Nothing feels normal at the moment.

I was chatting with a bunch of founders and VCs over the past months and there's a huge divide between the sentiment. Half of them thinks it's a great time to start building startup to see the fruition in a few years, when the market bounces back. Half, like me, are cautious on the general economy at the moment.

I also want to clarify that I view the movement of economy just like the laws of physics. The market is a field for different power to dynamically balance and reach a evanescent consensus. So it's foolish to say it will always go up, just as to say it will always go down. My pessimism on the market is not about the subjective view on the market, but the inability to take advantage of the market at the current state. How so?

It's more about being on the right side of the market, and arbitrage as the price converges toward the value. I do think a lot of the publicly traded "good" stocks are overvalued, but I don't know if it's a wise action to short them. They might decline in short term but will definitely grow in the long run, so a long-term short position will lose value and bet against history (as does all short positions). But it's also dead wrong to long now because they're overvalued. I need a way to hedge against short-term falls but bet on the right industries for the long run...

In a similar way, we're entering an impasse where the data is telling us the economy is great, while the sentiment has soured. Is the assumption behind the data wrong and we're on the brink of a recession, or people are simply bad at managing their money hence starving while being rich and productive?

To break this impasse, a dramatic event nees to happen, and show us which one is correct. And opportunities will arise amidst this volatility increase.