Groucho Marx allegedly once quit an elite club with a telegram…
PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER.
Now, I said “allegedly” because Marx was a comedic genius. And it’s clear that he told many different versions of the story over the years…
In one version, Marx wrote the letter to the Friars Club of Beverly Hills. But others indicate that he sent it to the Hillcrest Country Club, the Lambs Club, or the Delaney Club.
So who knows, maybe Marx was just making a joke. But it brings up an interesting point…
Should we refuse to associate with certain people because of what others might think?
Sometimes, I use what I call the “Groucho Marx test” to guide my investing choices. And as you’ll see today, it’s another name for a valuable tool that Marc Chaikin created…
When you own a company’s stock, you belong to a club. The other shareholders are fellow members. And importantly, everyone believes the same thing…
It’s wise to own this stock right now.
You’re dealing with real money. Heck, you probably have more money at stake in the stock than Marx did with his club. So you really need to consider who you’re associating with.
In the early 1980s, Marc Chaikin developed a way to help us do just that…
His Chaikin Money Flow indicator measures the sentiment of the “smart money.” That’s a term for Wall Street’s most knowledgeable and sophisticated investors.
These folks trade for a living. And their careers depend on being right more often than not.
If they’re in a club (they’ve been buying a particular stock)… we should want in.
But suppose the smart money hates a stock. What does that tell us about the actual shareholders?
Not-so-smart club members will happily accept us as peers. But do we really want to join?
For example, let’s look at Meta Platforms (META)…
As you can see, the stock has gotten crushed. And along the way, the Chaikin Money Flow indicator – our “Groucho Marx test” – shows us the smart money has been selling heavily.
Despite the stock’s collapse, Meta Platforms founder Mark Zuckerberg isn’t giving up on the “metaverse.” In fact, he’s dumping resources into it. As I wrote on November 1…
The company plans to spend between $85 billion and $87 billion this year to build the “metaverse” (essentially, an immersive virtual world). And instead of cutting costs, it plans to boost them to between $96 billion and $101 billion in 2023.
These days, the Meta Platforms Shareholders Club likely includes many folks who believe in the company’s vision of the metaverse. But the smart money isn’t among them.
So if you’re still in this club, you might want to resign before it’s too late.
Good investing,
Marc Gerstein
Editor’s note: Every Bloomberg terminal in the world includes the Chaikin Money Flow indicator. Banks, hedge funds, and every major brokerage site use it in their systems.
In short, it’s an essential tool to figure out whether a stock is “bullish” or “bearish.”
But as Marc recently shared in an urgent online broadcast, we also need something else to battle the current volatility. This new “vehicle” could give you the chance to double, triple, or even quadruple your money over the next 12 months. Click here for more details.
