Market Muses, Different Views
- Jul 7
- 3 min read
Looking at financial markets and investing through a poetic lens.
LayLine Asset Management Inc
Harry J. Campbell III, CMT
7/7/26
Dog Days of Summer
Named for a star rising with the sun,
Sirius, the dog star, as it’s known.
A harbinger of hot summer weather,
Collectively, the dog days of summer.
Back to the time of Greeks and Romans,
The dog star heat forced society to retreat.
Today, trading volumes wither with the heat,
Waiting for cooler heads to return.
Fall will be upon us soon enough,
Cool weather brings market new energy.
The pace of dog days allows markets to recharge,
Ready to weather, the season ahead.
HJC
LayLine Asset Management Inc
Harry J. Campbell III, CMT
6/2/26
Wall of Worry
(Original written 7/7/15, updated for today’s wall)
The markets climb a wall of worry,
Often assembled in quite a hurry.
Built with worry bricks and a noxious slurry,
The construct of the wall is often blurry.
Middle East war adds bricks to the wall,
The oil shortage brick makes it tall.
Bricks of US debt adds to the haul,
Wondering what brick causes the wall to fall?
Perversely, the wall protects us from the storm,
A responsibility it has commonly borne.
Making us aware of risks is the walls norm,
Ignoring those bricks, one will deeply mourn.
HJC
LayLine Asset Management Inc
Harry J. Campbell III, CMT
5/5/26
Sell in May
(A Perennial May Market Muse, keeps popping up, originally published 4/21/15)
Sell in May and go away you’ve heard so many say,
The original saying is said to go this way.
“Sell in May and go away,
Stay away till St. Leger’s Day”.
The original verse relates to an old English horse race,
But in the USA, it’s more an agricultural case.
Fall harvest money is invested with haste,
Come spring, it’s sent back to put new crops in place.
IRA and 401k contributions now add to the investment lore,
Invested prior to May before taxes make us poor.
The money flow dries up waiting for Yom Kippur,
When investing commences, providing opportunities galore.
Making investments based on Wall Street one-liners,
Often turning good investors into whiners.
However, the verse “Sell in May” is like a canary for miners,
It’s an early warning sign for summer equity climbers.
HJC
(St Leger’s Day race is run in mid-September)
LayLine Asset Management Inc
Harry J. Campbell III, CMT
4/7/26
A.I. Oh My
(originally published 10/7/25)
A.I. is in the job beholders eye,
Not much reason to ask why,
Job uncertainty is quite high.
Many job categories will simply go bye-bye,
Relegated to where old jobs go to die.
Sentimentally, it does make one cry.
Finding entry level jobs are hard, no lie!
Job styles are changing, but to clarify,
Better jobs are on the way, oh my.
HJC
LayLine Asset Management Inc
Harry J. Campbell III, CMT
2/3/26
Tariffs
(Originally published 3/4/25, about one year ago when the tariffs were first announced)
So many questions on Tariffs.
Do they cause the economy to go adrift,
Will it drop off an avoidable cliff,
Or can Tariffs provide an economic lift.
Tariffs accentuate an international riff.
More than one country is quite miffed.
They tariff, we tariff, what’s the diff,
Is it really more than just a tiff.
Hard to say who truly gets stiffed,
Could be Tariffs are a total whiff.
Might require economy’s to make a shift,
Perhaps producing some economic gifts.
Prices, up or down, they’ll likely drift.
Through so many variables we need to sift,
To say one is certain would be amiss,
Have to collectively consider, what if.
HJC
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