The past several days have seen an onslaught of commentary urging cautious optimism over full-blow rose-colored glasses. Bernanke was live yesterday tempering expectations of growth associated with unemployment numbers. Josh Brown did a really nice job of compiling the just-dismal-enough-to-raise-eyebrows numbers we’ve seen coming out. Call it PTSD or prudence- people seem to be bracing themselves for what we know is an eventual downturn.

But talking about preparing for a storm is not quite the same as exercising your ability to do so, and portfolio diversification is, after all, much like exercise… we know it’s good for us, but we often wait until a problem has developed before we commit to it. Unfortunately, this often means that much of the damage is done before we’ve started taking corrective measures.

As we’ve pointed out in the past, the best time to diversify is when everything looks great. Since the S&P 500 fell through the floor in 2008/2009, there have been several good opportunities to diversify. If you haven’t diversified yet, our question is simple: why not?