If you were a lawyer, people you know would ask u your legal advice. If you were a doctor, people you know would ask for medical advice. But you are a trader so what do you say when asked for investment advice? In the past I've generally said: 1 Stay away from stocks - buy index ETF funds. Indexing is the only viable long term strategy. 2 Don't buy now - things will likely get a lot worse. 3 Don't panic sell now, you'll likely regret it in a few years. I got tons of questions from people whether they should buy C at $5, and GE at $18, BAC, etc. I always told people to stay away from individual stocks and I feel good about that. But I wish I had told everyone to sell everything at Dow 11k cause once it broke 10k it just crashed from there. So now here are my new talking points: 1 Don't pick individual stocks. Stick with an index ETFs. Indexing is the only viable long term strategy. 2 Move more into bonds as you get older. 3 Look at the CAPE ratio to determine whether you want to invest above or below fair value. And the market can remain above or below fair value for decades.
That's kinda rude. Again, it doesn't matter what you do people will always ask profession related questions. Division of labor and specialization make civilization possible.
I tell them I'm a trader not an investor, and if they don't know the difference I tell them to go away
I second that. I am asked a lot lately. I always say "I'm a trader, not an investor. That gives me the right to change my opinion at any given moment."
I should add: 4 If you really want to take bigger risks find a good trader or CTA to manage your money. Hopefully they don't ask me to manage money for them as a few people have but in that case I would just say I don't manage OPM at this point.
I must have told twenty friends in July 2007 that we are near the highs and to totally get out of the stock market, one person listened. Now when they ask if market will go lower, absolutely it will, will they get out, heck no and take a 40% loss? I tell them the DOW will be going down between 2000 and 1750 before it goes sideways for 2-3 years, Obama is going to save them. I just keep shorting it, cause at the end of this year to early next year, market is really going to take a dump, when unemployment bennies runs out, people will be liquidating whatever is left of retirement accounts to live on. Yep, in 2007 as stocks were making highs, I was the nut who was saying a depression was coming. People don't want advise on their money, they are searching for some miracle of a assurance that they are doing right. And the last person they want to see at Wally world is me, I'm the nut with the mile wide smile. More millionaires and billionaires comes out of a depression than good times... Ya got to think outside of the bun.