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Aug. 17, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT
By Jonathan Burton, MarketWatch
This is an update of a column published in June 2008 under volatile market conditions similar to the current investment climate.
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) "” Rules may be meant to be broken, but with investing, ignoring the rules can break you.
Especially now. There are some investing rules that are tailor-made for tough times, allowing you to stick to a plan when you need it most. Indeed, a rulebook is important in any market climate, but it tends to get tossed when stocks are soaring "” or plunging.
A timely set of rules comes from a former Wall Street strategist, Bob Farrell, who pioneered the technical analysis of stock movements. Farrell also broke new ground using investor sentiment figures to better understand how markets and individual stocks might move.
S&P 500 by the minute over past 10 days.
Over several decades at brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co., Farrell had a front-row seat to the go-go markets of the late 1960s, mid-1980s and late 1990s, the bear market of 1973-74, and October 1987's crash. Out of those and other experiences came Farrell's 10 "Market Rules to Remember."
"The basic lessons keep coming back; they don't change," noted investment adviser Larry Swedroe, director of research for Buckingham Asset Management. "It's just that investors forget them and need to be reminded."
Nowadays, with global markets gyrating, Farrell's rules offer investors some perspective:
By "return to the mean," Farrell reminds investors that when stocks go too far in one direction, they tend to come back to their long-term trend. Overly euphoric or pessimistic markets cloud people's estimation and judgment of what they can reasonably expect.
Markets in a bubble can seem ready to pop, yet they manage to stretch into unrecognizable shapes "” and still find buyers. Think of Internet shares a decade ago or real estate before the housing crash. When the bubble bursts, watch out.
Conversely, markets in free-fall typically spring back as if tied to a bungee cord. Think about the sharp bounce U.S. stocks have had since March 2009, when the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index /quotes/zigman/3870025 SPX -0.26% was about 80% cheaper.
The market's recent volatility and investors' uncertainty suggests that stocks are moving into another downswing. "Because we went so much higher [in the rally from March 2009 through April 2011], don't be surprised if the correction is a little bigger," said Barry Ritholtz, an investment manager and chief executive of FusionIQ, a quantitative research firm. Read more: 5 money moves one quant trader is making now.
Jonathan Burton is the investing editor for MarketWatch and covers investing strategies and mutual fund-related news from San Francisco. He also writes the... Expand
Jonathan Burton is the investing editor for MarketWatch and covers investing strategies and mutual fund-related news from San Francisco. He also writes the "Life Savings" column. Previously he held contributing editor positions at Bloomberg Personal Finance, Mutual Funds and Individual Investor magazines, and was a reporter with the Far Eastern Economic Review and Investor's Business Daily. He is also the author of two books on investing. Collapse
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