February is one of the worst months of the year to own stocks.
Is that why we've been seeing all this rotation into defensive sectors?
Think about it, we haven't seen any rotation at all into Consumer Staples this entire bull market.
Until now.
And if you go back and study the history of bag holders, you'll notice that they love buying stocks when Consumer Staples finally start to become leaders.
This is classic rotation you see quite often ahead of a tough time for the market:
Let me remind everyone what a bad idea it is to sell naked calls.
We don't do it.
I often want to do it.
Many times, it makes sense to do it.
But the answer is always no.
It's just not worth it.
Go ask around. The old timers will tell you.
"Don't do it kid"
But that doesn't mean that as a philosophy, we shouldn't approach the market with that sort of "naked call selling" mentality, at least for the foreseeable future.
I understand that some people are lazy and don't like to count.
I get that.
Also, journalists are NOT in the business of telling you the truth. The truth is just a commodity at this point, and that's no longer a secret. Word's gotten out. So it's either gross sensationalism or false information to get you to consume their content.
And then, of course, you have your standard charlatans who need to cherry pick data and manipulate anchor points so that they don't look as foolish for missing this entire bull market.
So what ends up happening is that if you're told something enough times, and you haven't actually done the work, you start to believe it.
"It's only Tech stocks that are driving this market"
Sound familiar?
But for those of you who actually take the time to look, you know it obviously isn't true.
You notice how the world's worst investors keep pointing to small-cap underperformance as a justification for missing this entire bull market?
Even with the S&P500, Nasdaq100 and Dow Jones Industrial Avg all hitting new all-time highs this week, they'll tell you it doesn't count because the Russell2000 can't keep up.
These groups of individuals fall into 2 camps: They are either really really bad at this counting thing. OR, and more commonly seen, is that they're just lying to you.
This note is for the latter group.
The way I see it, if you're going to be a good liar, there are some simple rules to follow.