I listened to the interview with Sue B. yesterday and so was surprised to hear she downgraded VSEA today, because of what other people might think. Yet who can blame her? Despite the rational market theorists, anyone who follows these things closely knows the market is a nervous creature. There are a lot of cross-currents now, a lot of non-fundamentally motivated selling. Sell because it's going down; sell because I need a loss; sell because everyone else is selling and I need to meet a margin call. And yet, good as Sue might be, you'd like to pay analysts for an informed opinion of a company's value, not their take on market timing.
Either: the market looks six months out, and in April these companies will be reporting everything has gone to hell; or, everyone expected that would happen and sold, and something else will actually occur.
Whatever, the gyrations may be sickening, but long term, the trend is up, as a chart of AMAT will show. You can trade the volatility, or you can just put them away.
Good luck. I hope we'll soon be discussing whether it is time to sell, and not if the end of the world is near! (And if it is the end of the world, the stocks in one's portfolio will probably not make much of a difference!) |
