I hate losing money.
But sometimes the trades that hurt the most end up teaching you everything about how markets really work.
Bryan called it my “biggest fly in the ointment trade of the entire year.”
He wasn’t wrong.
The Trade Everyone Thought Was Stupid
While everyone was paying $100 for every $1 in sales on Palantir, I bought Merck.
Let me explain what that means.
If you look at Palantir, when they say it’s trading at 100 times sales, you’re paying $100 for every $1 in sales.
Which business would you invest in?
If you were a business person going out there looking at a business doing a million dollars in sales, would you pay a hundred million dollars today for that business?
That’s the question to ask yourself.
The Payment Game Psychology
But Wall Street wants you to get into the payment mentality.
Like walking into a car dealer – “Oh, it’s a million-dollar car. I don’t care. What’s the payment? Yeah, I can afford $300 a month. Give me something for $300 a month.”
That’s the mentality Wall Street wants you to get into. Don’t look at the big picture. Look at how much you can afford.
“Oh, Palantir is only trading at $165. That’s nothing. Don’t think about the 100 times sales. Just think about $165.”
That’s crazy.
When Reality Hits
We’re almost back to our break-even point on Merck now. We blink our eyes, and that thing is about to turn profitable.
They just raised their dividend yesterday.
This Is Reversion to the Mean
This is precisely what we mean when we talk about reversion to the mean.
People are now saying, “Oh, well, pharmaceuticals look really cheap down here at eight, ten times earnings.”
The sector provides that measure of stability and safety.
But it also shows that investor psychology is weird: we all know what a good company is versus a speculative one, yet we all want to trade the speculative ones.
We all know Palantir could just as easily be $150 or $180 tomorrow.
But we also know that Merck’s not going to be $20 tomorrow. It might go down $5 because of some crazy political stuff about drugs, but it’s not going to zero.
People will still buy these medications because they work.
The Historical Context
The whole healthcare sector is trading at 10-12 times earnings. Historically, they trade at 16-18 times. So there’s a lot of upside to all this.
If this market shifts again and everybody jumps back into momentum stocks, and all these healthcare stocks sell off again, what should you do?
Your Action Plan
When people find value, especially in this market, there aren’t really many sectors that are undervalued.
So when the market latches on to one of them, like it is now, it’s full-on mode.
We all know what a good company is. We just get distracted by the shiny objects.
But when reality returns, the companies that actually make money – real money from products people need – that’s where patient money gets rewarded.
If you want to follow what Bryan and I are trading, check us out in Catalyst Cashouts Live.