Peter Pumkinhead aptly described my feelings - and probably many XJO'ers - over the last months.
'The third leg of a major bear market is sometimes characterized as "death by a thousand cuts", quite different to the catastrophic plunge of the first leg. This may be a worse scenario for anyone still with the perma-bull mentality - a market that repeatedly sucks you in thinking the worst is over, only to disappoint with yet another drop as buyer support fails to follow through into sustainable gains.' PETERPUMPKINHEAD
Well said Peter.
There are many trading strategies in play by followers of this forum. Most of us have become very very short term focused because of the sideways and erratic nature of the XJO over he last two years.
We're trying to grab a buck where we can.
In the U.S., it has been very different. We look at the lovely uptrending markets over there and think to ourselves.
.....Phooey - what kind of idiot couldn't make money on the American stocks. How come we're stuck with this wriggly dammned tiger snake called the XJO .
Well, we know why because, Yankee stocks are cheap. Everything we do, every achievement we have made, gets cancelled out by our overpriced buck.
Notice I didn't say 'strong'? If it was strong, it wouldn't make us so weak. It wouldn't dis-advantage our exporters or send our dollars overseas on holidays.
It also wouldn't have weakened our retailers as internet overseas shopping becomes too good to resist for our gen Y.
No trendsetters. Our OVERPRICED dollar is making us WEAK.
But I digress...
What would I and probably you have done differently in such a blissfully predictable market - as has been the U.S.
We would be making money.
What do you do when you make a profit on shares? Increase your next purchase of course, and you keep doing that because you want to make back what you lost in the GFC.
You might stash away a little but human nature being what it is, you put what you can afford into the market.
We now have a lot more riding on the market than a year ago. We have all we can afford.
So the apple tree gets shaken by events and down she tumbles.
I'd be picking up apples...and as Mr Pumpkinhead said yesterday.
'But for now I am loaded up with banks, talk about bargains! lol'
(20min delay)