Neither have I had the pleasure of meeting you face to face, but having met Eoin at now 2 chart seminars, and read your comments from time to time as a subscriber, I have a mental picture of the sort of person you might be.

I find your measured response to financial and political comments and news (in which we drown on occasions) is one of the main reasons I keep coming back. The world does not always make the same sense as say nature, mathematics or physics. Perhaps another reason I have endured here is a growing appreciation of the behavioural aspect of financial analysis, and how well it has been articulated by you and Eoin.

I was going to side step comment on your recent illness because it is a personal matter and I couldn't think of anything useful to add, except of course to add my best wishes for your recovery. Fatigue following a respiratory infection can be a real problem.

I enjoyed the anecdote about amoxycillin used for canine RTI and your pun in response. Dry. It reminded me of a series of articles on antibiotic resistance discussed a few months ago by Eoin. We are fortunate to live in an era (end of an era?) in which the majority of common bacterial infections are still sensitive to something (at least where I live). This aspect of pharma has been so successful in the past that they appear to have stopped developing new products. Are we living on credit?

David Fuller's view

Thank you for this thoughtful, interesting and varied email.

Re behavioural technical analysis – the description for my field which I have used since the mid-1970s – is easily explained.  Don’t tell the market what to do because it probably isn’t listening. Instead, remember that the market eventually responds to fundamentals but will more often be volatile in the manner of a crowd.  So remain calm.  Watch the market by looking mainly at weekly and monthly charts, in the manner of David Attenborough peering through the reeds and observing a herd on the African plains.  The herd will mostly mill about, as price charts mainly range, before suddenly taking off.  Don’t stand in the way but run with the herd, at least until it clearly stops.

Re antibiotics, we have every reason to be grateful for them, not least because they have approximately doubled average life expectancy over the last hundred and fifty years or so, while wars have become less frequent and smaller. However, the bugs (germs) don’t stand still.  They adapt and come back.  The most vulnerable are young children, the unhealthy and the old.  Antibiotics may have extended my life recently, and I am still on them.  However, I will try to avoid a similar illness over the next several years, because the combination of antibiotics, including penicillin, may not be as effective for me anytime soon.