Indeed! And to the others i would say imagine that you have started to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and suddenly changed you mind and wanted to go back. How difficult would it be? We have that situation going on here. We have an economy in serious trouble. It will be extremely difficult for it to swim upstream for long without tiring and eventually giving up. And thank you LT for initiating a thread that has contributed much to our understanding of the present market. There are many intelligent contributions to this thread.
Oh, so wrong. Buy homebuilders, REITs, anything related to residential real estate. In 3 years you'll thank yourself. And you'll thank me, too.
The original question was whether we have a bear market or not? At the risk of stating the obvious, whether to buy or sell right now depends on your time horizon. Folks with a very long time horizon (10 years or more) might well be buying now, and as the market goes lower, ala' Buffett. I would think it would be wiser to wait until technicals tell you we have made a bottom. Short term traders will be selling the rallies. Your 3 year time is obviously just a guess, and you could be way off on that.
I still have yet to see anyone in this thread attempt to DEFINE the current market ( with respect to the indexes ) using technical analysis, aside from the above poster simply stating that the S&P is in a BEAR market due to it trading below it's 200 day MA. Tell me something, how does this help you to TRADE the indexes? Furthermore, I also have yet to see anyone address why such a "definition" even matters and is significant when there are TRADING MOVES in the INDEXES of 150 points in either direction. Why not simply treat the indexes on the assumption that they are in one great big TRADING RANGE and TRADE accordingly??? Does anyone at ET actually have a solid understanding of technical analysis with realistic application? Or do people simply take comfort in fundamental "news" that has largely been discounted by the market? My guess, is quite naively the latter.
Landis82!! you don't think it's (the original question) important - WE GET IT! many people, when they think a topic isnt important, simply IGNORE it, rather than monopolizing the thread repeating their opinion that it's unimportant, over and over
Monopolizing the thread? That's funny! Here's a chart go take a look at from my dear friend "Mup" that eludes to the technical analysis that I provided earlier in the thread. Perhaps instead of repeating yourself OVER and OVER, you might wish to try and learn something from the projections that I have provided. Have a nice Weekend.
I will answer your question here with my opinion. But before I reply I will say never have I seen the level breakneck, senseless, overhyped news-driven hysteria about every damned occurrence as in the past year. The last two days are an example of this. I pay very, very little attention to the vast majority of these freaking economic reports that come out every hour; I believe they are instruments of manipulation and achieve their desired outcome: to cause drastic, spastic over-reactions both up and down. I use technical analysis (many forms) but subscribe to peak and trough analysis for my broad market "big picture." I use daily SPX charts for my analysis. Without getting into too much boring stuff, it is my opinion that we are in a primary bull market that will last for a couple of years. (Do not confuse this with a longer-term secular bull market that can last decades, like the one that began in 1982). This primary bull market began with the end of the bear market on 3/10/08. Today's market action *finally* completes enough of a necessary retracement to qualify as a completed bear secondary reaction (i.e. the SPX retraced 5% from the 5/19/08 peak of 1426.63 and 50% (also a fib level) from its first run up from the lows). A primary leg and its secondary reaction make up one cycle; a primary bull or bear market usually consist of 2.5 to 3.5 cycles. Again, this is the first cycle. To me this means that, although it's possible for the broad market to bleed some more, this clears a path for it to move on to new highs. I actually bought some SSO today near the close expecting a trade off a bounce next week, but if today signifies some more important bottom, I'll hold as long as it will run. CNBC and the media do so much to whipsaw viewers' attitutes and behavior that, like many, I keep the irritating bitches on mute. The crisis of the day today we quickly learn was a buying opportunity only once we're up huge off these levels. It is tough to decipher a bear, bull, or rangebound market in these conditions but this is how I do it. Comments welcome.
I followed my observations, like today I shorted WM (5k share) in the opening, covered it last hour. WM is morgagate related also shorted ISPH at 7.3 (3kshare, pre-market), 6.7(5kshare in the opening), 6.0(5kshare), and covered it in last half hour . ISPH is just pumpie/dumpie the general market follows a cycle called ligidity ball. even you understand it, you still can not make money!