Can I throw my two cents in too?
1 - The market has been wounded for a long time, simply looks for catalysts to move down and nothing is really supporting any up move. So this latest move is likely less about the election and more about it being a convenient catalyst.
2 - chartists don't normally care about fundamentals, with the exception of being aware of *when* a major event is going to take place and noting how that may play out on the chart at hand - and preparing trading decisions (of which standing aside is an important and apparently most-forgotten decision!)
3 - just for myself, since January I've held very little overnight except for energy stocks, and even those are just a tiny bit of my portfolio. With the tech parabolic run up it was easy to apply some history (past such run ups) and look at the results. In every case, the market / sector went through a painful bear / consolidation period. For a long time.
Picking bottoms, particularily in tech stocks, in such an environment is an invitation to be wrong often, because the trend is still down.
Buy, sell, hold - depends on your temperment, knowledge and skill level more than anything. Those that can't stand missing out on any sort of upside will invariably be buying all the way down. Those 'gunslingers' that bet too big will get crushed by margin calls, invariably selling out at or near the bottom.
Skilled position traders might be playing bounces with limited capital but are not under any illusions about "the bottom" being in until after it has proved itself.
The average Joe or Jill who is buying mutual funds is going to take their losses and stick it out for the long run. Do they have any other choice? No, not unless they choose to get the education and commit the time to it.
The average speculator hasn't stopped buying and holding, and for every buy that turns into a loss, convinces him / herself that its now an "investment". Looking across the threads you can see that many self-proclaimed traders are now holding an awful lot of "investments".
When my barber asks me what to do I decline from answering. The right answer for me is not going to be the right answer for him.
Buy, Sell, Hold - a question that can't be answered for another person. |
