed and the actual performance is better.  

The share price hasn't "spoken" about performance - it's spoken about belief.   The selling reflects emotions not facts.   And every sale that drives the price down becomes self fulfilling.

Well that doesn't make emotion become fact. It just provides all those who sold with justification for their decision.   

It's nuts. But self justified nuts.


Parsifal