And I'm not going to buy a new car until it's at a new all-time high...which is approximately 543.334455 days from now by my always-precise calculations. I think I'll change my screen name to riskfreeshopping while I"m at it..."Never buy until something is at an all-time high!" What a concept!
I think it makes no sense to buy (for the long term) until the market sets higher lows and/or higher highs. The behavior of SPX right now looks very similar to October-December of 2000. Slope of the 50-week SMA has turned negative, weekly RSI and MACD are very bearish. Trying to pick a bottom or catch bear rallies is a very dangerous game IMO, especially as we have yet to see a run of positive economic news to support the "bottom is forming" theory. I personally expect a retest of the lows by the end of Feb. That's not to say that particular stocks and sectors won't outperform, but if there is indeed a recession (Intrade puts the odds of a recession in '08 at about 2/3rds), most stocks will head lower. If I get back in the market with by 401(k) funds, it'll be in bonds, short ETFs, relatively safe dividend stocks and the like. Too ominous an environment for anything else at this point, imo. Good environment for shorts, day or swing trading though.
look at debt to gdp ratios. look at the blow up in the financial sector. you can be ignorant to the similarities, guess you'll be the one holding the bag when this ship actually sinks
We will bottom out in late February and will take off again in March after the next expected rate cut. My finger will be on the Buy trigger in March.
I'm sorry, but are you "new" to this game? Technically speaking, the 200 day MA is practically meaningless.
Let me make a wild guess here: You got your head handed in the 2001/2002 bear market, swore to yourself that you will never ever invest in stocks again and now come to the board once a week and make your doomsday predictions.
As I have mentioend elsewhere on ET I have been trading positions off the Sox chart the last few months. It signaled when to get short and gave me a good target to cover some of my position. I think its worth a look.