Instinct Takes Over in Uncharted Territory

I’m racking my brain trying to remember a market like this one…but I’m stumped.  The closest I’ve been able to come is maybe the biotech sector in the summer of 2003.  But not really.  It’s all unprecedented but the weird part is that I’m playing it pretty well.  Despite the disorientation I may have felt, I’m getting my bearings in a place that makes so little sense to so many.

Thankfully, I’ve been on the right side of things:

– In early November, on Election Day in fact, we cut a bond manager in half and added a very aggressive mid-cap growth portfolio in its stead.

– The middle chunk of this month found me with the taste of vomit rising in the back of my throat on several occasions.  The tape was riddled with failed moves, breakouts that didn’t finish breaking out.

– The resultant fast reversals turned Michelangelo-like Works of Chart into splotchy Rorschach tests – but for the most part I kept my longs.

– I didn’t have an answer as to why I had held onto some of this stuff until now… turns out I was trading on instinct.

So now I keep a close eye on my pets
Because they make most of they moves off of instinct and sense
It’s eat, sleep, f*** and self defense
So straight you can set your clocks and place bets

– from ‘Trying to Find a Balance’ by Atmosphere

Instinctual trading can be a very dangerous and squishy endeavor that is not recommended to anyone without at least a decade under their belt, and even still…

But that early-month move into higher-beta growth stocks is now looking fierce as the year-end meltup does what all good meltups do – melts up!

Am I to be thankful that I let instinct take over or fearful that I’ll be tempted to do so more often and at the wrong times?