Why Squirrels Will Never Get Rich in the Stock Market

Let's just say it's not a good idea to come down with a raging fever when the stock market is taking your pitiful little portfolio for a very bumpy ride and you're just a few short days away from a deadline for your next rodent column. If you did, you might just end up, like me, having a nightmarish vision of squirrels taking over the stock exchange floor and wrecking havoc on the world economy.

In a slightly more lucid state of mind, I couldn't help but wonder if the bushy-tailed beasts could make a go of it in today's volatile market. I suspect they'd be dismal failures, not for lack of intelligence but because their investment instincts are almost always dead wrong.

First, their investment motto: buy high, then drop it on someone's head when they walk under your tree. This may work well with acorns and small twigs, and there's no denying the entertainment value. But as an investment philosophy it's not at all practical.

Squirrels scoff at the tried and true "buy and hold" strategy that's built a tidy retirement fund for many investors. They prefer to "steal and bury" - preferably in the middle of someone's garden. And long-term investment for the typical squirrel means stockpiling supplies in the fall to devour during the winter.

Would squirrel investors carefully research companies and base their decisions on solid fundamentals? Certainly not! Does it look tasty? Grab it! Is somebody else going after it? Grab it! Is it within your reach? Grab it! What more information do you need?

Would they invest conservatively or leap into those high-risk, high-flying startups with no earnings? What a question! Say high risk to the eager squirrelly investor and he'll just ask "how high?" The higher, the better! "No earnings, you say? We don't need no stinking earnings!"

And what about staying calm when the market takes a nose dive? Forget it! Squirrels don't believe in staying calm, not even when things are going their way. Chaos and panic are just their cup of tea. What could be more fun than scurrying around the trading floor, dumping good stocks and grabbing up bad ones just for the sheer perverse fun of it?

There's no denying squirrels have the perfect temperament for day trading - maybe too perfect. Waiting for those tedious stocks to rise or fall is such a bore! Trading stocks at the speed of light, occasionally raiding their fellow investors' nest eggs for extra cash, the little varmints would soon be madly competing with each other to see who could burn up all their funds first. Then, at the end of the day, in debt up to their eyeballs, they'd race each other back home to burn off a little more excess energy.

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