Thursday, October 15, 2009

Buy Doom Sell Boom



Now that the DJIA just hit 10,000 (again) I thought it would be interesting to listen to what the wanabe market gurus and high paid experts were saying in the first half of this year. Here are just two examples of the many classic doom perdictions.

I'll be the first to admit the most advance I was looking for was DJIA 9,500. But it has become clear to me I need to be looking to buy stocks on break-outs and pull-backs. And one can always find lower risk stock laggers to hold into year-end (as discussed in prior articles). Each day as I scan the market details I continue to find strenght in many stocks. Many stocks are above their 2007 levels. A few with excellent earnings outlooks like Apple and IBM are near their 2008 all-time highs!

But even in July, I was reading non-stop articles on SeekingAlpha.com from their mega posters preaching how, at DJIA 8,200, the market was due for a correction back to 6,500. When it didn't happen they wrote articles telling you why the market was wrong and they were right. The real problem was just to many kids with great educations but like knowledge of market history.

The lesson to learn? One must establish a long-term savings and investment plan. And one must understand that the market is a leading economic indicator not a lagging indicator. If you wait to invest only when the economy is ideal...you are too late! If you only invest when the economy is horrible and the market has declined by 40% you certainly stand a better chance at higher long-run returns.

What now? You, need to understand this market momentum can continue to push the market up, back to last summer's pre-Lehman Brothers collapse levels ( around DJIA 10,500 or S&P 1200 ), by year's end. Yes, at this point forget thinking you will see a 10% correction, about the most we'll get is 5% because traders and investors see benefits in buying the dips again. Now this momentum can turn negative in 2010 just as it did in 2002. But as professional traders say, "You need to trade the market you see not the one you think it should be" and "The trend is your friend" the two best money making ideas they never taught me in BBA or MBA investment classes.



The young man above was just one example of how individuals will extrapolate out the current trend (when making market predictions). Listen to one of the many high paid experts who was perdicting the DJIA would fall to 5,500 and the S&P 500 would fall to 400! Folks the S&P 500 is now at 1,100 ---- 275% above this guys perdiction.

In September I gave readers just one more example of how Blogger Youthful Investment inexperience (in understanding stock markets and the data behind charts) cost his followers thousands
Eleven Reasons These Charts Are Worthless

1 comment:

  1. A really nice article...For sure there were many bears who always kept saying that the markets will fall the next day...I must admit that I also personally didnt expect markets to go this high in one go...I did expect markets to be much higher in nominal terms in the long run...

    So the learning is not to be having a one sided opinion...Its better to be realistic...

    But the most crucial point that you have put is that we generally wait for the best time to invest...when everything is great around the world...But the best time to invest is when things are as bad as could get...

    Unfortunately retail investors have got into the habit of buying high and selling at low levels...

    Also predicting market tops is much more difficult (or very close to impossible) then predicting market bottoms...So we can't say how much higher the S&P will go...But the news flow remains positive and there is ample liquidity in the system to take markets even higher...

    ReplyDelete