Bull Or Bear?
|
Cat or dog? Maybe Zebra. Shucks, I don't know, but my broker keeps telling me it is a bull and to buy this and that. It looks like he is right - for a change. I remember he said the same thing in 1999 and 2000 and I ended up losing most of my money. But it looks good right now.
Yes, it does look good now and I have been a buyer since the middle of last year. Is this another bubble? The talking heads on CNBC-TV say we are back in the bull market again.
My one rule has been to buy when the market turns up and it sure has done that; however, there is another rule that has kept me from losing money and that is to sell when the market starts going down. The nice thing about this is you don't have to be a market "expert" to know when this happens. All you have to look at is the price of one of the major indexes such as the S&P500 or the NASDAQ Composite to see when they penetrate their 200-day moving average. One that I watch all the time is the Investor's Business Daily Mutual Fund Index that is in the first section of the paper. You don't even have to buy it as you can read it at the library.
Anyone who tells you he predicts when or where the top or bottom of a market will be is usually guessing unless he has a proven real time track record of making those calls for many bull and bear markets. Predictors are usually wrong, but trend followers are almost always right. The reason is simple. Once the underlying facts, whether physical or emotional, come into play and a new direction is found the stock market will follow that course until another major set of facts comes into play.
This can be seen when the market becomes very overbought and overvalued as it was in 2000 and very oversold as it became in October 2002. A new set of circumstances were initiated and the general market took off in another direction. These long-term trends are relatively easy to determine by anyone who will to listen to the voice of the market.
Long term trend following has a drawback. You will not be a buyer at the bottom or a seller at the top because of the time delay, but you will never lose large sums of money as many did from 2000 to 2003. The use of this simple method will not require research or loads of useless information that Wall Street insists you need. You will be able to determine on your own when a major trend changes and then act accordingly to either buy or sell.
Those who have been wise enough to observe saw the trend change and became buyers last Spring and Summer and now have nice profits.
Yes, it is a bull.
Al Thomas' book, "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't BuyIt!" has helped thousands of people make moneyand keep their profits with his simple 2-stepmethod. Read the first chapter athttp://www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he's the man that Wall Streetdoes not want you to know.
Copyright 2005
al@mutualfundstrategy.com; 1-888-345-7870
|
|
|
Historical Briefing: Stocks, Finance And Money
The World Bank claims that some two billion of the world'scitizens live on $1 per day or less! That fact absolutelyshocked me. With this statistic in mind it becomes important tofocus on all of the things that have served as money over thehistory of civilization. Aztecs used Cocoa beans, Norwegiansused Butter and dried cod, many Indian tribes used animal skinsand some of the early colonists used grains. It's worth thinkingabout this the next time you pick up your paycheck. The word"salary" is derived from the word SALT, which is what was the...(related: Stocks)
Momentum
One of the basic laws of physics states that a body in motion will continue in motion in the direction it is going until interrupted by another force.That basic physics law also applies to stocks and mutual funds. To see this trend it will be very apparent in a weekly or monthly chart rather than a daily chart. The daily chart shows too much noise (random movement).In the Friday edition of Investor's Business Daily you will find 37 weekly charts on the back page of Section 2. One of the common occurrences among these issues is the steady upward progression of price, many with an angle of 30 degrees or more. The up movement of price may have been going on for many months. This...(related: Stocks)
Trading As A Business
What can I expect to make my first year of trading?We get questions like this one quite often. We find that most aspiring traders don't have a clue as to what to expect from the market. Yet here they are, putting up their money. Most are going to learn the hard way.We have no idea in the world what you can expect to make in your first year of trading, or any other year, for that matter. What we can tell you is that without proper guidance and help, you are probably going to have some very bitter experiences. Why? Because your anticipations are almost completely wrong.Futures traders, especially beginning tr...(related: Stocks)
What Are You Waiting For?
Do you own any mutual funds? In an IRA or 401K or wherever. Privately or at work.Have you called your fund manager to find out what is going on with your fund? Are they under investigation for late trading, improper pricing, deviation from length of sales defined in the prospectus or stale trading? Are my questions too hard?Please don't be confused. It seems that most fund owners haven't done anything. There is a serous bout of complacency going around. Forget the flu; this is going to affect your pocketbook. Oh well, it's your money and if you don't care if some crook in a suit with a manicure is handling it then that is your loss.Now we find out that even those foreign...(related: Stocks)
Red, Green, Yellow - Or - Stop, Go, Go Very Fast: Which Describes Your Online Trading?
Ever notice how behavior in one area of life can apply to behavior in other areas of life? For example, I've noticed a number of things while driving that apply to online trading. One of them is regarding how people behave toward traffic signals.In the USA, where I live, all the traffic lights are red, yellow, green -red for stop, yellow for slow down or caution and green for go.The lights always change in order from red to yellow to greenand back again to red after a time.How drivers relate to the changing lights is NOT always the same.There are three types of drivers and responses to seeing a green light:Type one drivers believe the light will change to red at any moment. Inanticipation of the change, they begin to slow down far in advance.I call them "Red Lighters."Type two drivers know green means it'...(related: Stocks)
Mutual Funds: The Modern Den Of Thieves!
Mutual funds were created with the idea that one person can specialize and manage the investments of a large pool of money from multiple investors. Before the great depression mutual funds were called investment pools and mutual fund managers were called pool operators. The bull market of the 1920's created a time o...(related: Stocks)
The Great Stock Market Secret
When the stock market is going up and all your stocks and mutual funds are making money you feel like a genius. It is too bad that some folks don't remember what happened in 2000. Of course, right now we are in one of those genius phases.Your broker and financial planner are encouraging you to buy, buy, buy. And I can't fault that at this time. You remember back in 2000 how many times they told you to buy, buy, buy while the market was going down, down, down. Are we in another of those periods now that are leading up to a humongous crash? Hey, I don't predict, but I do l...(related: Stocks)
Laws And Efficiencies And Theories Of Diminishing Returns
The basis of diminishing return discussions surround such simple notions; that when you have a very fast aircraft, you also have coefficients of drag issues. When you are building a quarter mile car and want to go faster you must realize that for every tenth of a second you need to lose 100 lbs., but to go faster you also need more power, thus the problem in Einstein's theory of the threshold of speed being that of the speed of light. In aviation there is a hyperbolic...(related: Stocks)
Online Broker Trade History Not Doing The Job
Let me start by saying that...Most online brokers do not make it easy for their clients!There are absolutely no standards for trade history reporting from one broker to the next. This presents a real challenge for any trader who wants to analyze his or her trade history.How does one get their trades into some sort of trade analysis software or spreadsheet? How can this be done for several different brokers?What do they provide?Some brokers provide simple trade history reports while others provide very complex statements or reports which have so much HTML formatting that it makes it virtually impossible for any one to copy and paste the information into ...(related: Stocks)
Where Is The Beef?
Where is the beef? Or maybe it should be where is the bull? Market, that is? The chief investment strategists and analysts of the major brokerage houses have been promising us a new bull market.So far the bull hasn't come in from the distant pasture.Some of the cows have been wandering back. I see stocks and mutual funds with names like Small Cap Value, Real Estate, Leisure Group a...(related: Stocks)
site-map - Copyright © 2006 | Contact Webmaster | All Rights Reserved. | Stocks