Another Market Down Day .. Are you buying or selling ?

[stepford]

As the market was dropping I was wishing I had sold. As the market now recovers I'm wishing I had bought. In neither case do I really expect to do anything. I've proved to myself through painful experience that I can't time markets so I just don't try anymore.

 

[Free bird]

Another quick & dirty 10% correction is over for stocks. New all time highs next month. Santa rally is starting. Like everything its earlier every year.

 

[joel2125]

With respect to tech I am an active buyer of Paypal, Facebook, Mastercard. I have enough Apple. So I look forward to bad news, pictures of traders in distress etc. Total market index....not enough of a correction. Rebalanced AA in September by giving individual shares a haircut and allocating to short term bond index. All 401k. Plan 75/25 AA forever. Take a whacking with everyone else, never in and out, just a nibbler on the road kills.

 

[NW-Bound]

Gotta love the financial headlines from the last few days:

The bull market is over
...the next day
Dow soars, this bull market isn't over yet
...repeat

Greed and fear alternate. Never fails. The only unknown is how long each stage lasts.

Another quick & dirty 10% correction is over for stocks. New all time highs next month. Santa rally is starting. Like everything its earlier every year.

Eh, not so fast. Are we really out of the wood?

The S&P closed at 2931 a bit more than 1 month ago. It is at 2736 at this writing. Still another 6.7% to go to get back to where it was.

I am starting to write covered calls. Just wrote 2 contracts for $700 premium, expiry Nov 16. Strike prices higher than the present, but still a lot lower than the shares used to be.

I would be very much surprised if the market can reclaim its previous high. But if it does, will I complain? I just don't plan on it.

 

[NW-Bound]

I sold 3 more contracts on various holdings. Strike prices are around 5% higher than the share prices when I sold, expiry Nov 16.

That's $1250 in option premium total for 5 contracts, minus $15.15 for the fees. If the stocks do not climb more than 5% in 12 more trading days, that's the cash I keep. If the stocks climb even higher than 5% and I have to sell them at a mere 5% higher, I will not complain.

May do more tomorrow, if some holdings surge up. It has been around $10K/month that I collect doing this, for the last 2 years since I decided to get more active. These are my "extra" stock dividends.

 

[Free bird]

GM & Facebook lead rally. I wouldn't hang my hat on either of those companies.

 

[Timeisprecious]

Holding out (kinda have to)

Well, the timing is certainly interesting. I just moved holdings in my traditional IRA from "preservation mode" to "moderate growth mode" to hedge more against inflation, and a few days later the "correction" hit. I'm glad that in the last couple days it's appeared like it may be heading back up.