When the Yen starts to reverse course…we are likely nearing some form of a bottom IMHO Of course Yen vs Equity is the ultimate chicken and egg in the financial world…so who knows
Everytime I talk to a customer on the phone that starts mentioning things like “double bottom” and “good time to invest/bad time to invest” and my favorite “triple witching”, one word always comes to my mind…“PIKER!!!” Then I go back to the water cooler and have a good laugh about the conversation with one of my peers.
lucky i’m not your “customer” then. But I bet that water cooler is fun times, I am sure you guys giggle about how you got out of any subprime exposure a day before it started to crap, got into gold before its run, and have been short the s&p since late last year…I’m sure you are the top dawg at your ameritrade branch, congrats, but i was thinking that people were open to putting their opinions out on the forum instead of trying to act slick as you adjust your cufflinks, cheers
jg1996business Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Everytime I talk to a customer on the phone that > starts mentioning things like “double bottom” and > “good time to invest/bad time to invest” and my > favorite “triple witching”, one word always comes > to my mind…“PIKER!!!” Then I go back > to the water cooler and have a good laugh about > the conversation with one of my peers. “triple witching” is so '80’s. I’m with tvPM on this, though I probably don’t agree with his market analysis.
The market seems to always go in one direction too severely, whether up or down. I personally like to see the market go down because its always a buying opportunity for current holdings or stocks I’ve been watching for a long time. Granted stocks don’t always move in the same direction as the market but when the overall markets moves, most stocks move in tandem. Hopefully, near the end of the year things start to turn around.
jg1996business Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Everytime I talk to a customer on the phone that > starts mentioning things like “double bottom” and > “good time to invest/bad time to invest” and my > favorite “triple witching”, one word always comes > to my mind…“PIKER!!!” Then I go back > to the water cooler and have a good laugh about > the conversation with one of my peers. To add to the list “bottom fishing”, “head & shoulder” This is my favorite one “ker—pit-chu-lation—” (Damn, I can’t even spell the word)
tvPM Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- But I bet that water cooler is fun times, I am sure you guys > giggle about how you got out of any subprime > exposure a day before it started to crap, got into > gold before its run, and have been short the s&p > since late last year… Perhaps you missed the point. We don’t have any allusions that we can somehow out guess the market (I point this out because your statement above regarding getting out of subprime, getting into gold, and shorting the S&P sort of insinuates that we think that we do have this ability). What we laugh at are the people that believe that they can out guess the market and what’s worse…they throw around a bunch of buzz words that they heard the talking heads on CNBC throwing around to try to sound as if they really know what they are talking about. 2 kinds of investors The kind that doesn’t know what is going to happen tomorrow and the kind that doesn’t know that they don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. The second one is the “Piker”.
Well I guess if I was naive enough to be the second version I wouldn’t have asked the question now would I? I always thought the idea was to use the info that is out there, along with input from others in the industry, and formulate a strategy or idea of what MIGHT happen and invest accordingly. Nobody can KNOW what will happen, but are you saying there is no benefit of trying to figure out what might occur? If there is truly no means of being more informed or gaining a % chance of making a correct decision then I guess all the analysis in the world can’t give you a leg up on Joe the plumber who trades on his off time, no offense to Joe the plumber. If so I guess the thing you guys laugh at most at the water cooler is why the heck people keep looking to you for investment advice instead of asking the water cooler itself, ranting finished.
tvPM Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Well I guess if I was naive enough to be the > second version I wouldn’t have asked the question > now would I? Sorry if I offended you. I always thought the idea was to use > the info that is out there, along with input from > others in the industry, and formulate a strategy > or idea of what MIGHT happen and invest > accordingly. If the info is already out there and others in the industry already know about it, don’t you think the markets will have already priced it in? >Nobody can KNOW what will happen, but > are you saying there is no benefit of trying to > figure out what might occur? In a way…yes I am saying that. Sure there are pockets of inefficiency in the market but most research shows that those inefficiencies are going to persist for far longer than you will be willing to hold onto them. >If there is truly no > means of being more informed or gaining a % chance > of making a correct decision then I guess all the > analysis in the world can’t give you a leg up on > Joe the plumber who trades on his off time, no > offense to Joe the plumber. Analysis can get you a leg up but it is typically measured in term of basis points. The majority of the performance of a portfolio of investments is still attributed to the overall market performance. All you can do is maybe rotate some sectors around but even that is iffy. >If so I guess the > thing you guys laugh at most at the water cooler > is why the heck people keep looking to you for > investment advice instead of asking the water > cooler itself, ranting finished. Actually people come to us for investment advice because we keep them from making the mistakes that you have mentioned here. We also keep them disciplined. After all, we don’t need a personal trainer to work out, but I still pay $60 an hour to mine because he keeps me motivated and doesn’t let me quit when I get tired.
tvPM Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- I guess all the > analysis in the world can’t give you a leg up on > Joe the plumber who trades on his off time, no > offense to Joe the plumber. If so I guess the > thing you guys laugh at most at the water cooler > is why the heck people keep looking to you for > investment advice instead of asking the water > cooler itself, ranting finished. You are actually right! Open up LIII CFAI material, there is a reading titled “Ignore all analyst, forecaster”
willchan11 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The market seems to always go in one direction too > severely, whether up or down. I personally like to > see the market go down because its always a buying > opportunity for current holdings or stocks I’ve > been watching for a long time. Granted stocks > don’t always move in the same direction as the > market but when the overall markets moves, most > stocks move in tandem. Hopefully, near the end of > the year things start to turn around. That’s because you have an inspection problem. The market has always recovered in a very short time during most (all?) of your life so it would have been good to buy every down dip. It hasn’t always been so and it won’t always be so in the future. Equity markets do go to 0 (althugh it’s hard to imagine the US market at 0 anytime soon) and markets can take 20 years to recover. In my lifetime, I watched the Dow pass 1000 for the first time in 1968 and then not again for 14 years. People who bought equities - particularly blue-chip equities like Polaroid - on the 1969 dip didn’t look very smart ever.
I have been holding all cash for a 3+ months. There are too many signs of bottom. I will put 30% long term money into some mutual fund soon. Still too early to tell.
What signs do you see? I’m not sure how to recognize a bottom until an upswing has been working for a while.
Wait for the upswing is not bad strategy at all. Some psychology indicators become very extreme recently. They may be very inaccurate though. Really just move some 401 K money into some large cap fund. Beating buy and hold strategy in 3 months by 20 % is not bad according to a lot of books (CFAI) I read. 
I keep waiting to wake up to CNBC showing people lining up in front and around the block of their branch (say WaMu?) to pull their money…if 3 months go by and that bad dream doesn’t come to pass, then maybe I’ll call bottom. I’m actually worried about the bank run scenario once life outside the bubble figures this out…that is if the Fed/Gov’t/international community don’t solve the credibility issues first. BSC was a run albeit due to counterpartys rather than deposits.
What a powerful rally it is. Maybe I should put this on resume. Correctly calling 2008 bear market bottom.
it’s not the end of 2008 yet …
Well the dow is up 4.19% since my question…yep 3.5% of that is today and I am sure I am just saying this on a high note before it all topples tomorrow, but you can’t help but think just maybe… And before it is mentioned yes I realize that the Dow is not the best indicator of the economy necessarily, and yes I realize that this is very short term with extraneous factors such as rate cuts, Fed backing money, etc… With all that has been said I have not put a penny to work since this post began, so I guess I could be a sucker for missing out on the 4.2% upswing, a wimp for not pulling the trigger, or a guy who likes to blab on the forum but still has no definite position on what the situation actually is…like bchadwick said it is hard to tell a bottom til there is a decent upswing and I dont think this qualifies quite yet…