From Dan Peña – Executive Coach and Mentor to the High Performer.
Dear High Performance Person and Visionary,
I hope you have all been well! I am working hard and accomplishing a lot. And I sincerely wish you are doing the same!
Boom – Bust
In April 2001 I wrote in my news letter: “On March 20, Richard Russell, a Dow theorist, claimed after the 238-point decline of the Dow the end of the 19-year (really 223 months) bull market”. More importantly (if true), he claimed the bear market recovery would take one-quarter to one-third the length of the bull market. You do the match: 1/4 or 223 or 1/3 of 223!
I also wrote during this time of crisis there would be great opportunities!
Who took advantage of them in the last 6 plus years? More about that further on…
If you do the calculations 1/4 of 223 is 55.75 months and 1/3 of 223 is 73.6 months. And 73.6 months is a little over 6 yrs since the market collapse that saw most indices drop 40 – 60%. Is Russell a genius? Maybe, but that’s not really the point. Here we sit a little over 6 years later and we read in the Wall Street Journal last week:
Boom!
MARKET ALERT
from The Wall Street Journal.
Oct. 3, 2006
The Dow Jones Industrial Average set a record closing high, finishing at 11,727.34, eclipsing a mark set back in January of 2000 during the height of the technology boom.
Bust
Even in these times of great stock market boom there are times of great bust! As you read the links below you will see notwithstanding the new market highs the internet gambling stocks have collapsed due to intervention by the U.S. Government. It will always be something and it is not necessary to ask why? What smart people are doing now is looking for the opportunities. When one door closes another opens. We must look for them!
News results for internet gambling – View today’s top stories
Congress approves Internet gambling ban bill – Reuters.uk – 2 hours ago
GOP aims to crack down on Web gambling– USA Today – 30 Sep 2006
888 to freeze US business after gambling bill – FT – Reuters India – 9 hours ago
Chaos
Whilst in a hotel room I started reading my files and a recent October Fortune magazine issue. The cover is titled CHAOS @ GOOGLE! It has a number of excellent articles on “Managing on the Edge”.
Like the article, as I have said since 1993 when I embarked on coaching the biggest opportunities come from where the most chaos exists. In conjunction with this notion, always put your best people on the biggest opportunity – not the biggest problems. This Fortune issue could have been written by me! I highly recommend it for all of you. Keep it in your permanent reading file along with other QLA reading material. Here is the link to the feature article: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/02/8387489/index.htm
The Next Bust ?
NEWS ALERT
from The Wall Street Journal
Oct. 10, 2006
The Department of Justice has begun an informal inquiry into potentially anticompetitive behavior among some of the world’s leading private-equity funds. Information and documents related to deals and business practices have been requested.
That’s it for now. I have to get back to work.
To Your Quantum Leap,
Dan Peña
P.S. If today was a test how would you grade yourself? What about the last 6 years?
P.P.S. Due to inconsiderate misuse and spammers I have ceased my message board infinitely. I am very chagrinned to have to take this action. Many thanks for your previous support!
