Monday Morning Vibes and the Case of the Twitching Eyelid
Written by: George from The Smartin Team
I woke up this morning and my left eyelid wasn’t twitching. Do you have any idea how terrifying that is? Usually, by 7:30 AM, my face is doing a Morse code SOS to the neighbors, but today—nothing. Silence. And look at the “Global Overnight” data: Australia is quiet, Europe is quiet, Israel is quiet. It’s like a horror movie where the teenagers decide to go into the basement to see why the music stopped.
The VIX is up 4.77% to 14.93. That’s the market’s way of saying, “I’m not screaming yet, but I’ve got my hand on the doorknob.” People are acting like last week was a victory lap because the SPY gained 0.43% and the QQQ climbed 1.41%. A one-percent gain? That’s not a rally; that’s a rounding error. That’s the amount of cream I accidentally pour into my coffee when I’m distracted by a pigeon.
And can we talk about Nokia (NOK) being up 17.9% last week? What is this, 2004? Are we all going back to phones you can drop off a bridge and still use to text “u up?” to a girl who will never reply? When a legacy dinosaur jumps nearly 18% in five days, my every instinct tells me to short it into the center of the earth. But because I am currently practicing “The Opposite,” I’m forced to assume Nokia is the future of human civilization and we’ll all be communicating via T9 predictive text by Christmas.
The “Know What You Own” Crisis
Then you’ve got Reddit (RDDT) up 12.2% last week. We are literally putting our retirement funds into a platform where the most popular discussion yesterday was likely whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich. Peter Lynch said to “know what you own,” but if you actually knew what was happening on some of those subreddits, you’d sell your brokerage account and move into a yurt.
The problem is everyone is chasing the “vibe” instead of the math. They see MU up 12.8% and think, “I need in!” without checking if the debt pile is bigger than the company’s actual headquarters. If a company has more debt than a grad student with a degree in 14th-century flute music, it doesn’t matter how fast the stock price is moving—eventually, the bill comes due.
My Gut is a Liar
The Dow (DIA) was down 0.41% last week, which is the only honest thing I’ve seen in days. It’s grumpy. It’s tired. It’s me after a long weekend of regretting my life choices.
My current strategy is simple: I feel a deep, soul-crushing urge to sell everything because the quietness of the overnight markets feels like a trap. Therefore, I am going to sit here, stare at the wall, and do absolutely nothing. I’m going to ignore my gut. My gut is a pathological liar that told me in 1998 that “internet cat pictures” were a passing fad.
If you’re looking for a fun stock market app that actually tells you if a company is a house of cards before you put your shirt on it, you need to stop listening to your instincts and start looking at the ratios. I’m doing the opposite of my instincts, and for once, I might actually keep my shirt.
Stop guessing and see the actual ratings on the stocks you’re “vibing” with right now.