Making the right choices

I left off stating that I expected a pull back/consolidation phase. Well, that lasted all but a few days and it was the shallowest of pullbacks before the SPX surged even higher touching 7500. This move has probably surprised even the most bullish of bulls but this latest surge has been almost exclusively driven by tech mega caps and it's causing plenty of hoopla on fintwit. Not a day goes by where I don't see folks making mention of the extreme divergence of the equal weighted SPX vs cap weighted SPX and how this spells trouble. The funny thing is prior to the Iran war we saw the opposite situation whereby equal weighted was trouncing cap weighted SPX and the message was the same...this spells trouble. Well, ultimately trouble did arrive  but it was the result of an exogenous shock, not something internal. There's 2 ways this divergence can resolve itself....either the mega caps "catch down" which would be bear case or we get the bull case whereby we see a significant rotation trade out of mega caps into the equal weighted names. 

I'm not sure how this is going to resolve but I do know this...there are still plenty of folks who are still out of the market because of the Iran war and Trump's unhinged behavior. It's similar to the dynamic that played out out last year after Liberation day. Folks were on edge for several months until they finally got comfortable around October when by then they finally acknowledged that things didn't get as bad as was initially feared. All those folks who bailed in March are now like dears caught in the headlights as the market is probably  10-15%  higher from where they likely sold out. This suggests to  me the market ultimately is going to reach higher highs whether this pullback these past couple of days deepens or not. Don't get me wrong....I'm far from feeling cocky or complacent when stating this. I feel anxious. I can't help but feeling like a lot of people are feeling which is that this middle East conflict is a cluster fuck that may result in a some sort of financial rupture if it carries on much further. 

I can't help but feeling more anxious than usual about things in general lately. I'm trying to figure out why that's the case. I think part of it could be because my screen time has been higher recently. I find myself looking at the markets too often during the day which I have vowed not to do. No intraday market watching is something I told myself and yet I can't help it. I tell my clients not to look at their portfolio every day and yet I have been doing the opposite, not only that, but worse by looking at the market several times in one day or sometimes just scrolling random crap in Instagram. I'm a pretty disciplined guy. I generally eat clean and make sure I get my workouts in every week, but sometimes I slip when it comes to screen time and if I, a person who is generally well adjusted and disciplined,  struggle with that sometimes then I know it MUST be a bigger problem for lots of people. It must be the main reason for increased anxiety in general and probably other health problems because the longer you are on the screen the less time you are doing things you should be doing to keep you healthy, both physically and mentally. 

I think most of us have an internal voice of reason/logic they can listen to, to make the right choices and help themselves. We KNOW what the right choices and decisions are but we often don't make them. The reasons for that is either because a) doing the right thing is difficult or unpleasant b) we have  reflexive impulses that makes us opt for instant gratification or comfort despite knowing it's ultimately harmful or c) we let our emotions or biases override reason/logic.  Imagine if we made the right choice for every single decision we had to make each day no matter how minor. We can choose either to make the bed right away or leave it when we wake up. We can chose to have a muffin or eggs for breakfast. We can chose to schedule a time to workout today. We can chose to run those errands or put them off. We can chose to call that person or email them.  We can chose to read 1 hour day instead of TV/screen time. We can chose to get 7-8 hours of sleep or 5-6 hours. The compounding effects of making the correct decisions for every single small choice we are faced with would be enormous. Don't be smart ass and argue that we can't always know for sure what the right decision is....I'm not talking about those...I'm talking about the decisions WE KNOW are the correct ones. This leads me to choice we all have when it comes to negativity. Choosing negativity over optimism as a general disposition when the latter is an option is the wrong choice.  Certain situations may not have the option for optimism like for example someone who is terminally ill, but for the vast majority of situations,  choosing negatively over optimism is illogical as doing so decreases your chances of success and quite frankly just makes you a miserable SOB which must be such a pitiful existence.