Last week everyone expected North Korea to launch a missile. This news would have been a concern for military, political and business types all around the world. Since the market is at an interim high and everyone is looking for a reason for it to pull back, the launch would have been the perfect signal for all who are looking for an excuse to sell. So everyone who looks at this short term trading time frame was ready to pull the trigger and sell. Problem. North Korea didn’t launch the missile. Actually that is not a problem. That is a good thing.

This week experts are predicting the same thing. Missile launch, market drop. Again, we can’t predict the future. Why? Because we can’t read the mind of the military leader with the launch codes.

As always we have to watch the news and the commentators to be good investors, but we have to keep in mind that no matter how confident the commentator, he can’t read the mind of the North Korean military leaders and he can’t predict if and when they will launch…

Even if you could predict the launch time with 100% accuracy, you can’t predict what comes next…

Launches go bad under the best circumstances and in North Korea they aren’t working under the best circumstances. Maybe the thing will blow up on the pad. Maybe it will blow up in mid air. Maybe someone will shoot it down. Maybe they won’t. We just don’t know. No one does. No one can predict the future or how the market will react to the unknowns as they come to be known.

So we have to be ready for anything. We have to invest based on what we think might happen and we have to be ready to be wrong. Remember trading success is as much about protecting yourself from loss when you are wrong as it is about taking profits when you get it right.

So we need to understand the geopolitical risks of the North Korean missile launch and how it plays into the market these days.

This news cycle people are looking at commodity prices. Gold and oil prices are falling. So while they look at “the new new thing” in the news. Be sure to watch what they are watching, but keep an eye on the other news too and don’t forget North Korea. You must be ready for anything at any time. That is how you have to trade. Be ready for the next news cycle but don’t forget the past. It all matters. It all adds up to set the price at any given time.