calmloki
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Curious how big a round others load and fire and at what points. I totally missed buying back around 12/24/2018, then failed to buy as the market climbed back up, leaving a big chunk sitting in VMFXX. Granted, that money did about as well as the cash sitting in our other bank accounts. Finally decided that since I have a poor record for picking when to buy or sell that I should do something to take my mood out of the equation (at least on the buy side).
I keep reading here about people nibbling or still having dry powder or backing the truck up and I just don't get it. Surely there is some magic formula that others buy by that I'm not privy to. What I have done:
Decided that I would want to buy if the market was down 5,10,and 20%. Decided that I would want to buy more if the market was down more and that if the market was down 10% I'd want to buy twice as much as if it were down 5%, ditto a 20% drop. So if 5%=$x, 10%=$2x, 20%=$4x and if all orders are filled and all funds exhausted then $x+$2x+$4x=7x and x=total$/7.
So I started putting in 60 day limit orders for 5,10 and 20% below the rolling 52 week high on VTI. Did that several times as the orders expired, watching my bids increase each time until the latest market stumble resulted in the 5 and 10% orders being filled. It was great - we were on the road to Lake Havasu when the 10% order filled and there was no dithering about whether to buy or not or catching the exact right moment. Granted, both orders filled in the morning-time and VTI ended up lower at the end of day, but I got what I wanted and still have a purchase order and enough in VMFXX to cover it. Considering moving some of our cash from bank to VMFXX and putting in orders for deeper drops in the market.
So. I've shown you mine, what formula or feeling or method do you savvier stock buyers use to inform your purchase times and quantities?
I keep reading here about people nibbling or still having dry powder or backing the truck up and I just don't get it. Surely there is some magic formula that others buy by that I'm not privy to. What I have done:
Decided that I would want to buy if the market was down 5,10,and 20%. Decided that I would want to buy more if the market was down more and that if the market was down 10% I'd want to buy twice as much as if it were down 5%, ditto a 20% drop. So if 5%=$x, 10%=$2x, 20%=$4x and if all orders are filled and all funds exhausted then $x+$2x+$4x=7x and x=total$/7.
So I started putting in 60 day limit orders for 5,10 and 20% below the rolling 52 week high on VTI. Did that several times as the orders expired, watching my bids increase each time until the latest market stumble resulted in the 5 and 10% orders being filled. It was great - we were on the road to Lake Havasu when the 10% order filled and there was no dithering about whether to buy or not or catching the exact right moment. Granted, both orders filled in the morning-time and VTI ended up lower at the end of day, but I got what I wanted and still have a purchase order and enough in VMFXX to cover it. Considering moving some of our cash from bank to VMFXX and putting in orders for deeper drops in the market.
So. I've shown you mine, what formula or feeling or method do you savvier stock buyers use to inform your purchase times and quantities?