Stocks hit new all-time highs last week… but you wouldn’t know it from the mood on social media and financial TV!

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It’s truly incredible to watch… the markets have been on a historic run, with the S&P 500 rallying 1,400 points since the November 2023 lows. And yet, throughout this period, the overall mood amongst market participants seems anxious if not outright worried.

Everywhere you look, there’s talk of a potential recession… or concerns about geopolitics… or claims that Artificial Intelligence (AI) stocks are in a massive bubble that is about to burst.

And yet, the markets keeps charging higher, with every dip being bought. Those who fretted about the countless number of things that could go wrong have made nothing. Those who focused on making money and stayed invested in stocks have seen their entire portfolios increase by over 33%!

Which brings us to #2: trying to calling a top.

Please understand, I’m not trying to make fun of people who are cautious or conservative with their investments. But at some point, if you’re looking to make real money with your investing, you need to focus on what works and ignore feelings/ worries that don’t contribute anything to your net worth.

I’m talking about thoughts like…

1) This stock has gone up a lot, so it must be in a bubble.

2) This is the top!

3) The market is rigged!

NO ONE got rich from any of those three concepts. If your goal is to make money from your investments, you should remove all three of them from your investing vocabulary.

Let’s break down all three.

Regarding #1, since going public Apple (AAPL) has looked “bubbly” countless times. Heck, it was up 20,000% in 2018. And yet, if you focused on the fact AAPL had gone up so much, you missed out on the run to 200,000% gains!

Which brings us to #2: trying to calling a top.

No one… I repeat, NO ONE has ever gotten rich from calling a top. A small handful of people have gotten rich from crashes or bear markets… but most if not ALL of investors (including the legends) got rich from riding bull markets or bull moves in individual stocks.

Indeed, every bull market is nothing more than a series of “tops” which are then taken out by new highs. If you’re obsessed with calling a top and getting out of stocks, you’re guaranteeing you won’t see future gains. Put another way, your obsession is limiting your profits.

Which brings us to #3 in our list: claiming that the market is rigged.

The reason people claim this is because time and again it looks as if stocks are going to break down only to reverse and ramp higher.  But if you dig a little deeper into this way of thinking, you quickly realize that it means the person who is angry that the markets refuse to collapse secretly wants something bad to happen to the markets.

Understand, I’m not saying that the markets aren’t manipulated. Anything that involves a lot of money or power breeds corruption and manipulation. But getting angry because stocks refuse to break down badly is bad for your physical health, your mental health, and your portfolio.

As investors, our job is to make money, not look for any excuse to dump stocks and panic about something bad happening. And as I’ve outlined in recent articles, this means riding bull markets for as long as possible, and then side-stepping bear markets when they eventually hit.

In the very simplest of terms, you need to be invested in stocks, until an objective, verifiable tool (not your feelings or limiting beliefs) tells you it’s time to “get out.”

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