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The Fixties
Let the buggy whip makers have the last laugh. It won't last all that long. We all deserve second chances anyway. To buy into the market as everyone is cashing out after the crash of 1929 -- and again in 1987. To take the long odds on the 1969 Mets. To buy into Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) in 1986. To be a Fool in 1994.
Unfortunately, tomorrow won't lead to yesterday. Fortunately, tomorrow will lead to tomorrow's tomorrow. That's pretty exciting stuff. I know, I know, you might be holding back on giddy until you get used to scribbling the double zero on your dated checks. The future will wait for you. It always does.
In the past I've proposed that the new decade be dubbed The Fixties. My attempt at coining a phrase has delivered nothing more than Fribble fodder in the past. That's right, The Fixties are coming and I am the only one who cares.
What? The Fixties? Well, I guess I better explain. A few years back it was my vision of the next decade as a cross between the desire for social change that characterized the 1960s with the optimistic sobriety that is so often associated with the 1950s. Merge The Fifties with The Sixties and you get, that's right, The Fixties.
The Fixties have arrived in many ways already. Thanks to the Internet we are seeing communication barriers pulverized. We are becoming a global community, and it's happening on reasonable terms. Everything is suddenly attainable. Information. Solutions. One another. There is still some legroom for abuse, no doubt about it. For that, well, for that we look forward to The Fixties.
We're almost there really. Today, we mark the last full trading day of the 1900s. In retrospect, it won't matter much. The S&P 500 inched up 0.1% while the Nasdaq lost that amount the other way. Our collection of Rule Breakers had a rougher outing. With Internet stocks and even our newest addition, Celera (NYSE: CRA), giving up a bit of recent heady gains, we shed about 3% on the day.
But enough about today. We're an abridged day away from the year-end tallies that many will cite, much to our dismay. I mean, the numbers should be outstanding. But it's not what we're about. These days -- these years even -- they are the building blocks to our long-term investing mantra but clearly not the foundation itself. We are about more than today. We are about more than tomorrow. We are about tomorrow's tomorrow. That's when The Fixties start. That's where Fooldom continues.
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