Hypselotimophobia – The Fear of High Prices

Hypselotimophobia (from the Greek, is an anxiety or extreme fear or hatred of high prices)

If you are uncomfortable buying or trading stocks that are at new highs, this is not your tape.

There are only two categories of investors who are unfazed by the deluge of new 52 week highs – the nimble and the desperate.

The nimble are in a position to act quickly should things change.  With every tick, they are tossing blades of grass into the wind to gauge direction in real-time.  If you run a machine shop or have a waiting room full of patients, this is not feasible.

The desperate are most likely professional runners of money, those without the luxury of waiting for their pitch.  They must get more stocks on the books to show that they “didn’t miss it” and they must do so regardless of the top-tick risk.  An ill-timed buy today can quickly be described as an “intermediate-term” pick to the investment committee if need be, but a swollen cash position in a vortex of up stocks cannot be explained at all.

There’s a bumper crop of gaps and breakouts, hundreds of 52 week highs daily – so why isn’t everybody happy?

Most market participants are not incredibly nimble nor are they under career pressure to buy at any price.  The drumbeat of daily new highs can be more frustrating than fun for them.

Unless you’re in the habit of buying new highs, the ascent of this market has been way less enjoyable over the last 6 weeks than the headlines would lead outsiders to believe.

If you are a a hypselotimophobe, there isn’t much for you to do at this juncture, so maybe you want to just chill out.