Self-Sabotage 101: Forest or the Trees?

Lately, it seems I'm on my way to earning a Masters in Self-Sabotage. Things have really gone down the drain this year. But luckily, I'm starting to get a really good feeling about C once again. It was really, really bid today - as in over 6 million shares on the table in one shot types of transactions. Based on current market prices, that's more than $24 million on the line. Someone's wearing their heart on their sleeve.

Everyone's gearing up for Bernanke's Big Moment tomorrow. Will we get a letdown or will Benny B give us the rally we've been waiting for?

S&P 500 is sooo close to the 1200 level - less than 7 points away. Closing above that would have been too obvious... but are we going to see the upswing tomorrow?

One thing's for sure... the financial sector has got momentum. ABK, for whatever reason, was up +17.72% today. BGCP, who was part of my one-night band some time back was +4.34%. Sadly, BAC doesn't seem to be entirely cooperative and my portfolio consequently lagged the market.

+0.22% on the SBA
+0.55% on the Roth IRA

This can only mean that tomorrow, whatever Bernanke says will have a major impact on my portfolio.

I've been thinking more about the forest or the trees dilemma. When it comes to trading, do we care more about the forest or the trees? If the forest is our entire portfolio and the trees are individual positions, then which do you care more about? Till now, I've been caring more about the trees. However, I deeply feel that in order to be a successful trader, we've actually got to care more about the forest.

It's led me to conjecture... should I be doing some one-touch portfolio rebalancing any time I see a very dramatic increase in my entire account? And if I did that consistently, would I be better off?

Isn't that a very deep, philosophical question indeed?