On a day like today, I struggle a when I look at the broad averages. I try hard not to look at them, but they are unfortunately pasted just about everywhere I look. The struggle lies in exactly what I wrote about this morning; that burning desire to want to be ‘in action.’

When the Dow is notching a triple digit gain and my portfolio is marking time, the natural thoughts are: ‘What am I doing wrong? Why am I not in the stocks that are doing the heavy lifting?’ The thoughts are natural however we are not our thoughts and acting on these thoughts is where I have learned, I can easily get into trouble.

Rather than remain idle and let the action in the stocks I favor come to me, it would be very easy to force trades in stocks that are not on my radar but seem to be acting well today. Sure, they may work in the short term however more often than not, it has been my experience that this is a day where I could easily get nicked to death attempting to chase the movers.

So, rather than change what I have learned and what has worked for me for so long, I will sit idle and be patient today. I will smile when I see the averages making money as I am happy for all those indexers who are seeing gains today, and I will take refuge in the fact that while I don’t know where the market is headed, I do know what forcing trades will get me and that is a lot of red.

If you resonate with this today, hang in there and don’t fall into the trap of forcing trades. It is easy to do however hard to repair. If today’s move is more than a one day bounce, the action in the high quality earnings winning stocks will pick up and we will benefit very quickly.