This market both pleases and frustrates me, its weird.

It’s the only abusive relationship worth sticking around for

Largest pleasure is obvious, returns are slick.

Frustrations are growing though.

Selection process goes like:

Finds stock

Great management, great service/product, solid business model, etc etc

*Trades at ridiculous multiples

*sighs

There are many companies on my watchlist i’d like to nibble at, but struggle to justify this ridonculous valuations

Sure, it’ll probably still climb X% given the hysteria in the market right now

But that is not a justification betting on the greater fool theory with a long

Just thankful I went ham in March/April

I truly do prefer buying when blood is on the street, or at least something that is fairly valued

Only thing I hold that I like the price of right now is $FB

Being drunk from the punchbowl is superb whilst its still 1am in the morning and the night is young

But I prefer buying when its 8:30am and everyone has left to nurse their hangover

Central bank activity/intent is pretty clear, so I think we are fine for a while

But I struggle to buy something for the sake of it

Would I buy anything like $SQ $CRWD $SE $AAPL $ROKU right now? No chance in hell.

Time is the narrator of the stock market, and the omniscient storyteller for all participants small and large.

Whilst I might feel silly for not buying X right now, it means little. The decision won’t be validated in 6 months time.

More so, in X years when I look back

It feels like nobody cares about valuation. Valuation often does not matter, until it does.

I am not blessed enough to have the hindsight of previous bubble-y activity to look back on.

I bet it felt amazing to be in the market in the late 90s.

But then I bet it felt pretty lousy during the decade that followed if you were ignorant to valuations in the melt up and held those high cost basis positions as the market tanked.

A great business, with a long runway, and all the other important traits

Is not an invitation to buy at any multiple imo

I am inclined not to sell, so I would probably hold during a severe market downturn if the company is still fairly liquid

I’d rather not hold from the peak

Its an inviting invitation, yes.

As prices climb and confirmation bias swirls, inhibitions are swaying and the dopamine floods your system.

So much so, that you become ignorant to all else.

I just fear being trapped in that mindset.

This is why investing, imo, is as much a phycological battle, as it is a game of skill and chance.

You are your own worst enemy. The devil and angel on your own shoulders so to speak.

Nobody is proven to be correct without the final cards being played with chips in the pot.

Either way, i’ll just continue to observe and learn and be aware of what I do not know, which is a tonne.

One last point.

The value of an asset is ‘linked’ to intrinsic value of course.

In reality, the value of anything is what someone else is willing to pay for it.

A Picasso might sell for $10 million.

The item itself is worth the canvas it is painted on.

But someone has decided it is worth $10 million, this the buyer pays that price, and the seller receives that price.

That is how I tend to view stock markets in the short term.

The voting machine that we are all providing the lubricant for.

Fin