mysoftballcoach (90.58)

Is It Harder to Stay IN, or Harder to Stay OUT

October 15, 2008 – Comments (2) | RELATED TICKERS: GOOG , AAPL , SUG

This is the question I keep asking myself.  Should I stay in the market after these unprecedented losses, or do I add to my positions?  Hey, I've got a FOOL rank of about 86%, but that doesn't make watching my portfolio decline day after day any easier.  Or is this exactly the time to be investing?

Buffett has been a buyer.  But then again, Buffett has Billions so it's pretty easy for him to wait out another 18 to 36 months.

I see incredible value in Google, Apple, some natural gas stocks like SUG, TRP, and SRE.  Insurance companies appear to be completely oversold, like UVE, MKL, and Y.  Some of the Bank stocks look like great buys like BAC and WFC, unless of course they are going to be writing off bad debt for several years.

But while we've gone through the oil demand destruction, it now appears we are going through ASSET destruction.  So what will these balance sheets look like 2 years from now.

Two weeks ago, I felt like I would be an opportunist and seize the opportunity to buy some of these stocks at historically low levels.  Yet, as I look at each one individually, I can't convince myself to pull the trigger.

I also understand that our timeline should be 5, 10, or 20 years.  However, if the economy heads into a prolonged recession, a depression, or prolonged stagflation, I'm not so sure the better option isn't to wait for even better buying opportunities.

Aaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Coach