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My company, JNJ, is up 45.8% as of right now past 12 months. That should pretty much never happen. My boss just came in because we're up 1.16 just this morning. He's gotten a few retirement emails for folks cashing out options that were mid-50's to begin with. It's a total free-for-all right now.
I guess my question is.. Do we deserve these nice gains after a decade of bear markets, crashes, very little stock growth...
Yeah this is where I struggle. It's like siffoin said in an earlier post, having the discipline to sell high, hold, and re-buy over and over at lower prices takes discipline. Especially when you're having consecutive strings of days/weeks where your positions don't drop. I think that will separate those who ride the waves up and down from those who use this uptick in a market like this to really make money in the long run.
To be crystal clear: My strategy is to buy in the early stages of a bull trend and sell in the early stages of a bear trend. Price generally moving up=bull trend. Price generally moving down=bear trend. As long as the company retains value and the future prospects are positive you can do this over and over. By catching the major trends the value of your portfolio over a long term time horizon will be significantly higher than that of a buy and holder. In addition, by sitting out major bear markets the investor isn't financially stressed- and has significantly more latitude when the trend changes from a bear to a bull. There are times when the stock runs away for you, and your buy low-sell high-buy low...becomes a buy low-sell high-buy higher. This is the kind of market we are experiencing right now. It is rare...but should be expected a few times in your investing life. There is nothing that I see suggesting the market has topped at this point. And it is quite possible that this runs much higher- lasting longer than anyone expects. With that said- I don't know the future- and think the individual investor should remain vigilant in every type of market.
JNJ did have a period of under-performance under Wheldon, so there may be some catch up going on. Still, recent gains for this and other defensive stocks are a little extreme. I sold a little JNJ, GIS, and PM over the last couple of weeks because of the moves. I've owned them for a very long time and they became too large a part of portfolio.
You've mentioned this a few times, but just curious- how do you distinguish between a pull back in an existing trend vs. the beginning of a new one?
Well I personally use a set of technical indicators to determine whether the pull back is just a pull back within an existing trend, or whether the pull back is the start of a new bear trend, and the existing trend is breaking down. Relatively speaking, I have a good sense of what the technicals look like as a trend begins to top...and will pay more attention at those times.
slight setback/pause
In Bull markets you climb up the stairs and take the elevator down. The market is still wildly bullish. That said... keep paying attention.
Market open not looking too good today.
So without revealing your indicators, does it come down more to how any potential sell off happens, not just how much?
Just when I think I don't want to jump on this because I don't want to buy at the top, I look again and it keeps going. Maybe with as hot as the real estate market is going it might be worth a look.
So after gaining around 20% yesterday, I'm thinking I'll buy in today when it drops as people grab some profits. Nope, up another 20% at the bell.
The thump turned into a serious wound. Stock fell to 37 and change. Now back to near purchase price, even topped it earlier today.
You sure do, and that wont change soon. Your looking at investing in "the next big thing" and "everybody knows it". The thing is they have little in the line of current period earnings compared to what everyone expects in 10-15 years and people are going to run in and out of these stocks everyday.
Sorry to anyone still in (NIU is my alias) but I'm always happy to when I capitulate that the price keeps sliding, at least for the short term. I see a stock thats making lower highs and lower lows right now. I starting to think we may see Siffs $41/2 entry point come into play.
The miners are a bad place to be right now. I have said for months eventually we are going to be able to make a fortune in companies like EXK and IAG when the market turns, but I dont think now is the right entry point.
I like VZ but they are having trouble in Europe. I also like GS and may add them to my regular investment portfolio (esp now that I'm out of DDD for the time being). But that's a capital appreciation play and not what I'm looking for with this capital.
This is true but they're diversifying with some recent very large purchases of oil and natural gas companies. They've been criticized for getting out of their lane but I think they'll be ok.
Freeport is the right girl at the wrong time.
Tried to buy some FMCC yesterday around $3.40. It seemed to be finding it hard to go beyond $3.50 throughout the day, so I didn't increase my limit. Today it is touching $5.00. This thing was $2.80 last Friday. FML.
Someone finally realized it's the last day of May, and they'd forgotten to sell & go away.
