There’s an old saying on Wall Street that you may have heard before: “The trend is your friend.” While some people like to add “until it ends,” there’s actually a lot of wisdom in that cliché when it comes to trading. It’s also an accurate description of our strategy in the current environment.

While the biggest multi–month moves might seem obvious in retrospect, on a day–to–day basis, sentiment has been a lot more hesitant and prone to reverse on the slightest shift in the market wind.

One morning, stocks open down and traders dump all positions, blaming global events or the Fed or whatever other fear factor they’re focused on that day. It’s a “risk off” day. The next morning, the world looks a little brighter and the same traders wake up willing to take “risk on,” so they buy back into the same positions.

The trend, in other words, hasn’t been clear enough for stock or index fund traders to make a lot of friends before everything shifts into reverse again.

It’s possible to make money in this kind of market, but it’s usually either a grind or a test of long–term conviction resulting in a few percentage points a week at best. That’s just not fast enough to keep me interested.