I am quite convinced that looking at the major indexes for any purpose except being informed on what non-retail investors think for the market, should be strictly prohibited . And actually there is the PP not to care about what all those hedge funds managers and their high speed machinery think. For VP games there are the scanners/screeners enabling day and swing trading outside all those major index companies' stocks (that are very often replicas of the previously mentioned non-retail investors perceptions ) .. This is the way I feel things... not necessarily correct.. I do not know if all that increasingly traded indexing stuff and ETFs did not actually 'kill' those index stocks.. It's rare that I feel having good enough level of confidence on what will happen with the major indexes.... boom 5 billions and index goes up, boom 10 gazillions and index goes somewhere else..
Disclaimer: And not that today I am particularly pissed of indexes (as did good job on some EU 'holiday' stocks in the morning.. seems people were heavily dreaming for summer vacations while drinking their morning coffees..)
I am quite convinced that looking at the major indexes for any purpose except being informed on what non-retail investors think for the market, should be strictly prohibited .
..
I was looking at stock prices to tear myself away from the news. But I fully agree with your recommendation.
dualstow wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 10:15 am
to tear myself away from the news
Yeh, I try not to watch news anymore, they are putting so much extra burden on my psychе. Not sure if at some point we would not all fall prey to what Stalin said a long ago - "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic". But that has nothing to do with stocks of course .. (and long live the forum's administrator). Have a good day, pm, for me it is time to play some evening soccer outside my house ...
MangoMan wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 10:36 am
Stocks higher on news that Bernie drops out of race.
I guess stocks think Sanders would have been bad for the economy!
Wow! I wonder how long the boost will last.
As I'm listening to him speak live on C-Span I'm reminded at how overjoyed I am that he no longer has an kind of formal national platform to speak. He now just fades into the background just like all the other candidates who have suspended or ended their candidacies.
I am shocked how so many were duped into NOT seeing his particular supreme egocentricity and clearly placing self needs / desires over country.
Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
MangoMan wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 10:36 am
Stocks higher on news that Bernie drops out of race.
I guess stocks think Sanders would have been bad for the economy!
Wow! I wonder how long the boost will last.
Considering each of the last 2 hours that the market has been up the volume on SPY has been in the bottom 10% of the range in hourly volume over the last 6 weeks... I would say not long. Where there is no volume there is no conviction. It's up not because of people buying, but because of people not selling.
ochotona wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 4:27 pm
I will officially freak out at 3082. Not before.
Instead of freaking out, get a plan in place in case you're wrong, imo. We are in a trading range right now, and I have a plan for both bull and bear cases. Mind you, my portfolio is obviously biased to the bear case so I'm right there with you in expecting a further drop... but if the market tells me I'm wrong who am I to argue? Having a macro big picture narrative is important as a starting place for research... but one of the cardinal sins of any technical or quantitative strategy is to stick to your narrative even when the signals in your strategy are clearly telling you that your macro narrative is wrong. Also remember, being early is the same thing as being wrong. That being said, I do believe the probability is higher for a breakdown than a break out. But a legit sustained breakout is possible, and I am prepared for that scenario, no matter how much I do not think it makes sense just yet. Who am I to say that all the bullish signals being thrown are false? The trend will eventually answer this question for me, it's up to me to simply ride that trend either way, and not argue with it.
ochotona wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 4:27 pm
I will officially freak out at 3082. Not before.
Instead of freaking out, get a plan in place in case you're wrong, imo. We are in a trading range right now, and I have a plan for both bull and bear cases. Mind you, my portfolio is obviously biased to the bear case so I'm right there with you in expecting a further drop... but if the market tells me I'm wrong who am I to argue? Having a macro big picture narrative is important as a starting place for research... but one of the cardinal sins of any technical or quantitative strategy is to stick to your narrative even when the signals in your strategy are clearly telling you that your macro narrative is wrong. Also remember, being early is the same thing as being wrong. That being said, I do believe the probability is higher for a breakdown than a break out. But a legit sustained breakout is possible, and I am prepared for that scenario, no matter how much I do not think it makes sense just yet. Who am I to say that all the bullish signals being thrown are false? The trend will eventually answer this question for me, it's up to me to simply ride that trend either way, and not argue with it.
I have a plan in place. I am going to continue to ignore all these short term distractions and look around for some more reading material while I am stuck at home. That said, I am happy with my one an only speculative trade during the current unpleasantness. I bought a gold Krugerand at 1477 just before everybody went nuts and all the physical inventory got wiped out. :-)
ochotona wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 4:27 pm
I will officially freak out at 3082. Not before.
Instead of freaking out, get a plan in place in case you're wrong, imo. We are in a trading range right now, and I have a plan for both bull and bear cases. Mind you, my portfolio is obviously biased to the bear case so I'm right there with you in expecting a further drop... but if the market tells me I'm wrong who am I to argue? Having a macro big picture narrative is important as a starting place for research... but one of the cardinal sins of any technical or quantitative strategy is to stick to your narrative even when the signals in your strategy are clearly telling you that your macro narrative is wrong. Also remember, being early is the same thing as being wrong. That being said, I do believe the probability is higher for a breakdown than a break out. But a legit sustained breakout is possible, and I am prepared for that scenario, no matter how much I do not think it makes sense just yet. Who am I to say that all the bullish signals being thrown are false? The trend will eventually answer this question for me, it's up to me to simply ride that trend either way, and not argue with it.
I have a plan in place. I am going to continue to ignore all these short term distractions and look around for some more reading material while I am stuck at home. That said, I am happy with my one an only speculative trade during the current unpleasantness. I bought a gold Krugerand at 1477 just before everybody went nuts and all the physical inventory got wiped out. :-)
Haha, yeah that is also a valid strategy. I look forward to one day being comfortably deep in "won the game" territory where I can just stop caring, pick a static allocation, and let it autopilot.
pmward wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:26 pm
Haha, yeah that is also a valid strategy. I look forward to one day being comfortably deep in "won the game" territory where I can just stop caring, pick a static allocation, and let it autopilot.
It's a good goal. Nah, I've learned my lesson. Follow the strategy. Put up with whipsaws. They are unavoidable.
The breadth of this market rally does make me nervous. This is no longer just tech and health care rallying, we now have deep breadth coming into the rally. The only solace I find is that the Q's have been rejecting at the 50% Fib retracement level for 3 days now, and SPY is just trying to break above it today for the first time. Maybe that will be the turning point? I hate to say it, but the probabilities of the bullish outcome are starting to look higher than the bearish outcome. We still have to break and close above that 2850 level before I'll fully concede though. That is the point that I can no longer argue with the charts.
From my perspective the government will do whatever is necessary to ensure stocks rise on a yearly basis. If earnings look weak then they will just give people money to buy things. They will continue to drive interest rates to zero or below making stocks the only game in town. Why is it far fetched to think that the government (and the fed) have this kind of power? They can literally print money and purchase shares, or hand out the money to corporations allowing them to buy back stock. We are going to reelect Trump as president I'm sure. He has shown that he no problem running massive deficits....what will this year's deficit be....maybe 4 trillion dollars? Where does it all end....no idea. But stocks will rise in nominal terms even if they have to hand out 10 trillion dollars to make it happen.
I'm so glad that I believed in personal responsibility and cautious investing...(sarcasm). Should have gone 100 percent stocks knowing that the system is rigged.
doodle wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 6:29 pm
From my perspective the government will do whatever is necessary to ensure stocks rise on a yearly basis. If earnings look weak then they will just give people money to buy things. They will continue to drive interest rates to zero or below making stocks the only game in town. Why is it far fetched to think that the government (and the fed) have this kind of power? They can literally print money and purchase shares, or hand out the money to corporations allowing them to buy back stock. We are going to reelect Trump as president I'm sure. He has shown that he no problem running massive deficits....what will this year's deficit be....maybe 4 trillion dollars? Where does it all end....no idea. But stocks will rise in nominal terms even if they have to hand out 10 trillion dollars to make it happen.
I'm so glad that I believed in personal responsibility and cautious investing...(sarcasm). Should have gone 100 percent stocks knowing that the system is rigged.
I agree is 6,000,000,000,000 Dollars in Bank Reserves a lot of Liquidity?
That is where the FED is now.
Rumor has it that The Fed Reserve and the Treasury have Merged .
So moving the Fed balance sheet to Treasury or something else?
Also seems BOE doing the same thing.
If True
Things are getting very interesting. In the Great Ponzi Scheme.
The thing I don't understand is there never is any money when it comes to healthcare, education, infrastructure, social security, child care whatever.....but when the stock market or corporate earnings take it on the chin for a couple weeks suddenly we have trillions of dollars at our disposal. I hope I misunderstand something about how this system works...because if not, I feel so disgusted with everything that it makes it hard to want to participate anymore.
doodle wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 6:29 pm
From my perspective the government will do whatever is necessary to ensure stocks rise on a yearly basis. If earnings look weak then they will just give people money to buy things. They will continue to drive interest rates to zero or below making stocks the only game in town. Why is it far fetched to think that the government (and the fed) have this kind of power? They can literally print money and purchase shares, or hand out the money to corporations allowing them to buy back stock. We are going to reelect Trump as president I'm sure. He has shown that he no problem running massive deficits....what will this year's deficit be....maybe 4 trillion dollars? Where does it all end....no idea. But stocks will rise in nominal terms even if they have to hand out 10 trillion dollars to make it happen.
I'm so glad that I believed in personal responsibility and cautious investing...(sarcasm). Should have gone 100 percent stocks knowing that the system is rigged.
According to this article, central banks buying stocks doesn’t really help.
doodle wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 9:52 pm
The thing I don't understand is there never is any money when it comes to healthcare, education, infrastructure, social security, child care whatever.....but when the stock market or corporate earnings take it on the chin for a couple weeks suddenly we have trillions of dollars at our disposal. I hope I misunderstand something about how this system works...because if not, I feel so disgusted with everything that it makes it hard to want to participate anymore.
I think the difference is that for all you name, except, perhaps, infrastructure, those are all structural problems that would need annual additional injections of money while this spending is viewed as one-time crisis spending. In this case it is only our economy that is at stake.
Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
markets are based on beating earnings expectations .... if the bar is set so much lower then things only need to be less bad .... lots of lay offs , lots of firings add to that profit bucket ....
market logic is not main street logic. markets at times like this are not focused on increasing revenue ... profit that comes from expense cutting is just as acceptable .
for all we know markets are focusing on a year or two out with increasing sales and lower expenses still in effect ...as well as about the almost free money .
investors get hurt trying to equate main street with wall street ..they are a very different mentality
pmward wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 10:48 am
The breadth of this market rally does make me nervous... I hate to say it, but the probabilities of the bullish outcome are starting to look higher than the bearish outcome. ...
Why do you seem worried and hate to say it? Because....(fill in)
. And actually there is the PP not to care about what all those hedge funds managers and their high speed machinery think. For VP games there are the scanners/screeners enabling day and swing trading outside all those major index companies' stocks (that are very often replicas of the previously mentioned non-retail investors perceptions ) .. This is the way I feel things... not necessarily correct.. I do not know if all that increasingly traded indexing stuff and ETFs did not actually 'kill' those index stocks.. It's rare that I feel having good enough level of confidence on what will happen with the major indexes.... boom 5 billions and index goes up, boom 10 gazillions and index goes somewhere else..
But I fully agree with your recommendation.
