“Be your own indicator” is a motto I like to live by. By that, I mean whenever I feel emotionally that the market has nowhere to go but up, I take that as a sign it’s likely heading for a fall. Conversely, when prices have been plunging and my enthusiasm for stocks is at its lowest, I think about buying more heavily – because that’s when the market generally rebounds.

In fact, knowing that my gut can so easily lead me astray has taught me to rely more on numbers. Whenever I feel unusually optimistic or pessimistic, I double-check the figures and follow what they say – even if (or especially if) it goes against my gut.

Right now, if I wanted to heed my stomach, I would probably get out of stocks altogether. But the numbers advise me otherwise. They tell me that most people are feeling as queasy and uncertain about this market as I am. And that is usually a positive sign.

Although the S&P 500 eked out a 0.33% gain last week, it was not worthy getting excited about. Most likely it was a positive reaction to Bernanke’s dovish statements to the effect that the Fed is just about done its campaign of interest rate hikes.

Despite this, however, there was a lot of fear and trembling on Wall Street as most companies leveraged to economic growth were hit hard. Those that stood their ground the best were the defensive stocks -- the ones least leveraged to the economy.

Indeed, this has been the pattern since the market made its high in May. Defensive stocks have held up while stocks leveraged to growth have not. Clearly, investors are fearful about the economy, not to mention the Middle East. And who can blame them?