Stick it Out

That's my advice. If you're not in the market, think about getting in. It's a tough time, but the institutions won't start buying until the little people lose heart and sell - that's when they get stuff cheap. If we keep up the rate of decline we've seen, the whole world should cost a dollar in a few months.

But, having bought, get ready to sell in a couple weeks - we need to bounce off the bottom a few times before we're ready to move up.

Of note - GOOG and AAPL explore levels they haven't seen in a while - GOOG back in the 300's and AAPL below 100.

My big embarrassments :

WB - who would guess that this stock, when it saw trouble, would offer traders the chance for almost 1000% in profit with smart trading?
SIMO - got in around 25, it's at 4! This seems like 2000 doesn't it?

And the ones I'm lucky I sold:

TS : got out around 63 - it's at 32. If it was a few bad picks, we could be faulted - but, at this time, it's every stock in the world that's searching for the bottom. And we haven't seen the bottom yet - forget it - not until MSFT hits 21 around mid next year are going to see the bottom.
WDC - got out around 37, it's at 20 now.

Once the new short-term rally starts - in a few hours - ensure you have really tight stops - so that you get out when the trend reverses - as you know, the stock market is just a game or musical chairs or poker - when it's dominated by traders.

I would suggest a good, hard look at GE. Don't expect stellar returns, but you might easily see 50% in a year.

And, has anyone wondered why WMT has done so well when the rest of the market has been heading south?

And what about TXN - test resistance at 35 three times and finally broke through last year and look at the sordid footprint after that. Goes to prove Curran right - eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.

To predict the future of the market, look at your own behaviour - if you buy items that you don't really need because your portfolio is looking good, then you can be sure that there is an uptrend in progress that is not tenable. That's really the time to get out - and see your money lose value anyway because of inflation:)