“Think big, think positive, never show any sign of weakness. Always go for the throat. Buy low, sell high. Fear? That’s the other guy’s problem. Nothing you have ever experienced will prepare you for the absolute carnage you are about to witness. Super Bowl, World Series – they don’t know what pressure is. In this building, it’s either kill or be killed. You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute you’re up half a million in soybeans and the next, boom, your kids don’t go to college and they’ve repossessed your Bentley. Are you with me?” – Louis Winthorp III speaking to Billy Ray Valentine in “Trading Places.”

Are you with me? Love that movie. Hopefully, I can assist you in buying your kid that G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip for Christmas by writing this weekly column. First things first. Why bears and bulls? The easy answer is that bears attack by striking their claws downward and bulls strike by tossing their horns upward. The true origin dates to the seventeenth century when middlemen in the bearskin trade would sell skins they did not own yet. They would speculate on the future price declining so that they could buy them cheaper and capture the spread. They became known as “bears”, which was short for bearskin jobbers. Let’s stick with the easy answer…

Deja vu is “the phenomenon of having the strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced, has already been experienced in the past, whether it has actually happened or not.” The Seattle Seahawks are licking their wounds from a controversy-filled Super Bowl defeat. They dispatched of the NFC with a stout defense and dominant running game. The team was led by arguably the best running back in the game. His name is… Shaun Alexander.