>makes no sense
You are attributing emotions and motivations that are simply not accurate.
I sold in January because I believed the market was extended, not because I turned "pessimistic". I was a trader then, and had been an active one for six years. I don't care a bit about adulation, either. I care about winning.
Then after the January decline, I decided to take positions in the names I really like for the long term and quit trading (I actually decided and expressed it at a small dinner with Gene Kearney and Mark Fowler and some Montgomery folks last February in San Francisco. I'm sure they will back me up), which I have adhered to since. Not because I'm "optimistic" about the market any longer but because I believe in the names I own until there some fundamental reversal, not a cyclical one. I'm market agnostic. I didn't pose them as great or timely trades. In my trading days I held big positions in companies like PeopleSoft, US Robotics, America Online, Cascade, Ascend, Altera, Cisco, JDS Uniphase, Siebel, Intel (the warrants especially), EMC, that would have taken me farther than I am today or was last Spring had I held them longer. Buy and hold does work.
This has turned into a very expensive strategy shift because I was great at trading and painful because I have deliberately ignored and continue to ignore indicators and reflexes that made me a lot of money. Some have taken this as weakness, and what I take as little minds around here have jumped on it (I never knew they ever cared to begin with) as some basis for personal degradation. So I had to put up with their small-minded crap, too, most notably HJ's unending parade of "WXYZ is down from 350 to 13 cents and Billy loves it, what a fool" posts. They did hurt, until he tried to get me thrown off SI. Then I fired back with his own medicine, and he's been meaner than a wet hen since. I think think HJ suffers from envy or alpha male obsession.
Look. I don't owe anyone anything here. If they have followed me since I stared posting on SI they have done better than any index. If I liked Yahoo's prospects when it was trading at 4, and liked Yahoo's prospects when it was trading at 250, and still like Yahoo's prospects now trading at 25 there's nothing wrong with that. I have been very clear about my strategy shift, an it is real, played with real money.
As far as TA goes, I did believe we had a good chance with the pre-election October/November bottom, but that failed. If you want to know what I think now, I expect a rally in here which will mark the momentum low for the tech sector, followed by a failure in January that leads to the ultimate lows in February or March as the the final chance to take short-term losses in tech stocks begins to expire and the earliest opportunity to take long-term gains in defensive issues starts. ...like the 1995-96 Tech wreck.
But I don't really care whether that call is accurate or not. I care whether information I get is as accurate as possible, my assumptions make sense, and I care whether my time spent here is with people who are real, focused and genuinely insightful. This year has shown me that most of the voices around here are like old-time CB-squawking truckers. They think they're cute and street-smart, but when it comes to the market they don't have the aptitude, attitude, insight nor fortitude to to take a stand against any swings in the tape or data points in the day's headlines. They chase every rabbit moving and therefore don't eat well.
In the meantime my ambition is to match the return of Moore's Law, which I have done. If I can keep that up I'm happy.
Do I wish I had all that money still? Sure. Is it a lesson that I gave it back? I don't know yet. |
