This memo has less structure than most, just need a place to jot down some thoughts as I start to look at my 2021 portfolio and how I want to be positioned for the upcoming year. It's better suited as a journal entry than a "memo"

This market feels crazy and euphoric. Everywhere you look, there's a new sign that equity prices are out ahead of themselves. Valuations appear to be through the roof in many cases, traders and investors find themselves going down the risk line and shifting focus from large caps to small or midcaps.

Retail numbers continue to be pressured, job numbers are weakening significantly, Leverage among hedge funds is approaching all-time highs, IPOs are up exponentially compared to years past, growth fund ETFs are seeing incredible, disproportionate, flows compared to value ETFs.

Long story short: You look outside and the only line that is longer than the breadline is the "bid" line on Tesla common stock.

Jim Cramer called the top earlier this year by asking the question "Where are the sellers?" and while he found them, very quickly, that again remains true. Where are the sellers? The only ones to be found are insiders(https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-23/insiders-sell-own-stock-at-fastest-pace-since-2012-in-market-dip?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=business&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&sref=JysFigtu)

It's easy to pick stocks right now, you just look for a tech name, small-mid cap, that hasn't grown the same way its peers have and take a position. If it's adjacent to a booming industry(Looking at you $MP) even better for you. Everyone looks like a genius.

On the flip side, you could also make the case that stocks still look cheap, as Jerome Powell did yesterday. Equities are priced in dollars, and the dollar will continue to see weakness. That's bullish.

Interest rates sit at historic lows and will continue on for the foreseeable future. If you want to get a return, you simply are required to own stocks. That's by design, it's also bullish.

Economically, while the numbers are not good, publicly traded companies have largely found themselves not only insulated from the contraction the virus has caused, but actually being beneficiaries from it. Capital or access to capital has allowed large businesses to be nimble and adjust to new protocol+new ways of serving the customer that small businesses just simply has not been able to. Look at the restaurant business as a prime example of this. We all know the story here, a significant amount of restaurants have either tried curbside, take-out, delivery, and simply failed. Many shut their doors forever. Meanwhile, Chipolte had a better Q3 this year than they did in 2019..both in revenue and profits.

The business landscape has also changed. In many names, a sale is worth significantly more than it was 20, 10, even 5 years ago as the world has shifted away from transactions and to reoccurring revenue models. Many companies no longer start every month at $0. This means of course a simple metric such as price/sales is going to look rich, a sale is worth more today than it was yesterday for so much of the business world.

I still believe the bullish case outweighs the bear case. Will I be adding $ZM to my portfolio in 2021? Absolutely not. Will 2021 be the year I take my foot off the equity zealot pedal? Absolutely not.

While the nerves set in as I look around and see "everything" run-up, 20%, 30%, 40%, 60% over the last 3 months, there's still absolutely no reason to abandon tried and true strategies: Diversify across low fee ETFs at the base(my preference is 20% Large growth, 20% small growth, 20% large value, 20% small value, 10% international(5% developed, 5% emerging)), own a basket of quality companies in the middle, save a little powder on top for opportunities that arise. Rebalance, reset, and ignore the noise cause pigs might get slaughtered in the short term, but savings accounts get slaughtered in the long term.