I see no good reason to buy stocks at these levels at this time. The market rarely gives people an easy way out. What idiot would buy the market when Dow is at 12,800, S&P at 1400? Overhead resistance is immense. I don't see any let up till you test the lows and give people false hope that there was a successful retest. That false hope and rally should last maybe 2 days and then more selling. It is going to be relentless. Remember 2001, this is almost a repeat.
You have to see a washout and panic selling that lasts more than 30 minutes in RTH. Panic selling in the overnight market does nothing to scare the fund managers when the stocks recover within 1 day. You need to see panic selling where the close gets really ugly and no one wants to hold stocks anymore. That might happen when we break 1200 on the S&P. Many people are still wired for this market to trade like 2007. This is a new market. Those suckers who bought above 1500 are obliterated. They are gone. The ones who bought above 1400 and still clinging on are gonna be obliterated. The only ones left will be the shorts and those that don't have balls to buy on weakness.
I have not seen such a weak market since 2001. January was a sea change where there is no turning back. If people are not convinced that we are in a bear market after this week, they need to apply to be designated cocksuckers for Larry Kudlow.
its a traders market. I don't anything over night. If you are buying and holding, you deserved to get burned. Shorts rejoice, we are on the express elevator to hell going DOWN!!
For long term investments (say 1 or 2 years time frame) This is an excellent opportunity to buy. Altough the market may go down a bit more, it will recover.
"I see no good reason to buy stocks at these levels at this time" for an INVESTOR, it's always a good time to buy (in other words, dollar cost average on a periodic basis). i've been doing this for 15 yrs, and it was the best thing i ever did. most traders lose money. most investors do fine. and generally speaking, historically, if the market's taken a 15-25% haircut, it's a good time to buy something. as a TRADER, there have been some great selective value plays, as well as bitchen swing trades. if you are talking about buying the indexes as a TRADE, i agree with you. for that, i'll let the market on monday tip it's hand. there are always good short and longs to find. in this market (since well before christmas) shorting strength has been the way to go, on an intraday and swing basis.
There are plenty of stocks that are worth looking at. Just because you are in an overall bear market does not mean that every aspect of the market is in a bear market. A very good examploe of this would be the homebuilders, they started a remarkable bull market move around Dec of 2000, in the depths of a terrilble bear market. I think one should always be extra caustious in a bear market, my own stance right now is over 80% cash, but there are still some things out there worth looking at. Brandon