Thread: Market Talk

The Pullback took the early rounds this morning but the constant jabs by Thanksgiving week'sseasonality strengthare starting to wear down The Pullback. A nice reversal so far today.

Namor's has his horse racing analogy. I thought I'd throw in some boxing.

tsptalk wrote:

Namor's has his horse racing analogy. I thought I'd throw in some boxing.

Actually, boxing with the wiggles was my original metaphor for battling the five funds. I will return to that analogy (plus maybe some craps and blackjack)after next week's stakes races are completed.

Thank you for your comments.

Sure didn't look so good starting out this morning, but it turned around nicely.

Tom, have you discerned a support level yet or does it take more time? Things seem modestly bullish still.

My thought is that the main driver at the moment is oil. If it drops back down again, I would expectthe market to move up some more. Otherwise, the market mayget tempermental.

No real answer on the support yet even though the index was up nicely. Since the S&P 500 made a lower low and a lower high, we are still technicallyin a downtrend. The low was just under 1168 Monday so we haven't hit any of the support levels I talked about yet (1163, 1150 1140). I started to look for technical reasons why 1168 would act as support and I was able to find one weak trendline (in purple) that may be the answer. If that holds, wouldn't itbe a nice surprise?! If the pullback insists on continuing, it may justfloat in between that purple line and the 1185 area through the end of this week, thencome down. That's "If" the pullback needs more time.


Chart provided courtesy of http://www.decisionpoint.com

Hi Tom,Help me to try to understand something I'm notice. I observe some members moving about from one fund to another without really riding on one for too long. Many times between movements they place in G fund. Now if one is stuck in the G fund on a good day for stocks ( I know you always recommend 50/50) and misses out, especially in an up trend. When they choose to re-enter the market they'll be paying a higher price per-share those reducing the share court which would bring in less money. Now I see this done regularly. You told me the name of the game is to make money, but now the member is paying more to play bypaying more per share and getting slightly less back because of less shares. Or is that less important as long as some money is made. I missed out on the last back to back ralley, so I went ahead and re-entered the stock funds. It cost me about 200 shares which turned out to be a big deal after seeing what little gains I received today after a nice ralley in the market. How do I get some shares back?At what point does the other member try to increase shares. Also,on election day, you were 50/50. So you missed out of half the ralley increase. When you re-enter 100% the next day,50% had to pay more per share.How do you try to make up for that lost opportunity down the road?Thanks

Hey v-man,

Spell check is not working so I'm not going back to check. Sorry.

Most of us are not pro's at market timing. Some times I/we move to the G to find safe haven when we "think" the market is going to correct itself or react to bad news or economic reports. Some times I/we go partal in G if odds are not so favorable. Some times go G fullyif I am "chicken" or unsure of my thought process. Your right if you want to make money you have to be invested in stocks when there going up. Wish I could go back in time and change some of my decisions but you take the good with the bad and learn from the bad. If the markets going up and you are sitting in the G and never pull the trigger on getting back in the stock funds thats bad. Buying a stock higher is OK if the stock keeps going up. If you stay in the stock fund and the market is going down that's worse. It's a personal decision base on how much risk and "Pepto" you can take. In the last 2 months I am learning about the technical aspect of the market and am finding it is very time consuming and you must watch everything that go's on. One thing you can't antisipate is when things like what Greenspan did on Friday. I got LUCKY! I had decided to get back into stock anyway to catch the Thanksgiving bump and Greenspan shot off his mouth and sent the market south. Like Tom said we were due a correction but we may not have had one until after Thanksgiving. I think Greenspan gave the market the push it need to reevaluate things.

It's not about shares it's percet of return you are after. I never look at how many shares I have just what my gain/loss is. I hope for gain. Someone else might have more experianced inputs. Good luck.

Timing enables you to lock in gains. Buy-and-hold simply puts your entire stash on the hook at all times. This is good for the time being, since we have entered a bull market. However, when things turn downward, it can take many years to earn back your losses. People who were fully invested in 2000-02 and ate those losses are just now getting back to even. A timer would have bought and sold on the smaller movements within the bear market, rather than having everything in the market the entire time. S/he may still have lost money, but it probably wouldn't have been nearly as much as a holder (see Tom's returns for that period for evidence of this).

I was in buy-and-hold mode this summer and paid dearly for it as the market cycled downward from July on. I then changed tactics in September and made money. So I guess the lesson here is to adapt.

Show-me wrote:

It's not about shares it's percet of return you are after. I never look at how many shares I have just what my gain/loss is. I hope for gain.

Exactly!

For example, if you bought 100 shares of stock at $45 a share for a total of $4500, and it goes to $48 a share before you sell ($4800), you made $300 ($4800 - $4500). The stock looks good and continues up to$50 a share so you decide to buy it back but you can only afford 96 shares now ($4800/50 = 96). The stock then goes to $60 by years end.

You now have 96 shares at $60 a share = $5760. A gain of $1260 or 28%. But you lost 4 shares.

Get the picture? If you waited to get those 4 shares back you'd still be sitting with your $4800. If things look good , get in when you can. Who cares about how many shares you have? It's about making gains with the moneyyou have. That's where the market is today, waiting to pick upshares could cost you.

But when I get out of stocks and get into the G fund whenI think we are due for a pullback, it is because I am trying to avoid losses. If the market does pullback and I get back in stocks, I will have picked up shares, but I look atas avoiding a loss rather than gaining shares. Think percentage gains and losses and forget about the shares you have. It's all about the return on your account balance.

Hope that helps.
Tom

Tom , I need some help.I looked at my account balance for today and it shows 7185.6645 shares missing. That caused a big difference in what I received today after a great ralley compared to before. Has this ever happen before to any member?I traced it back to 11/4 req. transfer from S fund to 50 g, 20 c and 30 s for 11/5. Should not have been a problem. That's quite abit of shares to loose for one transfer. What do you think? I'll give TSP a call tomorrow. Maybe other members should check out there share count. My bad,it took me a week to notice it. I guess that's what got me asking about shares.Thanks Tom & Show me

Common sense tell me that ...


I'll prefer to have more money than share
not more share and less money :^

But now by the other way here is may question...?

If u have more share then if the market go up u will gain more
than the other who has less share ? :?

Now a get confuse here

I just want to be shure ,what will be best ?[share or money]

" Look like money to me ":?

what I figure out is...

In short term you will have more money but
in long term the one who has more share will CATH-UP or
be even wich the one who has more money ...:shock:,"If the market go up".

I Need more opinion,

This is importan stuff to know...:^