The stock market does not trade cheaply when there are sunny skies and few worries. If one wants sunny skies one has to pay for sunny skies. The time to get bargains is when everybody is well versed in the woes of the world. The only way to make money this year has been to buy when the world was ending or short when the outlook has been sunny.
My philosophy towards the stock market is that I get paid to suffer, both in my market timing and individual stock selection. I generally buy stocks that people hate, especially Wall Street analysts. I generally buy during times when the market outlook is dark. Most of the time my positions start out a loss for me as I buy into negative momentum.
I don’t believe that I get paid to be comfortable. I get paid to suffer. Last week, I added quite a few positions into the carnage. There was no reason to buy and nary an uptick. It was not comfortable as I felt exhausted and sick at the end of each day even though I sit at a desk. This morning it appears as if I will be looking at a profit on even my worst buy from last week.
My experience from last week typifies my experience in the stock market in general, although to an exaggerated degree. Many say that trading is easy. Just follow the trend and cut your losses quickly. I could never figure out how to do that. The only way I know to make money usually involves a lot of suffering.
Tsachy Mishal on November 28, 2011 at 8:15 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
Take a Look at RIG. Doesn’t get much worse for this one and you get a nice 6% return. Positive catalyst are the rubuild of the existing rigs and a strong uptick in oil price
Thanks. I have a very difficult time with commodity related sectors but will take a look.
A truely Contrarian comment. I was also adding long positions all last week, and that is a True Contrarain way.
http://truecontrarian-sjk.blogspot.com/
Paul Tudor Jones used to have a risk management system which forced him to “take the pain” when involved in countertrend market positions. I believe what differentiates the avg trader from the market wizards are those who understand and welcome the pain.
as my bubbe used to say: TSUROS MACHT DER YIDDISHER MENTSCHEN SCHTARKER…
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