We d like to think that every security jumps the moment our shares hit the tape. No investor is always that omniscient. Sometimes we re wrong, but oftentimes, we re just early.

I recently highlighted the investment prospects for livestock, namely cattle and lean hogs, as covered by the iPath Livestock ETN, an exchange-traded-note comprised of 62% live cattle and 38% lean hogs. To my disgust, prices promptly dropped about 8% thanks to a rally in the U.S. dollar.

iPath Livestock ETN (COW) -- 1 year

We always make the point that, because nobody knows the future, successful investment ultimately depends on how you trade rather than what you trade. While livestock prices dropped, not unlike Sony or Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, they didn't fall past the 10% to 12% minimum level at which I ll generally set a stop-loss order. I stuck with the trade.

Over the course of February, livestock prices climbed their way back to the level at which I originally bought in. Whereas once my position showed a loss, it now shows a small gain. What now?

It s human nature to want to dump a losing trade once you get back to even. In reality, that s exactly the ideal time to hold or even expand the risk. After all, an open, winning position is precisely what we strive for as investors, regardless if it s in cattle, corporate bonds or Canadian dollars. Despite the fact that the security is again revisiting multimonth highs, other investors who had considered buying at lower prices have now cursed themselves for missing the move. Yet we know objectivity that trends in marketplace tend to persist, meaning that those highs are precisely the time you want to accept that risk, and even more so when you ve already got the trade on your book.

Someone is going to provide that liquidity.

We too often tend to pile into losing trades in a hope to break even. It s the winners on which your ammunition should be focused. To that end, livestock again looks like a timely buy.

Where Have I Seen This Movie Before?

Two weeks ago, Joseph Stack, a 53-year-old software consultant from Austin, Texas, posted a bizarre anticapitalist and antigovernment online manifesto, set fire to his family s home and flew a single-engine plane a full throttle into an office building full of IRS employees.

"I have had all I can stand," Stack wrote in the rambling suicide note. "I choose not to keep looking over my shoulder at 'big brother' while he strips my carcass." Stack was being audited by the IRS at the time of the attack.

Falling Down movie poster (1993)

Unstable individuals are present in every society and within every economic climate. Yet February s disturbing events were eerily similar to the fictionalized rampage portrayed in Falling Down," a 1993 movie starring Michael Douglas.

In the film, set against the backdrop of the early 1990s recession, an unemployed, formally successful defense contractor beset with family and economic adversity goes on a violent rampage through Los Angeles that ultimately ends in his suicide by police officer.

EXTERNAL OBJECT PLACEHOLDER: src=http://www.youtube.com/v/PI_cTVC4qBA&hl=en_US&fs=1& height=340 width=560

There is no excuse or explanation for Stack s murderous actions. It s just a tragic case of life imitating art in the most awful of ways.