Category Archives: Daily Top Ten

Topley’s Top 10 – January 8, 2024

Daily Top Ten No Comments

1. Healthcare and Utilities Outperform Week 1

2. Leadership 2022 vs. 2023

@Charlie Bilello The top three sectors in 2022 (Energy, Utilities, and Consumer Staples) were the bottom three in 2023 while the bottom three sectors in 2022 (Tech, Communications Services, and Consumer Discretionary) were the top three performers in 2023.

3. First Crypto ETF Could Be Approved this Week.

A dozen or so companies have applied to the SEC to offer spot Bitcoin ETFs. Competiton may be fierce.

Company Bitcon ETF ticker
Fidelity Investments FBTC
Invesco/Galaxy Digital Holdngs BTCO
Grayscale BitcoinTrust GBTC
BlackRock IBIT
WisdomTree BTCW
VanEck XBTF
Valkyrie Investments BTF
Bitwise Asset Management BITB
ARK Invest ARKB
Hashdex DEFI
21Shares TBD
Global X BITS

Source: Nasdaq
Write to Joe Light at joe.light@barrons.com

https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-runup-to-a-bitcoin-etf-fees-updates-and-predictions-22d7878b?mod=past_editions

4. VIX Volatility Index Update.

VIX spent almost all of 2022 above 200-day……..All of 2023 below 200day…

5. Amazon has Gone the Longest Among the Mag 7 Without New Highs.

Amazon has gone the longest among the so-called Magnificent Seven without posting a record, in contrast to Apple, Microsoft Corp., and Nvidia, all of which set new highs last year. The seven largest stocks in the S&P 500 Index by market value — a group that also includes Google parent Alphabet Inc., Tesla Inc. and Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc., have faltered in January, after driving the market’s strength last year. Amazon’s 4.4% drop is among the steepest of the group.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-wall-street-seeing-return-115224326.html

6. Average Hourly Earnings Above CPI…Good for Economy.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/07/the-2023-us-economy-in-charts.html

7. History of Homicide Rates in U.S.

Crime in the USAA short primer and collection of basic descriptive facts
INQUISITIVE BIRD HTTPS://INQUISITIVEBIRD.SUBSTACK.COM/P/CRIME-IN-THE-USA

8. How Couples Meet in the U.S.

https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2024/01/03/animal-spirits-2024-predictions/

9. Record one-third of Japan’s unmarried adults under 50 have never dated

The Japan Times More than one-third of unmarried adults in their 20s to 40s have never been in a relationship and one-fourth have no intention of ever getting married, a recent survey found.

At 34.1%, the ratio of single men and women who have never had a romantic relationship was at a record high since Recruit Holdings Co., a staffing service group, began conducting surveys on people’s views on marriage in 2017.

The figure of 25.6% for people not seeking marriage nearly matches the finding in last year’s gender equality survey by the Japanese government, which has been struggling to deal with the country’s low birthrate and labor shortage. But Recruit said the number was notably up from 2021 when it stood at 21.1%.

The latest survey was conducted in September and released this month. It covered 1,200 single adults who have never been married. Among the respondents in their 20s, 19.4% of women and 23.7% of men said having a romantic relationship is a waste of time and money. The percentage was lower among older male respondents, but it was notably higher among female respondents in their 30s at 23.6%, rising sharply from 14.6% in the previous survey in 2021.

Among men of all age groups who do not want to marry, the top reason, given by 42.5%, was the financial strain of married life. As for women, 40.5% said they do not want to compromise their freedom and independence.While 46.1% of all respondents said they want to marry eventually, the number has been on the downtrend, falling from 55.4% in 2017 and 52.6% in 2021.

Among the respondents in their 20s, 44.3% of females and 34.6% of males said they would only date someone for the purpose of finding a marriage partner.

Record one-third of Japan’s unmarried adults under 50 have never dated – The Japan Times

10. Simple Habits That Lead to Better Memory, According to Neuroscience

Rule No. 1: ‘If you rest, you rust.’

EXPERT OPINION BY BILL MURPHY JR., FOUNDER OF UNDERSTANDABLY AND CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, INC.@BILLMURPHYJR

Some of the biggest fears business owners confide when you get them talking include:

  • Fear that they won’t be as professionally successful as they’d like.
  • Fear that they won’t do an effective and honorable job of contributing to their families.
  • Fear that they’ll face health challenges and old age — including memory loss.

Let’s talk about that last fear. Over the past 12 months, I’ve reviewed dozens of scientific studies from researchers trying to determine how memory works, how to stave off cognitive decline, and what types of habits might help.

As we wrap up the year, it’s a good time to take a look back at what we’ve found.

  1. Stay extremely busy (especially in retirement).

    Writing in the peer-reviewed Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, researchers reviewed two big troves of data on literally millions of Chinese workers, along with data on their performance on various cognitive tests and memory assessments:

    First, they examined a group that retired early, thanks to a government pension program, and
    Second, they examined a similar group that wasn’t eligible for the program, and that therefore kept working later in life.

    The data was striking. In short, the new pension program led to “led to significant adverse effects on cognitive functioning.”

    As Plamen Nikolov of Binghamton University told me in an interview, he and his co-authors found that “if you rest, you rust … Retiring and doing nothing, not using your brain because you don’t work anymore, leads to other [unintended] consequences.”

  2. Enjoy the right kinds of games, part 1.

    Professors in the departments of psychiatry, neurology, and medicine at Columbia and Duke universities recruited 107 volunteers with an average age of 71 and asked them to do crossword puzzles, or to play computer video games over a period of many weeks.

    The results, as published in the journal NEJM Evidence, were that over a period of 78 weeks, participants in the crossword puzzle cohort did much better in terms of (lack of) memory loss than the ones in the video game cohort.

  3. Enjoy the right kinds of games, part 2.

    A group of researchers in Canada set out to determine if detail-oriented hobbies like bird-watching might have a positive association with better memory.

    Sure enough, in a test that had to do with classifying birds and then remembering them, they found the ones who were active bird watchers had better-developed memories that enabled them to recall more accurately.

  4. Read for pleasure.

    Researchers in Illinois partnered with a library to recruit two groups of adults, and divided them into two groups:

    Half were loaned iPads with a pre-selected list of books that were considered likely to suck readers in. Half were loaned iPads with games like word puzzles.

    As the study authors summarized: “The results were incontrovertible: in comparison to the puzzle group, the group that read books for eight weeks showed significant improvements to working memory and episodic memory. In other words, the study demonstrated that regular, engaged reading strengthened older adults’ memory skills.”

  5. Get enough sleep.

    You know this, so I’ll keep this one short. But, writing in the journal Trends in Neurosciences, authors from Chronobiology and Sleep Institute at the University of Pennsylvania synthesized decades of research on what happens to our brains when we accumulate a sleep debt.

    In short, three things for our purposes:

    First, when we accumulate a sleep debt, we lose some of the subjective ability to judge how that lack of sleep affects us.
    Second, even though we don’t realize it, objective tests show that we continue to have “deficits … in vigilance and episodic memory” even after “2-3 nights of recovery sleep.” Key: The deficits persist even if we feel “less tired” after recovery sleep.
    Finally, and perhaps most alarmingly, studies suggest that this persistent sleep loss — even when we try to catch up on it — can lead to “heightened susceptibility to neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease … and Parkinson’s disease (PD).”


  6. Don’t be afraid to take naps.

    Writing in the journal Sleep Health, researchers from University College, London, and Uruguay’s University of the Republic looked at data from adults aged 40 to 69, “and found a causal link between habitual napping and larger total brain volume,” according to an official statement.

    The result? After looking at data associated with 378,932 people from the study, they concluded that the habit was associated with less brain shrinkage over time — the equivalent of between 2.6 to 6.5 years of aging.

  7. Wear a sleep mask at night.

    This was a long study with a simple takeaway. Writing in the monthly peer-reviewed journal Sleep, a research team spanning universities in the U.S., the U.K., and Italy studied 122 human subjects. They determined that those who wore sleep masks at night had better episodic memory and alertness.

  8. Improve your lighting.

    This one was simple, too. Researchers at Michigan State University studied whether lab rats’ memories were affected by the quality of light around them — specifically bright lights like a sunny day, or dimmer, fluorescent lights like in a stereotypical office.

    You can probably guess the results: rats in dim lights had about 30 percent less brainpower and were more likely to “perfor[m] poorly on a spatial task they had trained on previously.”

  9. Use your phone.

    We all probably do this, but I was surprised to see that researchers were creative enough to find a way to study it. In short, study participants were asked to use an app to record 24-second videos of everyday events, and then watch them in a specific way over the next few weeks.

    Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they said they determined that those who recorded and watched the videos had a 50 percent better memory performance when asked to recall events six months earlier.

  10. Walk backward.

    I’d love to meet the scientist who came up with the theory on this one, but in short, researchers in London tested whether people could trigger memories by walking backward. Sure enough, it worked — at least often enough to be published in the journal Cognition.

    “We have named this a ‘mnemonic time-travel effect,'” said one of the lead researchers.

    There are many more, and I’ll look forward what what we’ll learn in 2024.

    As I write in my free e-book The Free Book of Neuroscience: 13 Ways to Understand and Train Your Brain for Life, nothing is more fascinating than the human brain, how it works, and how you can improve it. Memory is always at the top of the list.

10 Simple Habits That Lead to Better Memory, According to Neuroscience | Inc.com

Topley’s Top 10 – January 5, 2024

Daily Top Ten No Comments

1. Trend Following Traders at Close to Record Net Long.

At the same time, the HSBC strategists say, sentiment and positioning is now very stretched. Some examples include the strong rise in equity long positions from the trend-following CTAs, as well as close to record high net longs in U.S. equity futures of asset managers. By Steve Goldstein Marketwatch.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/reverse-goldilocks-why-this-bank-is-souring-on-stocks-for-now-a109f4ba?mod=home-page

2. Popular Energy ETF USO -18% from Highs…Laggard Sector 2023

50-day approaching 200-day to downside.

3. How Many Investors Would Get this Trivia Question Right?  USO Still Beating QQQ on 2-Year Basis by Wide Margin

4. Best Performing U.S. ETF 4th Quarter 2023 ARKK +32%

Long-Term Chart still way below highs.

5. FANG+ -5% From Highs…..Zuckenberg Sold $428m of Stock at End of 2023

6. Investor Stock Allocation.

BLACKROCK

7. S&P Pure Growth…We Showed this Chart Multiple Times Last Year.

8. Bridgewater’s Flagship Macro Fund Lost 7.6% Last Year-Bloomberg

  • The fund had been up 7.5% through October before bonds jumped
  • The firm’s long-only All Weather fund climbed 10.6% last year

By Katherine Burton Bridgewater Associates’s flagship hedge fund lost 7.6% last year, with all of the drop coming in the last two months of 2023, according to people familiar with its performance.

The losses for the world’s biggest hedge fund corresponded to the biggest two-month gain in global bonds since at least 1990 and a roughly 14% gain in US shares.

The Pure Alpha II fund was up 7.5% through October before dropping about 14% in the following two months.

The firm’s long-only All Weather fund returned 10.6% last year, one of the people said.  A Bridgewater spokesperson declined to comment.This marked the second-straight instance that Bridgewater’s flagship fund gave up gains at year-end. Pure Alpha II tumbled in October and November 2022 after having been up 22%. It ended that year up 9.4%.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-04/bridgewater-s-flagship-pure-alpha-fund-lost-7-6-last-year?srnd=premium&sref=GGda9y2L

9. Does running cause arthritis? Mounting evidence suggests the answer is no.

Harvard Health Blog By Robert H. Shmerling, MD, Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing

What is the relationship between running and arthritis?

Mounting evidence suggests that that running does not cause osteoarthritis, or any other joint disease.

These are just a few of the published medical studies on the subject. Overall, research suggests that running is an unlikely cause of arthritis — and might even be protective.

Why is it hard to study running and arthritis?

  • Osteoarthritis takes many years to develop. Convincing research would require a long time, perhaps a decade or more.
  • It’s impossible to perform an ideal study. The most powerful type of research study is a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial. Participants in these studies are assigned to a treatment group (perhaps taking a new drug) or a control group (often taking a placebo). Double-blind means neither researchers nor participants know which people are in the treatment group and which people are getting a placebo. When the treatment being studied is running, there’s no way to conduct this kind of trial.
  • Beware the confounders. A confounder is a factor or variable you can’t account for in a study. There may be important differences between people who run and those who don’t that have nothing to do with running. For example, runners may follow a healthier diet, maintain a healthier weight, or smoke less than nonrunners. They may differ with respect to how their joints are aligned, the strength of their ligaments, or genes that direct development of the musculoskeletal system. These factors could affect the risk of arthritis and make study results hard to interpret clearly. In fact, they may explain why some studies find that running is protective.
  • The effect of running may vary between people. For example, it’s possible, though not proven, that people with obesity who run regularly are at increased risk of arthritis due to the stress of excess weight on the joints.

The bottom line

Trends in recent research suggest that running does not wear out your joints. That should be reassuring for those of us who enjoy running. And if you don’t like to run, that’s fine: try to find forms of exercise that you enjoy more. Just don’t base your decision — or excuse — for not running on the idea that it will ruin your joints.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog?page=4

10. The Hormones That Boost Happiness

Psychology Today Learn more about dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. Tchiki Davis, Ph.D.

KEY POINTS

  • Even a small amount of a hormone can have profound effects on body functions.
  • The sp-called “happiness hormones”—dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins—are essential for well-being.
  • You may increase levels of these hormones with simple lifestyle changes.

Before talking about happiness hormones, it is important to understand what hormones are and how they are produced.

The endocrine system works together with the nervous system to influence many aspects of human behavior. Hormones are chemicals produced by different glands in your body. They are chemical messengers and travel through the bloodstream to tissues or organs. Hormones work slowly and over time, impacting processes including:

  • Growth and development
  • Metabolism
  • Reproduction
  • Sexual function
  • Mood

Hormones are powerful chemicals that can lead to big changes in our bodies, which means that even a small amount of a hormone can have profound effects on body functions, either in a positive or negative way.

When you do things that make you feel good, such as connecting with a friend or eating ice cream, your brain releases what scientists call “happy hormones.” These hormones got their nickname because of the positive feelings they produce.

These hormones include:

  • Dopamine, which helps us feel pleasure and is involved in the brain’s reward system.
  • Serotonin, which helps us boost our mood and regulate our sleep.
  • Oxytocin, which is produced when we bond with others and is often called “the love hormone.”
  • Endorphins, which are nicknamed the brain’s natural pain reliever.

These feel-good hormones promote happiness, pleasure, and positive emotions. The cool thing about them is that you have a say in when they are released. Whether you have a good laugh with your friend or do some exercise, your brain is releasing these feel-good hormones.

How to Boost Happiness Hormones

Dopamine

  • Eat well. Dopamine is created from tyrosine, an amino acid. Tyrosine-rich foods may boost dopamine levels in your brain and even improve memory. Some foods high in tyrosine include meat, dairy, legumes, soy, and eggs.
  • Sleep. Sleep deprivation has many serious side effects and can even impact dopamine receptors. Getting enough high-quality sleep keeps your dopamine levels balanced (Korshunov, 2017), which has the potential to increase positive feelings.
  • Meditate. Studies show that mediation has positive effects on dopamine. Specifically, in a study with meditation teachers, dopamine levels increased by 64 percent after meditating for only one hour (Kjaer et al., 2002).
  • Listen to music. Music is a great addition to alone time or social activities. Listening to music increases brain activity in areas that are rich in dopamine receptors (Koelsch, 2014). Also, the brain releases dopamine when the emotional state is at its highest level (Salimpoor et al., 2011). So go and listen to your favorite song.

Serotonin

  • Exercise. Serotonin levels significantly increase after doing any workout exercises, such as biking, dancing, or weightlifting. Research clearly shows the antidepressant and anxiolytic effects between mood and exercise (Young, 2007).
  • Get some light. When you spend at least 15 minutes outside every day, your serotonin levels significantly increase (Sansone & Sansone, 2013).
  • Eat well. Tryptophan, an amino acid, increases brain serotonin and can be an effective antidepressant for mild depression. One food containing more tryptophan than other proteins is milk, so consuming milk derivates, such as yogurt or kefir, may increase your serotonin levels (Young, 2007). ​

Oxytocin

  • Show affection. As per its reputation as “the love hormone,” physical intimacy boosts this hormone. You can hug, cuddle, kiss, or hold hands to increase oxytocin production (Uvnas et al., 2015).
  • Connect. Your oxytocin levels increase when you talk to your loved ones or even think about them. You can also give compliments to them or do small random acts of kindness, which can not only make their days better but can make yours better, too (Uvnas et al., 2015).
  • Share. In wild chimpanzees, food-sharing increases oxytocin levels regardless of whether they were close before or not (Wittig et al., 2014). So why not cook with your friend? Cooking is a great way to bond over something delicious and a fun way to potentially increase oxytocin levels.

Endorphins

  • Eat dark chocolate. If you’re a fan of dark chocolate, you should know that eating a piece can stimulate the release of endorphins (Nehlig, 2013).
  • Laugh. Who doesn’t like a good laugh? Laughing is a good way to connect with others and destress. You can watch your favorite comedy show, go to a stand-up comedy jam, or call a friend to catch up. All these activities boost the body’s endorphins and also play a role in social bonding (Dunbar et al., 2012).
  • Be active. Although moderate-intensity exercise is best for boosting endorphins, it’s not the only type of activity that has this potential. You can dance at home or go on a short hike, anything that keeps you active (Tarr et al., 2015).

The happiness hormones—dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins—are essential for your well-being. You may increase the levels of these hormones without any medication by making simple changes in your lifestyle, such as exercise, diet, and meditation. In the end, these things can make a big impact.

A version of this post also appears on The Berkeley Well-Being Institute website.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/click-here-for-happiness/202312/hormones-that-boost-happiness

Topley’s Top 10 – January 2, 2024

Daily Top Ten No Comments

1. Underperformers for 2023 Have Big Run From November to Close Out Year

IJS Small Cap +24% and RSP Equal Weight +16% vs. S&P +12%

2. VXUS Vanguard International ETF

50day thru 200day to upside.

3. Latin America ETF ILF New All-Time Highs.

4. FRDM International Less China (and others) New All-Time Highs

5. Last Week I Showed Record Buybacks Chart….PKW Buyback ETF New All-Time Highs

Commodities: Fund managers are underweight commodities.

6. VUG Popular Vanguard Growth ETF Still Below 2022 Highs

 

7. Blackrock 60/40 Portfolio Still Below 2022 Highs

8. 20 Stocks with Biggest Falls in 2023

Philip van Doorn Marketwatch

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/here-are-the-20-worst-performing-stocks-among-the-s-p-500-in-2023-f7adec10?mod=home-page

9. Retail Gas Prices Helping with Consumer Spending

WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-12-28-2023/card/gas-prices-are-expected-to-fall-further-in-2024-MFb4fVDgOK9jqTenEmyj

10. This was Sent Earlier in 2023 but Worth Reading Twice.  The Most Important Question of Your Life

WRITTEN BYMARK MANSON

Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money, and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room.

Everyone would like that—it’s easy to like that.

If I ask you, “What do you want out of life?” and you say something like, “I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like,” it’s so ubiquitous it doesn’t even mean anything.

A more interesting question—a question that perhaps you’ve never considered before—is what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.

What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?

Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence—but not everyone wants to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, and obnoxious paperwork, to navigate arbitrary corporate hierarchies and the blasé confines of an infinite cubicle hell. People want to be rich without the risk, without the sacrifice, without the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.1

Everybody wants to have great sex and an awesome relationship—but not everyone is willing to go through the tough conversations, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings, and the emotional psychodrama to get there.

They view pain as an objectively negative thing to be avoided at all costs, whereas reality is much more nuanced. As I cover extensively in my Resilience Course in the Mark Manson Premium Subscription, we are all capable of—and I’d argue responsible for—ascribing meaning to our pain, and this can actually give our life purpose.

But most people don’t realize this. And so they settle. They settle and wonder “What if?” for years and years until the question morphs from “What if?” into “Was that it?” And when the lawyers go home and the alimony check is in the mail they say, “What was that for?” If not for their lowered standards and expectations 20 years prior, then what for?

Happiness requires struggle. The positive is the side effect of handling the negative. You can only avoid negative experiences for so long before they come roaring back to life.2

At the core of all human behavior, our needs are more or less similar. Positive experience is easy to handle. It’s negative experience that we all, by definition, struggle with. Therefore, what we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire, but by what bad feelings we’re willing and able to sustain to get us to those good feelings.

What we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire, but by what bad feelings we’re willing and able to sustain to get us to those good feelings

People want an amazing physique. But you don’t end up with one unless you legitimately appreciate the pain and physical stress that comes with living inside a gym for hour upon hour,3 unless you love calculating and calibrating the food you eat, planning your life out in tiny plate-sized portions.4

People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don’t end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to appreciate the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and work insane hours on something you have no idea whether or not it will be successful.

People want a partner, a spouse. But you don’t end up attracting someone amazing without appreciating the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections, building the sexual tension that never gets released, and staring blankly at a phone that never rings. It’s part of the game of love. You can’t win if you don’t play.

What determines your success isn’t “What do you want to enjoy?” The question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?” The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences, but the quality of your negative experiences. And to get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life.

To get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life.

There’s a lot of crappy advice out there that says, “You’ve just got to want it enough!”

Everybody wants something. And everybody wants something enough. They just aren’t aware of what it is they want, or rather, what they want “enough.”

Because if you want the benefits of something in life, you have to also want the costs. If you want the beach body, you have to want the sweat, the soreness, the early mornings, and the hunger pangs. If you want the yacht, you have to also want the late nights, the risky business moves, and the possibility of pissing off one person or ten thousand.

If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come any closer to it, then maybe what you actually want is a fantasy, an idealization, an image, a false promise. Maybe what you want isn’t what you want—you just enjoy wanting. Maybe you don’t actually want it at all.

Sometimes I ask people, “How do you choose to suffer?” These people tilt their heads and look at me like I have twelve noses.5

But I ask because that tells me far more about you than your desires and fantasies. Because you have to choose something. You can’t have a pain-free life. It can’t all be roses and unicorns.

And ultimately that’s the hard question that matters. Pleasure is an easy question. And pretty much all of us have similar answers. The more interesting question is the pain.

What is the pain that you want to sustain?

That answer will actually get you somewhere. It’s the question that can change your life. It’s what makes me, me and you, you. It’s what defines and separates us, and ultimately brings us together.

For most of my adolescence and young adulthood, I fantasized about being a musician—a rock star, in particular. Any badass guitar song I heard, I would always close my eyes and envision myself up onstage playing it to the screams of the crowd, people absolutely losing their minds to my sweet finger-noodling.

This fantasy could keep me occupied for hours on end. The fantasizing continued through college, even after I dropped out of music school and stopped playing seriously.

But even then it was never a question of if I’d ever be up playing in front of screaming crowds, but when. I was biding my time before I could invest the proper amount of time and effort into getting out there and making it work. First, I needed to finish school. Then, I needed to make money. Then, I needed to find the time. Then… nothing.

Despite fantasizing about this for over half of my life, the reality never came. And it took me a long time and a lot of negative experiences to finally figure out why: I didn’t actually want it.

I was in love with the result—the image of me onstage, people cheering, me rocking out, pouring my heart into what I’m playing—but I wasn’t in love with the process. And because of that, I failed at it. Repeatedly. Hell, I didn’t even try hard enough to fail at it. I hardly tried at all.

The daily drudgery of practicing, the logistics of finding a group and rehearsing, the pain of finding gigs and actually getting people to show up and give a shit. The broken strings, the blown tube amp, hauling 40 pounds of gear to and from rehearsals with no car.

It’s a mountain of a dream and a mile-high climb to the top. And what took me a long time to discover was that I didn’t like to climb much. I just liked to imagine the top.

Our culture would tell me that I’ve somehow failed myself, that I’m a quitter or a loser. Self-help would say that I either wasn’t courageous enough, determined enough or I didn’t believe in myself enough.6 The entrepreneurial/start-up crowd would tell me that I chickened out on my dream and gave in to my conventional social conditioning.7 I’d be told to do affirmations8 or join a mastermind group or manifest, or something.

But the truth is far less interesting than that: I thought I wanted something, but it turns out I didn’t. End of story.

I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love not with the fight, but only the victory.

And life doesn’t work that way.

Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for. People who enjoy the struggles of a gym are the ones who get in good shape.9 People who enjoy long work weeks and the politics of the corporate ladder are the ones who move up it.10 People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainty of the starving artist life are ultimately the ones who live it and make it.11

This is not a call for willpower or “grit.”12 This is not another admonition of “no pain, no gain.”13

This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes. So, friend, choose your struggles wisely.

This article is an updated excerpt from my book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Guide to Living A Good Life

https://markmanson.net/question

Topley’s Top 10 – December 27, 2023

Daily Top Ten No Comments

1. Electric Vehicle Makers Market Cap -75%

https://www.barrons.com/articles/ev-tesla-b8a27106?mod=past_editions

2. American Households are Close to Record Levels of Equity Ownership

Marketwatch Barbara Kollmeyer That percentage is down from a record of 40.5% in the fourth quarter of 2021, but still well above any other period prior to the current business cycle, he says.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/american-households-are-invested-in-the-stock-market-like-never-before-that-could-mean-seven-lean-years-says-wall-street-veteran-6308ed0f?mod=home-page

3. High Yield Bond ETF at New Highs.

4. U.S. Dollar Will Be A Leading Chart to Watch in 2024

Dollar failed at previous high

Dollar trades back to 200-day moving average

5. Investors Biggest Underweight to Commodities in 5 Years

Commodities: Fund managers are underweight commodities.

Source: BofA Global Research The Daily Shot Blog https://dailyshotbrief.com/

6. Citigroup Making Some Controversial Changes.

C chart 50day thru 200day to upside.

C chart closes above 200-week moving average on long-term chart

7. $10B Out of Blackrock ESG

8. Modular Homes Making Comeback

In a tough real estate market, a century-old housing idea could make a comeback-Joe D’Allegro@JOEOFHAPPINESS

KEY POINTS

Modular construction, which has roots going back a century, could be poised to gain in popularity as new investors fund the concept.

Many modular home builders are small and regional, but Berkshire Hathaway’s Clayton Homes is among the national homebuilder companies in the market.

The concept appeals to homebuyers and startups focused on sustainable and affordable housing, but it remains very much on the margins of the real estate market in the U.S., representing less than 4% of inventory.

A century ago, a first-time homebuyer might begin their search in a catalog for a kit-built home from Sears and others. In today’s real estate market, the idea rarely registers in house hunting. But with affordability stretched to an extreme and more buyers thinking about sustainability, the modular home — the kit home’s descendent — could be poised for the spotlight.

In the least, U.S. consumers looking to build an efficient and sustainable home should consider going modular. Green construction experts generally agree that modular construction generates less waste and causes less disruption to plants and animals on building sites. And instead of thousands of pieces of lumber, nails, and roofing material that you’d have received with those century-ago kits, modular homes today come in fewer but far larger pieces — assembled in a manufacturer’s facilities, then shipped to the home site, where they’re assembled together. In fact, the modules that make up a modular home can be the size of whole rooms. Typically, it is only the home’s foundation that is actually built on-site.

Modular construction has also attracted interest from affordable housing advocates with mortgage rates, though now on the decline, having reached as high as 8% this year and home prices up in almost every major metro market. The first of up to 2,000 single-family modular homes are being assembled in Chicago’s Southside and will be available for about a $1,000 down payment thanks to a partnership between city and state governments and area non-profits. A smaller affordable modular home project is planned for the Maryland suburbs outside Washington, D.C. Modular dwellings have also been used to combat homelessness in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere. The issue was raised this week in the op-ed section of the New York Times. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/22/in-tough-real-estate-market-a-century-old-home-idea-could-come-back.html

9. How to Read an Annual Report

10. Mark Cuban shares the No. 1 jargon word he hates the most: ‘You sound stupid … trying to sound smart’

Tom Huddleston Jr. Mark Cuban is no fan of jargon — and the billionaire is far from alone.

It may be tempting to try slipping in a more complicated word when you want to impress someone, like your boss or a potential employer. But using jargon words when you could opt for something simple and clear instead, typically has the opposite effect, according to Cuban.

“Always use the simpler word,” Cuban told Wired in an October video Q&A.

When asked for the “business buzzword” that annoys him the most, Cuban immediately had one in mind.

“There’s no reason to ever use the word ‘cohort’ when you could use the word ‘group,‘” he said. “A cohort is a group of people. Say ‘group.’ You sound stupid when you use the word ‘cohort,’ because you’re trying to sound smart.”

Corporate jargon and buzzwords often wear on the nerves of those who hear them repeatedly. Terms like “new normal,” “company culture” and “circle back” topped a recent list of most annoying examples, according to a survey of more than 1,500 Americans conducted by language learning platform Preply.

Cuban is in agreement with the likes of fellow billionaire Warren Buffett, who likes to keep things as simple as possible. Buffett writes his annual shareholders letter as if he’s speaking to his two sisters — which, of course, means no jargon — he said in 2019.

Elon Musk, currently the world’s wealthiest person, also disdains jargon, especially in the workplace.

“Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication,” he wrote in a 2018 letter to Tesla employees. “We don’t want people to have to memorize a glossary just to function at Tesla.”

Using overly-complicated words in order to sound intelligent actually has the opposite effect: It makes you sound less intelligent and can also muddle your message, studies show.

“We use jargon when we’re feeling insecure, to try to help us feel like we have a higher status,” Adam Galinsky, a Columbia Business School professor of leadership and ethics, wrote in an August article for the school’s website.

That creates an effect where using overly-complicated terms, where simpler ones would easily suffice, gives off the impression that you’re insecure about your own intelligence and trying to overcompensate. Instead, you’re better off speaking plainly and concisely, according to experts.

“People who have higher status are more concerned with articulating themselves and communicating effectively,” Galinsky wrote. In other words: It’s the most effective way to get your point across, and it’s more likely to impress than overreaching with jargon.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/20/mark-cuban-using-this-jargon-word-makes-you-sound-stupid.html

Topley’s Top 10 – December 21, 2023

Daily Top Ten No Comments

1. S&P Percentage of Stocks that Outperformed Index Lowest Since Tech Bubble

RBA Advisors-Despite the economy’s unexpected health, Chart 4 shows the proportion of stocks within the S&P 500® that outperformed the index is the lowest since the Technology Bubble. A healthier-than-expected economy normally argues for broader market leadership, so the Magnificent 7’s extreme outperformance suggests their rally has been fueled more by speculation than by fundamentals. The market has broadened over the past several months, but the year-to-date data still show an extremely narrow market despite that broadening.

4 for ’24: Year Ahead Outlook (rbadvisors.com)

2. I Had to Read this 3 Times to Make Sure I Wasn’t Crazy….Tesla had more retail investors flows in 2023 than the S&P 500 ETF.

Alex Harring@ALEX_HARRING CNBC

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/20/how-tesla-rose-to-retail-investor-stardom-its-always-in-peoples-minds.html

3. S&P Rally in 99th Percentile.

4. Largest Weekly Stock Buyback Since 2009

From Dave Lutz at Jones Trading

BofA notes that Buybacks hitting record highs, as we approach Year End

5. Follow-Up on China Zero Participation in Global Late Year Rally.

FRDM international ETF screens out bad acting countries ….FRDM vs. FXI (china) chart

6. MSCI China stock index trading at -40% discount in Valuation to MSCI ACWI stock (world) index

ACWI global stock ETF vs. MSCI China

7. U.S. 10-Year Treasury Yield Closes Below 200-Day Moving Average.

Longer-term chart shows next support levels

8. UBS is a Triple Since Credit Suisse Takeover….Picked up a $1.3B Value Activist Investor

9. Another China Issue Aging Demographics

By Weilun Soon WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/world/theres-a-hot-new-market-in-china-the-elderly-dce20cf0?mod=itp_wsj

10. How Does One Sleepless Night Change How We Feel?

Psychology Today The intimate links between our sleep and our mental health.

KEY POINTS.

Eti Ben-Simon Ph.D.

  • Sleep loss has a detrimental impact on our mental health and can causally trigger anxiety and depression
  • Without sleep regions of the brain that regulate emotions become impaired unleashing emotional hyper-activity 
  • If sleep loss is prolonged people report hallucinations and delusions– gradually losing touch with reality 

When I was a graduate student, my colleagues and I studied how losing one night of sleep affects a person’s ability to manage their emotions. Once a week, typically on a Friday evening, I would stay up all night to monitor our participants and ensure they followed the protocol. At about noon the next day, we would all stumble out of the lab, exhausted and eager to get home and rest.

Two months into the experiment, I was in my car at a traffic light when a silly love song started playing on the radio. Suddenly, I was crying uncontrollably. I remember feeling surprised at my reaction. It then hit me that I was not just studying sleep deprivation—I had become part of the study. Weeks of missed sleep had taken their toll, and I was no longer in control of my emotions.

That research project, and many that have followed since, demonstrated a strong and intimate link between better sleep and emotional health. In healthy individuals, good-quality sleep is linked with a more positive mood—and it takes just one night of sleep deprivation to trigger a robust spike in anxiety and depression the following morning. Moreover, people who suffer from chronic sleep disruption tend to experience daily events as more negative, making it hard to escape a gloomy mindset. Indeed, in a national sleep survey, 85 percent of Americans reported mood disruption when they were not able to get enough sleep.

Studies from our lab and others are now beginning to illuminate just how a lack of sleep frays the inner fabric of our mind. One of its many impacts is to disrupt the brain’s circuitry for regulating emotions.

For decades, researchers and medical professionals considered sleep loss a by-product or symptom of another, more “primary” condition, such as depression or anxiety. In other words, first comes the anxiety, and then sleep loss follows. Today, we know that this order can be reversed. In fact, sleep loss and anxiety, depression, or other mental health conditions may feed into one another, creating a downward spiral that is exceedingly difficult to break.

Much evidence in this area comes from chronic sleeplessness or insomnia. People who suffer from insomnia are twice as likely to develop depression or anxiety later in life compared with individuals who sleep well. For instance, a study that followed 1,500 individuals—some with insomnia and others without—found that chronic sleeplessness was associated with a three times greater increase in the onset of depression a year later and twice the increase in the onset of anxiety. Insomnia symptoms also raise the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, track closely with suicidal behavior among at-risk individuals, and often precede a mood episode in people with bipolar disorder. Moreover, even after adequate treatment for depression or anxiety, people who continue to suffer from sleep difficulties are at greater risk of relapse relative to those whose sleep improves. Understanding sleep’s role in this pattern could unlock new insights for helping to prevent and treat many emotional and mental disorders.

Older research already revealed that sleep loss can precede serious mental health symptoms in otherwise healthy individuals. In studies conducted mostly in the 1960s, volunteers who stayed awake for more than two nights reported difficulties forming thoughts, finding words, and composing sentences. They suffered from hallucinations, such as seeing inanimate objects move or experiencing the sensation of another’s touch despite being alone. After three days without sleep, some participants became delusional and paranoid. They believed they were secret agents or that aliens were coming to get them. (If that sounds like a psychotic episode, that’s because it is.) After five days, several participants entered a state resembling a full-blown clinical psychosis and were unable to fully comprehend their circumstances.

In one study, volunteers from the U.S. military attempted to stay awake for more than four nights. A soldier described by his friends as quiet and reserved became extremely aggressive after three nights without sleep. He provoked fights and insisted he was on a secret mission for the president. Eventually, he was forcibly restrained and dismissed from the experiment. Six others exhibited outbursts of violence and persistent hallucinations. In all cases, after sleeping for an entire day, the soldiers behaved normally again and had no recollection of the earlier mayhem. Given such destructive effects, studies of prolonged sleep loss are now considered unethical, but they still offer a powerful reminder of just how sleep-dependent our minds and mental health truly are.

Even with these startling results, scientists have been skeptical about the consequences of restless nights, particularly given that (fortunately) few of us endure such extreme deprivation. That’s where the newest wave of research comes in. In recent years, a neuroscientific explanation has emerged that is beginning to illuminate what it is about sleep, or the lack of it, that seems to have a direct link to our emotions.

Whenever we face a nerve-wracking or emotionally intense challenge, a hub deep in the brain called the amygdala kicks into gear. The amygdala can trigger a comprehensive whole-body response to prepare us for the challenge or threat we face. This flight-or-fight response increases our heart rate and sends a wave of stress hormones rushing into our bloodstream. Luckily, there’s one brain region standing between us and this cascade of hyperarousal: the prefrontal cortex, an area right behind the middle of our eyebrows. Studies show that activity in this region tends to dampen, or downregulate, the amygdala, thus keeping our emotional response under control.

Source: Eti Ben Simon

In studies where my colleagues and I deprived healthy volunteers of one night of sleep, they discovered that the activity of the prefrontal cortex dropped drastically, as measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Moreover, the neuralactivity linking the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex became significantly weaker. In other words, both the region and the circuit meant to keep our emotional reactions under control are essentially out of order when sleep is disrupted. Other studies have found that this profile of neural impairment can occur after people experience just one night of sleep deprivation or routinely get less than six hours of sleep—or when participants’ sleep is restricted to only four hours a night for five nights.

This impairment can be so robust that it blurs the lines around what people consider emotional. For example, when my colleagues and I exposed participants to neutral and emotional pictures (think bland images of commuters on a train versus photographs of children crying), fMRI revealed that the amygdala responded differently to these prompts when people were well rested. But after losing a night of sleep, a person’s amygdala responded strongly to both kinds of images. In other words, the threshold for what the brain deems emotional became significantly lower when the amygdala could not act in concert with the prefrontal cortex. Such impaired emotional control makes us more vulnerable to anxiety and poor mood, so that even silly love songs can trigger sobs.

The effects on the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex and the circuitry between the two may have many other consequences as well. In January, we published findings that show that changes in this brain circuit, together with other regions involved in arousal, relate to increases in blood pressure after one night of sleep loss. The brain-level mechanisms my colleagues and I have observed may contribute to changes that negatively affect the entire body, increasing the risk for hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

Stepping back, it becomes clear that—like our physical well-being—mental and emotional health relies on a delicate balance. Myriad choices we make throughout the day and night maintain that balance. Even a single sleepless night can, therefore, do damage. We need to be mindful of this reality, both for ourselves and one another. Inevitably, we all miss out on sleep from time to time. But our societies should critically examine structures—such as work norms, school cultures, and the lack of support for parents or other caregivers—that prevent people from getting enough rest. The science of sleep and mental health suggests that failing to address those problems will leave people vulnerable to serious harm.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sleep-talking/202312/how-does-one-sleepless-night-change-how-we-feel