Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Analysts seek to find the difference that makes a difference. What can be vexing is that often there is no final difference.

I believe that technical analysis and the analysis of technical systems comes to one question:

What is the difference that makes a difference?

Is it temperature that makes one system work and another fail? Is it humidity? Is it size, weight, power, color? What is it?

One of the great issues that makes analysis so difficult is that in many situations, there is no final difference. No system will move 1,000 people 1,000 miles in one hour on one gallon of gasoline. No system will move people to Mars in three hours.

Consider professional sports franchises. They draft people to be on their teams. What is the difference that makes Michael Jordon or Tom Brady the one player who will provide long-term dominance for their franchise? A major problem is that there is no one out there who will provide that. Maybe 10 or 20 years from now, some young person will be born with the ability and desire to dominate. Maybe not.

The analysts are searching for someone who doesn’t exist. They fail year after year and maybe generation after generation. The analysts and their methods are despised for their failures.

Continue to look, listen, smell, touch, and taste. Continue to observe. Continue to search for the difference that makes a difference. Understand, however, that there may be nothing to find.