Re: The Stock Market thread: BUY! BUY! BUY! Sell, sell, sell...
There are an awful lot of people who listen to those morons. I prefer to simply refer to them as touts. They almost always have their own agenda to push. You seem to do what I have done for many years now-your own research. Anytime you do anything in the market it is always with some attendant risk. But being careful and doing your homework not only minimizes that risk-it can help reap considerable rewards. But it takes the effort to do things yourself and i can appreciate those posters on this thread who do exactly that. My expertise is certainly not investing in the stock market-my life was spent almost entirely learning and practicing medicine and surgery. But I spend an incredible amount of time and effort trying to make the best investment decisions I can. Last year was a good market year for almost anyone who invested. Some years are not like that. And anyone who thinks they can predict in January what the upcoming year will bring is just deluding themselves-things just move too fast. January is off to a nice start-let's all hope this continues.
It will continue until about Memorial Day. Then we'll see the slump. One thing that does help, as years progress, is you get to understand market cycles. When do sectors do well? When do they tank? I think I've begun to figure out that October or November is generally the best time to purchase stocks, since they're likely to be on sale. I believe you had mentioned that before.
Sometimes, the morons at CNBC know what they're talking about, but you have to make sure there's no overriding factor. They had some discussion about what generally happens with IPOs. I looked into it, and for some of their examples, as well as examples I could find, it was generally true. Fast forward to when Facebook was ready to make the IPO, and they're talking about how it's the next biggest thing since sliced bread, people are going crazy over this, and the company value to skyrocket. I decided that I'd like to get in this, but follow the previous advice they had given about IPOs a few months back What happened? At least in the first month or two, exactly what they said during the general discussion. I made a 10% profit in the short term. It pays to listen and research when there's no conflict of interest. Obviously past performance doesn't guarantee future results, but you get an idea. One thing that is absolutely true, though, is to put together a game plan based upon this research, and STICK TO IT! In a couple of weeks, I will be ready to sell my position in MKSI. Why? I told myself to play the technology cycle back around August or September and wait about 5-6 months for the value to increase. Although I'm in the black, I'm going to stick to the plan and look to maximise the profit. I may not hit the peak, but anything in the black is good.