When Everyone’s on the Same Side of the Boat
How crowd behavior, FOMO, and overconfidence turn bull markets into lessons.
It’s a Bull Market, You Know.
“There is nothing new on Wall Street. There can’t be because speculation is as old as the hills.” — Jesse Livermore, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Every bull market ends the same way — not in logic, but in emotion.
It starts with disbelief, grows with participation, and ends in euphoria. And every time the tape starts to wiggle — every little pullback, every correction — the crowd panics as if something new is happening.
It isn’t.
It’s just the market being the market.
The Johnny and Timmy Problem
Johnny’s the guy who finds conviction after the move’s already happened.
He’s all in.
Fully leveraged.
Deep OTM calls.
Margin maxed.
He’s right — for a moment. The market keeps going up, and his confidence compounds faster than his capital. He’s the new genius of the bull market.
Then Timmy shows up.
Timmy sees Johnny’s results, gets FOMO, and joins the party.
“Buy anything,” Johnny says. “It always goes up.”
That’s the moment — the one Livermore warned about — when everyone’s on the same side of the boat.
That’s when volatility stops being random and starts being inevitable.
“The public always wants to be told. It can never stand being told that it cannot know.” — Livermore
Trading the Right Way in a Bull Market
I don’t care about a Trump tweet or a 3% pullback.
That’s noise.
The game isn’t about prediction — it’s about positioning.
I’m not Johnny. I’m not Timmy. I’m not trying to call the top or the bottom.
I’m just riding the trends, managing my risk, and letting compounding do its thing.
When the drawdown hits, I’ll hit my stops, lock in the bulk of the move, and move on.
Instead of a 100% return, maybe it’s 85%.
That’s fine — because I’m still in the game.
While Johnny’s chasing euphoria, I’m raising my trailing stops.
While Timmy’s betting the farm, I’m understanding the risk to my portfolio.
That’s what Livermore meant when he said:
“The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting.”
What the Market’s Telling Us Now
The data doesn’t lie — it’s still a bull market.
Look at the International Leadership Dashboard:
Saudi Arabia is leading. Vietnam is breaking out. Peru, South Africa, and Korea are strong.
When leadership rotates like this — from developed to emerging — that’s classic reflation behavior.
We are doubling down on Saudi Arabia ($KSA) this week because it’s not just leading—it’s confirming.