The Social Thermometer - for trading

 I was presented with an interesting situation this weekend. My parents were in town. My dad and I went for a walk in the morning and I enjoy talking about what I'm doing and what I'm learning. He has spent his career dealing with finance so he finds it interesting what I do and asks good and relevant question. For some reason we were talking about bitcoin (it's not something that I trade), and he recalled that the guys at work were telling him that he needed to jump on the bitcoin bandwagon because it was...I don't  know...the bees knees. I don't know when exactly this happened, but I have a pretty good inkling that they were probably talking about it when it was topped out around 60K a coin.  It's very interesting how the masses seem to be the last ones to the game only to get locked into the stadium with not game going on. I think it was in one of the Market Wizards books that one of the traders has something like his golf group thermometer. The idea is that if his non-trader golf buddies started talking about the stock market or a stock of some kind, then it likely marked the pivot point for whatever it was they were talking about.  I think this idea is an important one that creates edge. It's called socializing.  I think that we can have trader friends who are consistently wrong or right that we need to learn from and that we can should have non-trader friends and be attentive to what it is that they say (this would be being a good friend because it is good to listen to you friends), but if they talk about the market and they usually don't, then you should be aware that something is up. I think it is a kind of sell the news situation where once the news is disseminated enough, the only way to go is the other direction because everyone has already heard the news. It's an interesting idea. If we think about it as lemonades stands where everyone decided that having a lemonade stand was the thing to do and each house bought up all of the lemons and opened up lemonades stands in front of every house, then bar any amazing innovation the only thing going on will be selling of lemonade as everyone tries to get rid of what they have.  It's a simple supply and demand situation where supply far outweighs the demand.  Unlike lemonade that will just disappear after bought, stocks stay with you and you'll have to deal with what the supply/demand situation that has been created does. Can I just say...Deep Sigh... I'm watchin PFE drop slowly but surely after a little spike. This is/was like my ideal setup, but I was on a walk. I'm fine...just sometimes...sigh. Alright...listen to friends - pay attention to news. Learn from past events and know what has been going on with a stock before you jump into "what's hot."  Cheers!