Gary, You misread me about Cramer. I just think he should take some crap about being negative at $23 and a nutburger bull at $49. And, yes, I do believe you are late to the party if you don't buy when the risk is lowest. Folks like Cramer don't trust their own research, probably because they don't do any, so they rely on smarter folks to lead them so they can follow the trend. I prefer to invest as the trendsetter and not the follower. And I was negative on Ascend the last time it hit $50. I didn't wait until $30 like the Rogaine Bandit. <G>
Vinick's Hedge Fund made 100% last year, as did many others. Many individual investors made more than that (I wasn't one of them last year, though I have been in that double club several times). Indices never make that much. If you buy an index, you guarantee average and mediocre performance over the long haul. The kind that made you lose 70% of your spending power between 1968 and 1982. Some are happy with plain vanilla and the comfort of other dumb cattle around them. I would rather take a shot at making real money, and you can't do that by following the herd.
Why are Scientific Atlanta and General Instruments ridiculous merger candidates?
How come everyone talks about catching Dell and Intel (before it recently lost its market value) and Microsoft, but nobody mentions that they caught palladium, a much better performer on an absolute basis, and, when leveraged, so far above these puny herd stocks as to be laughable? And why don't they talk about shorting oil and making 50%, no leverage. Or buying Europe, which outperformed the US, by a lot, last quarter? Because doing things like that don't fit in with the herd mentality.
I am not calling you a herd follower, I am just saying that the perceived wisdom about index funds and market moves lacks a lot. We all have to dig deeper than the obvious child (apologies to Paul Simon) if we want to make, and, just as importantly, keep, a bunch of moolah.
Good luck,
MB
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