Bet Against LinkedIn at Your Peril: Opinion

Opinions swirl. Information is exchanged at a lightening pace. Money is made. Money is lost. Somebody smiles. Somebody cries. Somebody quits trading. Somebody is having his or her first profitable day.

Lessons are learned on a daily basis. If you have had enough days in the markets, those lessons should make you a better trader or investor.

Out of all the lessons I have learned in the financial markets, there has been one constant: The financial markets want you, me and anybody else who attempts to pick fruit from its bountiful tree to tumble from our ladder and break a leg, at a minimum. Death is preferable.

It's one giant psychological mousetrap. Doubt fuels rallies. Fear makes solid bottoms. Greed creates long-term tops. What do doubt, fear and greed have in common? When each is dominant, it tends to be precisely the wrong emotion to suit what's going in the market.

LinkedIn(LNKD) is the new poster boy for this psychological mousetrap in real time. It used to be that Netflix(NFLX) was my go-to stock for a lesson in how and why the markets do what they do,. But LinkedIn takes things to a new level.