There is one and only one reason that I, who entered this morning loaded with shorts, am still showing a profit this morning: fear. And that's a sad situation.
One would have thought with a new trillion-dollar boondoggle passed (think of it as another – but very large – nail being banged into the country's coffin) that the market would be falling. Well it did……..briefly……..during nighttime trading. But the moment the market opened, it's been shooting straight up. As I'm typing this, the Dow is up, the S&P is up, the NASDAQ is up, banks are up; you get the idea.
My feeling this morning was that I'd better get out of my big short positions, and thank goodness I did. But I don't like that one little bit. Why? I want to be rewarded for discipline and patience – – not fear. I want to be paid for calm reason – – not paranoia. I don't like seeing green on my screen in exchange for selling out to timidity.
To be clear, the vast, vast majority of my positions – on a quantity basis – are in place. I am much more willing to flow in and out of large ETF positions, whereas my little positions simply have their stops updated. But I don't like how the bears remaining on the planet (that would be me, and some guy in East Brunswick named Sully) are being trained to regard fear as a virtue.
