Usually it is bad luck for me to post, but it won't matter right now, because with my trading style, down and up no longer matters.
I just feel like the economy is improving...
You are not the only one. This is what I have observed recently.
-I noticed there are a ton of new Ferraries, Lambos, E92 M3s popping up lately, a few month ago, even a new car with dealer plate was rare. It is almost unreal.
-Everyone I know that had participated in market, made a killing, my trades are Mickey Mouse compare to a lot of people, even my GF put me to shame.
-Those who lost a lot of paper wealth probably recovered a lot assuming they did not sell at the bottom. Therefore, they feel better.
-Houses in Irvine just started to creep up in price, look at listings, nowhere near as many as a few months ago. Like stocks no one wants to hold onto an asset if it is going down. When price is going up sellers hold off on selling, and buyers start to panic. Greed is extremely powerful.
-I frequent Southcoast Plaza and Fashion Island, I can tell that people are spending more now than what they did a few months ago, it is no longer just people doing window shopping. People actually buy stuff.
-Someone really closed to me work for a big steel distributor, they deal with US.Steel, General Steel, China Precision Steel, etc. They can not keep up with demand, not even close. This was two month prior to the "cash for clunker". Thier customers order cold rolled steels by ton, not by lbs.
ok, let's say we there is another decline, and we do well by selling. Then we reload right?
But lets say we sell, and there is no other decline, and we miss out on the final bull run.
thoughts?
Steven gave you perfect answers. Raymond also gave some good advice.
If you are not an active trader, you are probably better off just buy and hold. Just don't ever buy top and sell bottom. You just need to be in somewhere in between to win.
I will add that watch economic data calendar and trade around it, usually we get data at 5:30am pacific time, even if you just trade the index, you have very good winning percentage.
The mentality of worrying about missing out can be very dangerous. It is hard to explain. At any given moment, you can get back into or out of a trade. There is no such thing as missing out IMO.
Market is making higher highs and higher lows, everytime we get a pull back, it has been getting smaller and smaller each time. I added a lot of positions when S&P 870 held last month. As long as we don't drop below 200 day moving average, I will still go net long bias. I do feel that we really are due for some pull back, been saying that in the past 2 weeks, being wrong, and took a lot of pre-mature profit taking.
In roughly two weeks most of Q2 earning will end and there are not much near term catalyst until Q3. I would be extremely cautious until then and not chase untill I have reason to, but I will load on dips with much more confidence than a few months ago.
I am a hybrid investor/trader, I trade daily. 40% of my portfolio are net long for my future, 40% cash, I allocate 10%~20% for buying stocks just for sake of trading in and out for my lunch money (it can be for as short as 2 minute or I will hold it for as long as 2weeks).
These are some of my trades (realized gain/loss), I picked them randomly, I can pull up trades for any specific date. Each represent 1day, I did have total of 6 red days (realized loss) during last 4 months. Everytime I get rid of a position, I buy back at lower price if I can, if not I move on.
