Pricing increased as of the US close yesterday. If demand continues at this pace, it might happen again sooner than expected.
Yesterday's note clearly resonated with a lot of you. The responses I've been getting tell me this market has a lot of people tied up in knots, which frankly, makes perfect sense. This environment isn't straightforward to navigate, and if you've found yourself on the wrong side or paralysed by what you're seeing, you're in good company.
But here we are on July 23rd, and I need to be direct with you: there's still runway to salvage this year. Real runway. And the opportunity set ahead of us remains substantial, but it requires a fundamental shift in how you're approaching this market. You have to stop litigating what should have happened and start positioning for what is happening.
The distinction between being wrong and staying wrong is everything in this business. Being wrong costs you money. Staying wrong costs you years.
What kills P&L isn't bad calls, it's the time you spend defending them. I've watched talented guys burn entire quarters trying to vindicate a thesis that the market discarded months ago. The market doesn't care about your April framework or that you nailed one CPI print. It rewards adaptation, period. And adaptation means acknowledging when you're fighting the tape and repositioning accordingly.
As I said in yesterday’s post, we are deep in the grudging acceptance phase of this cycle. Yesterday I wrote about denial. Today is about making a decision. The window for getting back in the game is still open, but it contracts with every session you spend trying to fade this move or waiting for validation that isn't coming.
If you've been chopped up, if you've been sitting in cash, if you're still clinging to the idea that "this can't sustain", take a step back, clear your head, and reassess how you want to position for what comes next. There's nothing unprofessional about changing your view when something changes. What's unprofessional is pretending that something hasn't changed when it clearly has.
I'll tell you what I'm seeing that worries me: a lot of smart people are going to close this year frustrated, not because their analysis was flawed, but because their pride kept them from re-engaging when they had the chance. Don't let that be your story.
I'm not here to give you a pep talk. My job is to read this market and share that perspective with you as clearly as I can, and outside of a brief stumble earlier this year, I've called this bull market damn near perfectly. What I'm telling you is there's still time to get positioned for what's unfolding, but hesitation has a shelf life.