hey - we're all just playing this funny game with him - it's a boring afternoon. bull or bear - i don't care ... happy trading to everybody
At least with the Mexican kids in Cancun you know exactly what kind of *hit you're buying. Not so with the market these days.... -momo
usually stocks don't go to zero, that's true. but what buy and hold traders forget is this : stocks can easily be cut in half (take many the big names, big caps, and not only in technology sector). a stock cut in half must return 100% to go back where it was. so if you don't cut your losses soon enough you are toast. moreover, why not wait for the bull market to resume instead of trying to predict when the bear is over ? smart money tried to buy after sept 11. don't be fooled in believing they start buying only last week, it's ridiculous. if you ask me, smart money is much more dumb than you think. many funds closed or were shamely absorbed in other funds, just to hide the major 'smart' losses. returns are terrible if you followed the advide to dollar average, meaning, you would need to time the market to make money.. and .. well, that's trading, not buy and hold. there is a case for buying this market soon (not now, soon). but I don't see confirmation of that yet. and your broker telling you to buy, friend or not, is pretty much a reason for me to revise my previous stand to this : NO mid term trading in 2002 (a bit late to short -already covered in that time frame, certainly to early to buy). there is plenty of action and work not trying to predict what the markets will do. and that's what traders do. I appreciate your effort and, after all, we, traders, need 'smart' money to provide volume and direction to the markets. And be sure that some know how to get your money, no problem. tntneo
If you're buying stocks right now, then I guess you don't buy the thesis of the US economy (and the markets) entering into a Japan style deflationary environment in the next few years, decade(?). Stephen Roach had an interesting piece today for Morgan Stanley about this. http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20020805-mon.html#anchor0 With the DOW near 8,000, it clearly isn't discounting this type of event yet. Stocks don't go to zero, bear markets do come to an end eventually (in 1932, in Japan you had great trading rallies), but with valuations where they are, with the evidence mounting that we're in a very different post bubble economy (19 months into a FED easing cycle and the markets are significantly lower), plus a balooning debt situation, trade deficit, shakey overseas markets, etc......I just don't see how we bounce back so quickly. We went through the biggest bubble ever. Unless, "this time is different", there is still alot more pain ahead.
my broker friend just called me up and he's ecstatic. All the clients he advised to go net long on Friday are calling him up with more money to buy, and he's telling them to load up the boat. I'm pretty happy too but I wouldn't say I'm ecstatic as we take out fridays highs. I wanna see us take out last weeks high's. That will make it 2 higher highs on the weekly chart for the Nasdaq. Then I'll have made some real good money AND it will be a real nice confirmation that the trend changed and my Broker friend got me in at the double bottom. PERFECT.
since I only ever buy into the stock market like once a year, I really try to make it count when i do. I want this baby to reach for May highs, then I'll start taking money off the table. My broker says new bull market, but I have a philosophy about buy and hold investing. It involves the third part of the equation. Buy and hold and SELL. When I have a good reward for the money that I risked, and for the the downside of my buys, I take it off the table, either slowly like an inverse pyramid, or all at once. I'm actually alot like you daytraders, I just have a real long day!