Doing the driving ourselves

Early going and the indices are back where we were to start the year. I could be referring to either 2011 or 2012 of course in this 1 year S&P chart:

Or I could be referring to the fact that the markets are still flat from where they were in the summer of 2010 or in the summer of 2008 in this 5 year S&P chart:

Or I could be referring to the fact that the markets are still flat with where they were back in 1998 and where they were back in 2002 in this 50 year S&P chart:

Point is, that we can’t expect the markets to drive our portfolios higher (though it’s certainly possible that we see the markets rally this year) — we’ve got to keep buying the best companies like Apple and FIO who are driving revolutions and we’ve got to keep shorting the companies like LPS and AONE that are on finding their government-mandated/sponsored businesses in trouble in the real world.

We’ve added several new shorts and new long or two in the recent weeks and I’m also going to add to my existing long-term positions on weakness, as usual.

Don’t depend on the broader markets to drive our portfolios. We’ll have to do the driving ourselves.