Is You In or Is You Out

D

Danny

Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Joined
Jul 14, 2005
Messages
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I'm fairly comfortable with my holdings and at the moment I'm thinking long term picture. If Bernanke, Geitner and Obama have a Rose Garden Moment with shaky voices I would reconsider.

Know too well from experience that it's hard to time ins and outs

Still if you get enough uncertainity thrown at you you start to wonder.

I'm thinking of riding this out. Go to France on Tues for 2 weeks and not think about finance.


What's the thinking on the forum?
 
I am fully committed for the next 40-50 years or so, assuming I live that long.
 
Let's see, France in the spring, or stay at home an worry about the stock market?

I'm trying to find a nice way to say no-brainer, but I give up. It is a no-brainer.

Let me help you rationalize it. The euro is down 11% this year. France is on sale, so you have a LBYM obligation to take advantage of it. :greetings10:
 
The rally allowed me to recover enough to scale my AA back to something I'm a little more comfortable with (about 55/45 currently).

My main concern lies with how many more events that cause an investor lack of trust in the markets are going to occur. If yesterday's glitch happened in (say) 1999, people would have barely noticed. But today, after a terrible decade which saw two major stock slides and the worst single bear market in the lifetime of most investors today, trust and confidence in the stock market was already fragile. This doesn't help.
 
I think how you feel about yesterday's craziness depends a lot on whether you heard about it after the fact or experienced it real time. Finding out after it is over and the market recovered just doesn't cause that panicy "What is going on feeling?" of seeing quotes go crazy before you eyes.

There was a short time yesterday when I was seriously worried that somebody had hacked our market system. The prices I saw on my regular quote source were so crazy suspicious looking that I tried a second. It wouldn't load. I tried a third and its prices were just as crazy as the first but wildly inconsistent with the first.
 
IndependentlyPoor said:
I think how you feel about yesterday's craziness depends a lot on whether you heard about it after the fact or experienced it real time. Finding out after it is over and the market recovered just doesn't cause that panicy "What is going on feeling?" of seeing quotes go crazy before you eyes.

.
Click to expand...




Absolutely , I usually never check the stock market during the day but for some reason I did yesterday just as it was occurring .I thought the whole system was in melt down . The fear of watching your life savings disappear in front of your eyes was terrifying . I've always been an aggressive investor but I'm done with that .
 
:)
Moemg said:
Absolutely , I usually never check the stock market during the day but for some reason I did yesterday just as it was occurring .I thought the whole system was in melt down . The fear of watching your life savings disappear in front of your eyes was terrifying . I've always been an aggressive investor but I'm done with that .
Click to expand...

Well, at least it recovered. Are you going to change your asset allocation?

As Barry Ritholtz says, whatever you do, don't push this button
big-panic-key.png
 
Im gonna hold my now 22.5% (and falling fast) until Im dead;)

This big pile of cash looks good right now...

Im considering making it real, as in at least 100K in actual Legal Tender...

I sure as hell wouldn't buy any stock ahead of the weekend:nonono:
 
I'm very uncomfortable as I'm overweighted in Ginnie Maes. This morning I sold 4% of my PF, all from Ginnie Maes; 2% after-tax to replenish my living expenses account and 2% in an IRA for equity investment at some future point. I should sell another 8% to get to my AA but I'm chicken; I usually sell in 1% chunks.
 
Maybe it is just recency bias, but I feel like yesterday's incident did more to undermine my confidence in the stock market than the 2008 crisis ever did. At least I understood why the market dropped the way it did in 2008. Yesterday's glitch highlighted just how much upper hand Wallstreet has in this game. I am at their mercy. My future is at their mercy. Everything I "own" is at their mercy.

But, at the same time, what alternatives do I have? I think it is obvious by now that Wall Street's reach goes well beyond equities. They managed (perhaps not single-handedly) to screw up real estate as well. They have a heavy hand in the bond, commodity and currency markets too and could send any one of them in a tailspin on a whim. In other words, there is nowhere to hide.

Because markets have been overvalued for a while, my equity holdings had already been pared down to 47-48%, so I don't think I will reduce my equity stake further (if anything that stake might increase as stocks get cheaper). Like I said, I wouldn't know what to do with the money coming out of stocks anyways. Playing the game, no matter how crooked, is my only option.

So, I have to go pray now. Hopefully Saint Goldman-Sachs will leave enough crumbs on the table to allow me to retire.

Darn I'm glad we spent some money on cars recently. At least they don't depreciate as fast as stocks do...:rolleyes::D
 
CuppaJoe said:
I'm very uncomfortable as I'm overweighted in Ginnie Maes. This morning I sold 4% of my PF, all from Ginnie Maes; 2% after-tax to replenish my living expenses account and 2% in an IRA for equity investment at some future point. I should sell another 8% to get to my AA but I'm chicken; I usually sell in 1% chunks.
Click to expand...
Ginnie Maes are doing pretty well here with the equity markets misbehaving and the US$ up due to overseas worries.

I guess you are "taking profits".

Audrey
 
For me it is too soon to consider doing anything. I just checked and my stock allocation is at 34.4% and it had never got above 36% this year so I am not seeing a lot of movement yet away from my target of 35%.

If it gets to 5% off target then I would consider re-balancing back to 35%, although now I'm RE'd, Otar recommends only re-balancing after an election. (UK had an election yesterday - does that count? :D)
 
Goldman Sachs stock is up today:rolleyes:

Some of these energy and utility stocks are looking cheap;)
 
Asset prices are still too high to buy, and the markets are too panicky to sell. If this continues, however, we may have another opportunity to buy some of that "I wish I had bought then" . Hopefully most folks have rebalanced to their target allocations and have some cash.

It's a great time to go to a movie, though.
 
MichaelB said:
....
It's a great time to go to a movie, though.
Click to expand...
"City Island" is far better than I expected, really we laughed all the way through it.

Disclaimer: I won two free tickets to a pre-opening screening and the theater people want me to get the word out.
 
ziggy29 said:
It might, given that it injected yet more uncertainty into markets that hate uncertainty...
Click to expand...

I sat up 'til midnight watching and listening to the BBC as the results came in, and one interesting thing that did happen was that the UK bond markets opened up in the evening for a special session of trading. I see this morning that the pound has fallen to $1.47 so the currency markets don't like a "hung" parliament. ( day before the election it was $1.51)
 
Basically, I have been just taking advatage of the chaos to switch around some holdings. There are a few things I have been itching to sell for a while. Conveniently, some of these stayed flat or even traded up in this mess, so they got blasted out of my account and I scooped up some stuff that was way knocked down and added to a position I have been tip toeing into. Sold AHL preferred, SUP, VR, and ANH preferred, bought CHK (yesterday and today), BKT (yesterday) and FOF (yesterday). The economy seems to be rebounding nicely as evinced by the jobs report, so this looks like a temporary panic/correction that is an opportunity to reshift some stuff.
 
FIREdreamer said:
Maybe it is just recency bias, but I feel like yesterday's incident did more to undermine my confidence in the stock market than the 2008 crisis ever did. At least I understood why the market dropped the way it did in 2008. Yesterday's glitch highlighted just how much upper hand Wallstreet has in this game. I am at their mercy. My future is at their mercy. Everything I "own" is at their mercy.

But, at the same time, what alternatives do I have?
Click to expand...

If you believe that the deck is stacked towards Wall St. - which is not my personal belief - wouldn't the easiest and most logical alternative be for you to purchase equity in the Wall St firms such as Goldman, JPM, et al as they are all publicly traded equities? In fact, you can purchase their bonds or their preferred equities if you wish to have higher claims on any of these Wall St firms' capital structures.

In many ways this rant is similar to a Vegas gambler cursing the casino after a tough night at the tables and screaming that the literal deck is stacked. The simple solution for the gambler, if the assertion were true, would be to likewise purchase the debt or the stock of the Vegas casino, which are probably publicly traded companies as well, instead of trying their luck at the cards and dice but...

Anyway, good luck. The market is nervous these days for obvious reasons and remember that panicked mkts are always more volatile than bullish or bearish ones...bulls and bears make $, pigs get eaten...
 
GusLevy said:
If you believe that the deck is stacked towards Wall St. - which is not my personal belief - wouldn't the easiest and most logical alternative be for you to purchase equity in the Wall St firms such as Goldman, JPM, et al as they are all publicly traded equities? In fact, you can purchase their bonds or their preferred equities if you wish to have higher claims on any of these Wall St firms' capital structures.

In many ways this rant is similar to a Vegas gambler cursing the casino after a tough night at the tables and screaming that the literal deck is stacked. The simple solution for the gambler, if the assertion were true, would be to likewise purchase the debt or the stock of the Vegas casino, which are probably publicly traded companies as well, instead of trying their luck at the cards and dice but...

Anyway, good luck. The market is nervous these days for obvious reasons and remember that panicked mkts are always more volatile than bullish or bearish ones...bulls and bears make $, pigs get eaten...
Click to expand...

I happen to be overweight financials (if you can't fight them, join them) but, as demonstrated in 2008, banks will not hesitate to cannibalize each other. So you better bet on the right horse if you don't want to end up looking like a Lehman Brother's investor.
 
Danny said:
I'm fairly comfortable with my holdings and at the moment I'm thinking long term picture. If Bernanke, Geitner and Obama have a Rose Garden Moment with shaky voices I would reconsider.
Click to expand...

Probably too late at that point.

Danny said:
Know too well from experience that it's hard to time ins and outs

Still if you get enough uncertainity thrown at you you start to wonder.

I'm thinking of riding this out. Go to France on Tues for 2 weeks and not think about finance.
What's the thinking on the forum?
Click to expand...

I think you have to go to your guiding principles for your investments or else you will be whipsawed by the news.

My guiding principle at my place in life - retired - is preservation of capital. This is a bit easier to due during the current no/low inflation.. I will be 100% in cash in the summer.
 
Danny said:
I'm fairly comfortable with my holdings and at the moment I'm thinking long term picture. If Bernanke, Geitner and Obama have a Rose Garden Moment with shaky voices I would reconsider.

Know too well from experience that it's hard to time ins and outs

Still if you get enough uncertainity thrown at you you start to wonder.

I'm thinking of riding this out. Go to France on Tues for 2 weeks and not think about finance.


What's the thinking on the forum?
Click to expand...
I have an inee...but I digress.

You feel comfortable with your AA...you are going to France...life is good.

Have a wonderful time. :)
 
GusLevy said:
In many ways this rant is similar to a Vegas gambler cursing the casino after a tough night at the tables and screaming that the literal deck is stacked. .
Click to expand...

Are you comparing the stock market with a casino? Oh, surely not!

Peter
 
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