*** Attention Bulls ***
*** Attention Bears ***
It should be obvious by now that the market will often behave independently of what the current market forces and economic conditions are. This can leave one at a loss for how to engage such a market rationally while still limiting the level of risk.
On the Bullish side:
Many of those who have subscribed to "buy and hold" have been burned badly as the market plummeted. Parts of the market has bounced back from the March lows, but other segments are still languishing.
On the Bearish side:
Many shorting or expecting the market to collapse have been stymied by the continued run up from the March lows with no sign of weakening. Anyone attempting to short this market has most likely been in a losing campaign.
In both the bullish and bearish scenario's, listening to the news would not have helped you make sound decisions in the short term as there has been a mix of both positive and negative information, and not only that, the market seems to ignore the information most of the time.
In my research, I've found that the best way to invest in this market is to accept that fact that the market is bipolar, meaning its normal state isn't rational- either everything is great, or everything is rotten.
The next step is to read the current financial data and make your own projections where the market "should" be going. You'll have to determine this yourself as the news always presents conflicting information and will only confuse you if you don't have a good grasp of the current state of the economy. This will tell you where the market is headed eventually- and here, the key word is EVENTUALLY- it could take some time for this to happen so consider it an "extended forecast".
The last step is to understand "Trend Line Analysis" and "Support and Resistance" areas specifically as well as the art of technical analysis in general. You will need to know this area in order to determine when to buy or sell.
So putting it together, we have three main components to achieve success:
1) Accept the market is irrational (Bipolar)
2) Determine the "extended forecast" of the market.
3) Know Trend line and Technical Analysis
This is how you put them together for more successful investing experiences:
Knowing the "extended forecast" of where you think the market is headed will be invaluable for your long term (at least 1 year or more) investments. It will provide you with an early alert on whether you should be adding to your position or reducing it and moving it somewhere else. If done right, you should be able to avoid being caught in major market crashes as well as keeping your assets in stronger investments.
For short term trading/investing, knowing where the market is headed with your financial extended forecast information won't be as helpful due to the bipolar nature of the market. The market has the uncanny ability to keep moving in one direction regardless of the current financial conditions. There is also an abundance of automatic computer trading going on which makes decisions on other things besides current news. The media, looking to explain any market movement with current news only adds to the confusion and you wind up with ridiculous "can't lose" scenarios. Here's one example:
The national unemployment numbers for October went up to 10.2%, which was higher than expected, but the market was seemingly unaffected and rallied. The financial news media stated that the market rallied because that higher unemployment number means interest rates will remain low. This makes no sense as the negative of a higher unemployment rate is of a higher magnitude that the positive of lower interest rates. Now on the other hand, had the unemployment number been lower than expected, the market would have rallied and the media would have proclaimed that it was due to signs that the recovery was taking hold, ignoring the interest rate angle altogether. Therefore no negative scenarios exist in this case that would result in a negative market move. This makes no sense in a rational market, but behaves as expected in a bi-polar market.
The way around this situation in the short term is to focus primarily on technical analysis (TA) instead of the news. If TA dictates the trend is up, go long. If TA points down, go short. In each case include a protective stop loss trigger as a risk limiter. This technique should keep you on the right side of trades in the short term while you're waiting for your long term forecast to come to pass.
Comments (6)
An investment advisor I know has done really well using TA and some other techniques... he did especially well during the market blow-up. He leads Pallisades Research, John Vitale. A bit spendy for most people, about 60-70$ in fees per month but with large investment sums it gets much better. The thing I like is he can go long or short any day, and when not in the market the money is in money market funds, so it is never left exposed.
I like your point about accepting that the market is bi-polar. I think a lot of people kind forget that or are not willing to accept that because it's difficult to understand. Also, I think a lot of pundits on tv have over simplified things by simply pointing to the strong and weak points in the market but not both at the same time.
@Happily_Married_Guy - His fees sound high, but it's all relative. If his ROI with the fees factored in is still better than the competition, then he's earning his salary. The best deal would be someone who only takes a cut of the profits.
@TheCheshireGrins - As the sayings goes - "The market can stay irrational longer than one can remain solvent"
People run into trouble when they trade heavily on what the market "should" be doing versus what it "is" doing. It calls for patience at times...
Most TV pundits are basically clueless and try to match market moves with something else that happened that day without evaluating the accuracy of the connection.
I loooovvvveee this entry!
lol. i love how you mentioned the "financial news media." do you read those "market updates" from the yahoo page? i always find it funny how they "try" to explain the ups and downs throughout the day. it makes me laugh.
truth is, had the market gone downwards, the "financial news media" would have said "stocks pull back due to the high unemployment rate..."
anyway, i'm definitely on the "bear" side, but it hasn't gotten me very far yet. :-/
i'd like to hear from someone actually investing with john vitale. thanks. only1emmapeel@aol.com