OPPORTUNITY RISK

Dignity is over-rated.

Webster defines dignity as "the quality of being worthy, honored or esteemed."

Right off if that esteemed part don't get you, you probably never thought about being a stand-up comic. Here's a little test: Try being funny and holding on to your dignity at the same time.


Now we not saying it's impossible. Improbable is more likely. When you slip on that patch of wet floor and fall coming out of the bathroom in the hallway of a crowded courthouse in route to your divorce hearing, you can bet part of your dignity goes down with you.

Jumping up and quickly brushing yourself off is just a humanized version of the semaphore alphabet to try to get it back.

That slip and fall might have looked awkward, but like good humor most falls are simple and direct. One second you're up, the next you're looking up. That is, if you're still conscious.

And though most who witnessed your dignity-dunking moment won't tell you, you can bet at least one of them thought it was funny. You might say it takes a certain amount of dignity not to laugh. Especially after you've just witnessed something funny as hell.

I once saw a 420 pound guy hit a wet patch in the lobby of a crowded high rise. He didn't see the yellow and red plastic warning sign as he hustled to catch an elevator.
Someone inside the packed elevator, probably a Good Samaritan, hit the hold button and the doors suddenly jerked wide open just as the big guy went down.

Now I'm not a big bowler, but I know a strike when I see one. The big guy slid into the elevator, taking all the occupants down with him. It's not everyday you get to see a real life chain reaction. Talk about being blessed.

Just then I noticed a well dressed guy carrying a leather Gucci briefcase next to me. He was smiling. When I asked him why, if he thought it was funny, he nodded negatively and replied in a soft, dignified tone he was a PI attorney and started passing out his business cards.

That's what's known on Wall Street as opportunity risk. Don't get caught up in one when any minute another, better one might slip past you.

Humor is a funny thing. When you think about it, it usually defies one's expectations. It's a lot like that big growth stock you bought that instead of snapping, crackling and popping to the upside just laid there sopping up milk for the last five years. 

All your friends told you to dump it. But you're a true-born-free believer. And then one day about 30 seconds after you do pull the trigger, an M&A deal hits the wire and it jumps 20 points.

Most of us would just laugh it off and we should, but we can't. That's dignity.

Now I'm not a betting guy, but if I were I'd have waged five to three the big guy wouldn't have taken down more than half the elevator crowd with his slide. He needed to get his back leg a little more under him for the perfect slide.

And that's what most of us to be successful in the markets need to do, get all our quacks quacking in the same key.

Another thing about humor, it almost always has a personal agenda.  And it's usually unplanned. Just to try to put a lighter touch on the whole incident, I later asked the big guy as he was trying to brush himself off, how long he'd been working on that slide? It went down about as hard as those folks in the elevator.

And that's what I said in the beginning. Dignity is over-rated.