The Marathon Man

[Bullitt]

Been watching you guys for over a year now, and the insight has been great. It's nice to see a few other fellow gov't employees out there being proactive and taking the lead in a subject all of us here consider so important. Tom, thank you for taking the time to set this whole thing up and thank you to you frequent posters that keep this train rolling.

I'm 27 and self taught in the investing world. I own a few stocks and mutual funds, and each investment has a final goal. My Mutuals and TSP are much longer term plays than my individual stocks but I'd have to consider myself a swing trader; buying on weakness and selling on strength. There are a few technical indicators I like to use, but most of all I have to like the fundamentals of any investment I choose.

I love reading, sports, and fitness. During baseball season, I'm watching whatever game is on. I educate myself daily with the teachings of IBD, the WSJ, Barrons and Smart Money.

My goal is simple.... finish the game with more points than my peers. Looking forward to posting and sharing information with everyone. It's a long season and there's going to be some good and some bad, but I'm going to try to minimize the bad!

[jayhawker]

Welcome Bullitt! Good luck to you. :)

[tsptalk]

Welcome Bullitt! Thanks for joining us. Sounds like you have a good foundation from which to start. We look forward to your input. Good luck!

[Spaf]

Welcome there Bullitt! The gang is all here: buyers, dippers, and hoppers!....:D

[Medic72]

welcome, im still new myself, still learning as well. look forward to reading your input.

[Bullitt]

I still say that the sell off yesterday was more of a technical sell off. Once the S&P hit 1525+ level, things fell apart quickly. The professionals unloaded their shares and locked in profits while rushing to an early start on this holiday weekend. Greenspan's comments were still lurking in people's minds as well. Also, the individual investors either fear taking money into the long weekend or are looking to take in profits.

People who took up short positions during yesterday's sell off quickly covered when the market gapped up. Moving averages are still positive, no need to think this market is heading south as of yet. This market is growing faster than the analysts predicted and now they don't know what to do. Everyone wants to be in this bull rally but missed the last pull back so now they are forced to buy on any significant dip they can find.

[Bullitt]

There is no reason for anyone invested in the US market to lose sleep when it comes to a 401K plan. Yet another fear driven sell off thwarted by the buyers. There probably were alot of folks who got short early on and just got run over right out of the gate causing a sqeeze later on. I overheard someone talking about getting into the ETF symbol 'QID' once China sells off. Haha.

The beauty of the bears is that there is no such thing as a pullback, no matter what they preach. Any weakness in the market and they cheer and high five about how right they were while their friends lose money. Then, when the bulls are buying on weakness, the bears are left on the sidelines trying to find an entry to get short only to get slammed again.

Advance/Decline and other indicators are all secondary to Market Volume. SPX has had rising volume and above average Volume today which confirms the strength of this rally.

Still long and still staying away from the F fund.

[Bullitt]

Once Again.....

The sell off did not come. Forget about China. Americans couldn't even invest in China if they wanted to. At best you can get into FXI, an ETF covering China, or a few stocks. For the most part though it's off limits to foreigners. One of these days that market is going to crash in Enron esque fashion but we won't find out immediately because the communist nation is going to go to any means to cover up the crash.

Moving ahead, this is the 3rd time China has had a selloff in almost as many months. We haven't been affected by any of them. The first one which resulted in a correction to US markets was a great buying opportunity. In the past two, investors all jumped onto what they thought was going to be a great buying opportunity in the US with the China pullback. Turned out everyone had the same idea and it turned into a higher high for the markets both days.

Great days to be long. Bad days to be in the F Fund. F Fund has turned to the downside. Scalpers can make money on the downside, not 401K plans. I do like people in the G Fund though since they will jump in on any weakness in the coming weeks. Contrary to popular belief, this run has nothing in common with the crash of 29 or 2000 bubble. No sense in even comparing the two. I mean, how can anyone sit this run out and not feel like they are missing something?

Still Long in a Short Way

[tsptalk]

Bullitt -

I started a "Bullitt Account Talk" thread for you in the Members Account Talk forum.
http://www.tsptalk.com/mb/showthread.php?t=4481

I also copied your last few posts over there. It's a better place for others to read your thoughts on the market. We'll see you over there.

Thanks!
Tom

[Bullitt]

Cool! Thanks Tom.