Stock Market Madness

I don¡¯t know since when stock talk has become a hot topic, a necessary exchange occurring at each and every encounter: ¡°Oh, my God. Half an hour after I sold X yesterday, it was going up to the threshold. Can you believe that?¡±¡°Guess what? I got an inside news, XX is definitely going to ¡­.¡±¡°I really think we should be careful now, the index is rising like crazy.¡± On and on we¡¯d go, my friends, my coworkers, almost every person in my extended circle. And now, I find myself sitting beside the dinner table with my in-laws and my husband, and just as it has gone in our past many dinners, we are getting involved in a dispute over the stock madness. ¡°I told you high price stock was bad choice, you didn¡¯t listen to me. Look at what happened!¡± ¡°Then you should know better to sell X at such price. Only if hold it a few more minutes, we can at least gain 10% more¡­.¡± I cut in with cheery voice: ¡°In total we still gain, don¡¯t we?¡± But no one care to listen. I am among the minority who hasn¡¯t anticipated in this game, so my words don¡¯t carry any weight. How can we end up in such madness? Thanks to bullish market, every one---from grannies to college students¡ªseemed to be playing the market. Though averagely we get 50% gain, but none of us is satisfied. We can smell money in air, so we just want more. Every one knows that we have a bubble but we all believe we could gain a great fortune before the market headed for a meltdown. Does anybody here remember the pain of the downside of the business cycle we once suffered? Listening quietly to the heated discussion from my family, I find myself totally immune to this fever. What¡¯s going on? Is this a sign of behind the times? When the teenagers begin to talk about integrate index, the only way I know to deal with extra money is to save them for raining days. You get to a certain stage in life, you don¡¯t believe in easy money. Regular paid becomes the focus, not investment. No stock drama! How can I survive from this national fever? What am I to d! o with a void like that? Apparently, one option is to fill it with the little creature growing inside my body. Besides, no one fight for TV remote with me now because my husband would spend every night facing the computer, analyzing the figures, probability statistics, and portfolio theory, trying to puzzle it out. And TV is all for my use. Ha!