Dale, you must differentiate between very short term "calls" and longer term calls. I'll give you few examples of not too shabby calls. The important thing to win in this market is to be in heavily invested at bottoms and get out at tops. In 2000, it was important to get out in March, back in late in May, back out at the double top at 4300 in the summer, and back in late in December and early Jan 2001. In April 2000 I wrote in #reply-13483082 :
"I can summarize my "thesis" of a continuation of the bull market, past the next nadir (probably late May for a new low on the NAZ?) till about November or year end and a bear market next year based on few basic principles:"
I belive the low was May 28th or so, and then we rallied to 4300, almost 50%.
These are some of the major reasons my long term outlook is a market locked in a trading range of 6000 to 13,500 on the Dow and possibly a range of 1900 to 5200 on the Naz. It will take a good many years (five to ten, maybe 16 like in the 1966 to 1982 period?) before the growth in earning finally catches up with current valuations.
In the summer of 2000, when we did the double top at 4300 (which was less than my expectation, since in early June I did think we would go back from the 3100 to just under 5000), I once more became bearish, when I moved the bottom to late December 2001. (I cannot find the post). Here in post #reply-15024438 in mid December, I mention the kind of behavior I was waiting for to set the bottom (that period was particularly difficult and volatile due to the uncertainty of the elections' results), and then finally, on the morning of January third, I declared "Fully loaded" in post: #reply-15115763, see also earlier that morning in post #reply-15115146, that the 1900 of the April 2000 post is replaced with a new target of 1400, if 1900 is breached (we reached the 1400 in September), and the discussion of a potential fed cut prior to 1/31/2001.
Then the trick was to stay out of the "February Massacre" which has been forecasted already during 2000, for instance here is a rough outline I gave Dec 29, 2000 for the year 2001 expectations or "model": #reply-15099259: (this one does not come back so try and find message #9647 on Steve's channelling thread if it does not come up).
"Over the weekend, I am going to work on a list of some 20 stocks which I consider good candidates earlier, just for channel purposes, but once we reach a bottom, these should be good double baggers by the end of the year. Unfortunately, this is a "hope", not a forecast. I do not have great clarity of direction post the February massacre I expect. The best I see is a strong rally leading to a peak in the first or second week in July, followed by a summer of discontent, with one low sometime in August and another one (only if for one reason or another the feds have not lowered rates at least twice in the March/August period) in late September early October. "
Unfortunately, my high for the year seems to be in early January, I still have 2850 to 3050 as a possibility on the Naz. On the Dow, I have a high just above 11,000. My low for the year was 1900, and I am still with it, I have an outside possibility that if 1900 is breached than we are going to go "cataclismic" to the October 1998 lows (around 1400). The actual high was was 2892, 1/24/2001 and the low just under 1400 for the Naz, the high on the Dow was around 11400.
Note that coming into August, I changed the double bottom (August and October) to the "coalescing" model in September, and in post #reply-16318048, I actually gave Sep14/16 as the actual low. You have to add the four trading days suspension to get to Sep 20/21.
Note that I did not waver at all about the "February Massacre", and that was probably the most important time to be out of stock, here are few posts were it is mentioned, #reply-15259280, #reply-15253511, #reply-15259280, #reply-15290390, #reply-15259722 (in that post I give the target end of the Massacre around March 12th, it actually was March 22nd on the Dow and April 3rd on the Naz, you have to go to the thread to see the "adjustments" to the "model" during that end game, I simply do not have the time to post all citations). Even during the Massacre there were some nice playable mini rallies and here is an apology for a slight miss on one of these: #reply-15359166.
In any event, by April 3rd I was fully loaded again, and while and by May 22nd, I started to get out again (see the August post above). Sure on a very short term, I hit them on sometimes (like the "forecast od a a high earlier this month at 2100 (we got 2098), the date was exact, and the low (I had 1860, and so far we hit 1880, but the date was exact). Yes, I missed miserably the behavior from mid November to late December 2001, yet, all that cost was a minor non participation in the last gasp of the September move (my target was 1793, and if that was breached a run to 1940, both wrong, yet, last week you could already reenter under that 1940 level).
The important thing in the last two years was being out of the April/May 2000 declines (I was), the late Summer/Autumn decline in 2000 (I was), the February 2001 massacre (I was) and the summer decline which I avoided as well. Why you call these misses, I know not. As you will see from these posts, I also suggested heavy commitment at the important bottoms (even though, the long range forecast missed some of the actual dates, I ha 5/18/2000, actual was the 24th, I had 12/20/00 as the next entry, actual best entry was 1/3/2001, I had 3/12/2001 as the post February massacre entry and the actual was 3/22/01 and 4/3/01, I had Sep 16/7 as the next entry, and the actual was 9/21 (which by the way, I "called" as well during that fatal week, mentioning not once (for instance #reply-16387737), by the end of this week we have a bottom).
Zeev |
