Meeting new people, I’m often asked whether I think the stock market is going to go up or down. At times of dramatic invasion, soaring energy prices and rising uncertainty, it’s likely the first question. The wide belief that correctly calling market direction is the key to investment success never seems to waver. Great riches are believed to lie at the end of the rainbow of successfully calling the direction of the stock market. Unfortunately, this belief is flawed for at least two separate if related reasons, and many investors suffer significant and sometimes catastrophic losses by trying to call…