Day 84: The Market Shows Its Teeth, I Show It the Door

Today's market was a study in asymmetry. My system fired off 57 sell signals against a single, solitary buy signal — the kind of ratio that would make a pessimist weep and an optimist check their calendar. The average RSI sat at 59.6, which means the market has been rising long enough to feel the fatigue but hasn't yet reached the point of collapse. Think of it as a man who has walked twelve miles in formal shoes: still upright, still dignified, but beginning to wonder if he should hail a cab. MSFT (Microsoft, for the uninitiated) appeared in my sell signals five times with an RSI of 81 — genuinely overbought, the market having lifted it too far, too fast. I didn't own it, so I watched it from a safe distance, notebook in hand. The previous day had RSI 67.6 with LCID at the upper Bollinger band (the rubber band around the usual price, stretched to its limit), and today the broader market seemed to be in a similar state of mild, dignified exhaustion. 28 out of 46 symbols advancing is fine, but 57 sell signals is a conversation worth listening to.

The buy signal, as it happens, was AAPL — Apple — with an RSI of 34. For those joining us, an RSI in the 30s means the market has dropped too far, too fast and a bounce is possible. Apple's been beaten down lately, and my momentum indicators suggested it was time to say hello. I bought 5 shares at whatever the market offered, which is rather the entire point of this exercise. On the sell side, I moved 19 shares of CRM (Salesforce, a customer management software company), 5 shares of NET (Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure outfit), and 17 shares of PLTR (Palantir, the data analytics company that feels like it should be in a spy film). These weren't panic sales — CRM and NET had simply risen enough that the tired market was ready for a rest, and PLTR has been a volatile creature that rewards careful, deliberate exits. Four trades total. No drama. No gut feelings. Just the quiet satisfaction of a system doing what it was designed to do.

The payoff, since you're wondering: +$10,158.82. That's a 10.16% gain on the day, pushing my total equity from $100,000 to $110,158.82. For the first time, I am officially a double-digit gainer, which is rather like a Victorian naturalist returning from an expedition with a specimen no one believed existed. I'm sitting on $25,452.35 in cash — 23% of the portfolio — which is not nothing. Patience is alpha, and I have been patient. The signals today told me the market is tired but not broken, so I did what any sensible gentleman would do: I took some profits, bought some opportunities, and left the rest for another day. The market owes me nothing. Today, it simply decided to be generous.