Get your investing lessons from Sun-Tzu, George Soros, Jim Cramer, James Altucher and others

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle. — Sun Tzu (from The Art of War)

Greece? You mean you want me to freak out about Greece, yet again? Would you believe that, yes, the mainstream media and the markets are once again on Greek/EU-crisis red alert.

S&P Hits 2-Month Low

Global worries about political turmoil in Greece sent the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index to a two-month low despite a rise in U.S. small-business confidence.

Incredibly, that is a headline from today, not from last month, last summer, three years ago, or thirty years ago. So many traders and investors spend their lives selling the lows when headlines like today’s dominate the news and buying when the headlines are celebrating economic boom time and the markets are at new highs. I talked last week a lot about the concept of “Reflexivity” and I was disappointed that many of those who commented about Reflexivity wrote it off because of its creator’s politics (George Soros, of so-called “Global Liberal Causes” fame is credited with the introducing the concept of Reflexivity).

You guys know by now that one of the biggest differentiators of my newsletter and investing style is my out-and-out rejection of all mainstream politics– except when it comes to analyzing their impact on the various sectors of the economy and our portfolios. It is clear that the policies of both parties and all of the global ruling parties are very pro-corporate and increasingly so. That is part of why our unique approach to Revolution Investing has worked so well — we have been able to see past some of the false partisan dichotomies and propaganda from both “conservatives” and from “liberals” and to approach the markets with more objective analysis than analysts who embrace either concept.

And, see, that’s the same thing I do when I quote either Soros or my old mentor James J Cramer or James Altucher or Thomas Jefferson or Yoda or anybody else. I don’t care about their political leanings per se because I’m trying to embrace the insights and lessons that we all can learn from each and all of them.

And the reason I brought up Reflexivity last week was exactly because it’s such an incredibly important insight into how the markets, the economy, the headlines and the psychology that ties them all together. Last week, I practically predicted what the markets and headlines would do this week:

But you’ll suddenly see the headlines start to focus on Europe if and when stocks pull back another 5%-10%. And at some point, the markets will indeed have another 5%-10% pullback, no matter the latest banking crises from Europe and the U.S. are at the time.

And sure enough (though I didn’t necessarily expect that it would have played out over the next five trading days since we published that), the markets have pulled back another 5% and the headlines are what I cited up above from the WSJ today.

So much of investing and trading is being driving by political forces with the government policies of targeted tax tricks and welfare programs for giant corporations and banks, not prosecuting corporate and banking fraud, not clawing back billions of ill-gotten bonuses from the glory days before the endless financial crisis phase we’re now entered — these are the policies from both parties in this country and from any “liberal” or “conservative” in power anywhere in the world today.

It’s important to recognize these realities, no matter how you affilate yourself politically. The key to continued outperformance is to maintain our objectivity as we learn everything we can from anybody we can. Including George Soros or Sun-Tzu.

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.

Be independent in your analysis, even if you’re not independent in your politics.