Yeah, I'm sort of surprised myself.
Reasons:
1. I want to stick to my discipline of being fully invested, and I decided to bail on WCOM today for the tax-loss (do you think I caught the exact bottom?), so that money needed to go somewhere
2. I watched the stock sink below 40, while lots of other stocks failed critical support levels. Then I watched it pull itself back to 40, and I said, "lots of people out there willing to step in at this level, even on a day like today".
3. Holding support, after months of bad news, capped by more sector-specific bad news recently, on a day that feels like market capitulation......this impressed me.
4. notice, I bought the stock, not the LEAPs. I still need to see 28-30 in the stock, before I'm willing to buy the LEAPs.
5. I was encouraged that the BTB was up last time. If we see two months in a row with falling bookings, I will probably sneak back to the sidelines.
6. 40 is closer to the bottom than 115.
7. this may be only a short-term holding. I'm a "weak hand" at the moment, and it won't take much to make me go back to the sidelines.
8. I force myself to buy when panic engulfs the market, and TrimTabs says cash is way up in stock mutual funds.
9. I see excellent odds of some good news for the market in the next 3 months: Bush will really and truly be President, the Fed will go to a neutral bias (but not actually lower rates), fears of a recession will fade. These ought to be good for a little 20% pop in the Nasdaq. |
