" .... paying a bargain price is a good thing no matter what price action occurs afterwards"
I can't say that I entirely go along with that hypothesis.
I'd say that TIMING and WAITING for a fair degree of CONFIRMATION that an OVERALL MARKET FALL OFF HAS CHANGED DIRECTION could be the way to go. Bearing in mind that when there is overall Panic in the Market then everything falls, IRRESPECTIVE.
Let's take a bell weather stock like KO (Coca Cola) during that 2008/2009 Market "crisis" ....
In the 'A' period it was falling like everything else. The sooner you bought in at a "bargain price" the longer it would have taken to have made a capital gain. The chances are that one would have considered a "bargain price" from around May/June 2008. That would have been equivalent to roughly the future price at 'D', i.e. about $28/29. If you got in that early you would have had to wait about 16 months to make any profit.
KO's price changed and started its upward move around March/April 2009. Needless to say, that's in hind sight and none of us have an infallible "crystal ball".
However, the "Volume Action" between areas 'A' and 'B' was much the same, indicating that the Seller volumes in 'A' were much the same as in 'B' where KO's price was moving up. That could be a reasonable assumption that market participants who were Selling in 'A' were coming back to Buy in 'B'.
But I'd say that it wasn't yet "Cut and Dried".
But then we had a fairly long "Support" period of about 4 months. And then, on a Volume spike at 'C', KO's upward price momentum started in earnest.
We then saw higher Highs and higher Lows, indicative of an upward price trend.
So buying in at around $25/share would, IMO, have been a reasonably safe "bargain price". one would have "sacrificed" about 25% of upward price move in order to gain some degree of Confirmation.
And it's been ALL uphill from there with a ~140% Price Gain until this latest OVERALL MARKET FALL OFF where everything is down .......
But even with KO currently at about $46/share one would still be up over 80% from one's purchase at $25.
Who knows when the "bottom" will be reached in this current situation. But I have no doubt, as has happened many names before with a 'Durable Competitive Advantage' stock like KO, it will again "rise out of the overall market ashes". |
