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TSIF (99.96)

Perma-BULLS and Perma-BEARS both need to stop gourging on the green shoots.....

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September 12, 2009 – Comments (11) | RELATED TICKERS: SH , EL , TER

There are some perma-bears here on CAPS that give good advice, advice to be conservative, cautious, and alert.

There are some perma-bulls here on CAPs that give good advice, advice to be conservative, cautious, and alert.

It seems that the market since March 9th is a creature of it's own. 

There are days when all the bad news in the world, (factory orders, deficits, unemployment, consumer confidence,etc) will not, and cannot get the market to go down!

There are other times where the nerves seem to be on edge and any good news (factory orders, improved deficits, lack of inflation, great consumer confidence, good earnings, etc) will not, and cannot get the market to go up!

The average bears, not the hard core perma-bears don't want to miss a rally, many missed the 15-30% increase we've had since March 9th. Any drop in the markets, (small corrections) and some, despite themselves, are buying.

The bulls don't want to charge through a fence and get left hanging up on the Dow/Nasdaq/S&P all alone, high and dry, and look down and see that they are bag holders.

Both the bulls and the bears, in thier own way, eat the green shoots when they get nervous. Either nervous they are missing out, or nervous they overshot. After a few days, things move along again until the next cycle.

Unfortunately, there are some Perma Bears and Perma Bulls who give some not so good advice. 

If you really want to listen to the Perma Bears who are in perpetual hibernation, lock your money in a mattress, move to Canada, get a bomb shelter, buy a gun, and basically live in fear and gloom while the market moves ahead without you, then why are you on the boards here?  We can't convince you you're wrong. Heck, you might be right.  You can't convince us you're right, we think you're wrong.  In the short run, we're banking on it. 

If you want to listen to the Perma Bulls who are partying with every market movement upward, then jump in with everything you have, but don't come back here and complain if you jumped in during a correction, or if you jumped into the wrong sectors, or if the Perma Bears were right and the world ends.

There is a balance, it's called investing.  We forgot what investing means.  It means researching, looking for the undervalued, the stable growth companies. It means dollar costing in and diversifying.

My question is why are you here on CAPS?  If you're a doom and gloom Perma-bear peddling your wares then the only thing you could be looking for here is attention. If you're doom and gloom and here on CAPs reading and supporting the posting doom and gloom perma-Bears Blogs, I have no idea why you are here. You should be oiling your gun and rotating the expiration dates on your C-rations. At any rate, you ain't convincing anyone here of anything, and you're not here learning and sharing about investing.  Basically, you're in the wrong place.  Advice NOT to invest, ain't very interesting investing advice.

Some day, perhaps, those who are pure Perma-Bears will either be in their bomb shelter, smiling and reflecting as they pop open a C-ration how right they were. But I doubt it. If I thought so, I'd be somewhere else and not here.  The pure Perma-Bears that are full of doom and gloom are occasionally depressing, but mostly I just feel sorry for them.  I look at my brokerage account and see a nice gain since March. I enjoy life.  If things get as bad as the Perma-Bears think then I'll have a few exta coins to buy my emergency supplies.  Maybe I'll be too late, but if things get that bad then I hope the Perma Bears in their bomb shelters bought lots of ammo and learned how to use those guns!

There will be a time when those who use to invest, but turned trader to survive, can put away their tools and rest on their labors. They will be bored, skittish, and the trading fever will hit them once inawhile.  They will use their new "trading" skills to find even better investments, and perhaps just use the trading skills occasionally to take a few free coins from an untrained over bullish trader.  Life will be good.

While the market either falls completely apart as the Perma-Bears predict, or while the market seeks it's stability and trading range, I just wish, oh how I wish, that the Bears and the Bulls would stop eating those green shoots.  The munching is interupting my nap! 

TSIF,  The Sky is NOT Falling (at least not today), but it does look like rain.

 

11 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On September 12, 2009 at 10:16 PM, russiangambit (29.90) wrote:

So, basically you are for the status quo. You think things are OK and you don't see a need to change and don't want to change.

I think the status quo is getting harder and harder to maintain and we need to change because I, for one, don't want to spend the rest my life in the bunker checking my ration supplies.

We have enourmous level of rsik in the system currently, which has to be accounted for when investing longer term.

As for trading, puts are very cheap right now, that will allow the bulls to hold their position at least through October barring any unforeseen shocks.

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#2) On September 13, 2009 at 1:35 AM, motleyanimal (97.54) wrote:

Good thoughts on what is mostly a rhetorical battle between bulls and bears.

I like a market that allows me to buy investment grade municipals yielding 7%. I like buying NG producers who are hedged at $6.00.

I don't like REITs or HMOs. Retailers scare me, but I've been wrong all year on that sector.

I'm cautiously managing my money, not making any big bets, but not leaving the game either.

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#3) On September 13, 2009 at 3:03 AM, awallejr (80.08) wrote:

One Jim Cramer comment I agree with is that there is ALWAYS a bull market somewhere.  Even if there is a bear market, somewhere there is a potential market to make money off it. 

That is my goal.  Pure and simple. I want to make money.  There. I said it.  Yes, I WANT TO MAKE MONEY. So I come here for ideas.  But if it becomes nothing more than a soapbox then it is a waste of time.

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#4) On September 13, 2009 at 3:18 AM, prose976 (< 20) wrote:

I agree with you completely.  That's why I'm doing just that... providing real world ideas that I apply to my real world, real money brokerage account.

Please visit my Fool blog to see what I'm doing.  Ultimately, you're the judge of whether or not you see any value in what I'm doing and whether or not you want to use any part of it to apply to your own methods.

http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=252328&t=01001882548745899321

If you've already been there, share it with others, get the word out about it.  As far as I can tell, I'm the only one at the Fool who is really putting it on the line and providing the actual transactional data for other Fools to record and follow.

Fool on!

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#5) On September 13, 2009 at 4:35 AM, portefeuille (99.78) wrote:

... , many missed the 15-30% increase we've had since March 9th.

It is rather difficult do find an equity index that has risen by less than 50% since 03/09/09.

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#6) On September 13, 2009 at 8:20 AM, TSIF (99.96) wrote:

#5  Yes Port, I was being ultra conservative in my numbers. I think some of us are up well more than that.   If you mix numbers into a "debate" then they get all of the attention and not the topic!!!   (Also, I didn't want to depress the perma-bears too much!  shhhhhss!)

#1  No Russian, the world/investing has problems. They need solved.  But that won't stop me from trading until the market stabilizes and mostly investing after it does.  Like the Tech boom of 1999 and the insane rally that peaked in October of 2007, we were floating too high.  That doesn't mean that I'm going to stop investing or that I think the world will end. We stumble. Unlike the Webbles that wobble, but don't fall down, we do fall down. We get back up, dust off and try it again. I'm a wiser investor. I might get burnt again. I might be too early, but I believe in trying. If not, what am I doing on an investing board????

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#7) On September 13, 2009 at 8:27 AM, TSIF (99.96) wrote:

#2 Good summary Motley. You have the gift of packing a lot into a little. Brevity iss a skill that I lack!

#3 Awallejr,  shift through it and be patient. It does seem unnecessary to have to shif through so much chaff to get to the wheat, but the wheat is there mixed in.  Hopefully it will be easier soon.  Or that's how I see it on my anti-soapbox soapbox!  :)

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#8) On September 13, 2009 at 9:36 AM, kaskoosek (97.84) wrote:

TSIF

Real perma bears have made 70% gains year by buying silver bullion and precious metals. They have not been proven wrong in my opinion.

The best performing asset class since the onset of the financial crisis has been precious metals for a reason. 

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#9) On September 13, 2009 at 10:02 AM, TSIF (99.96) wrote:

Kask, I'm extremely happy with permabears who are investing in precious metals. Any investing at all.  I'll have to reevaluate my definition of permabears, but as I said some give very good advice.   My reference is mostly to the abitare's type permabears or the "exaggerated" alstry type permabears.  Those who do no investing at all. Perhaps I err in calling them permabears.   I believe precious metals are an important part of everyone's diversified portfolio.  The miners in particular were way undervalued the last year. 

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#10) On October 05, 2009 at 4:11 PM, Mary953 (40.07) wrote:

TSIF - I am just now finding this most excellent blog.  You are actually tied to one of the stocks by this blog. Thank you for you comments. 

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#11) On October 05, 2009 at 5:22 PM, stan8331 (96.17) wrote:

Excellent post - I have a feeling many folks are thinking along similar lines.   :-)

Regarding investing exclusively in precious metals, I would say that a strategy involving long-term investment in only precious metals is essentially dependent on a doomsday scenario unfolding.  If gold, over the long-term, outperforms the stocks of well-run companies who produce things that have some useful purpose - if sitting on a stack of gold bars is a better use of money than designing and building an iPhone - then we may as well open the bunker, load up the rifles and start munching on the C-rations. 

However, Perma Bulls have no more useful advice to offer than the Perma Bears.  They gleefully forget the most basic tenet of investing - that past performance does not guarantee future returns.  The odds of a perpetually problem-free existence are even lower than those of an apocalypse. 

If either a Perma Bull or Perma Bear scenario were to actually unfold, this site would become irrelevant.  There's nothing that can be done, investing-wise, to make the end of civilization an attractive eventuality.  And if the market goes straight up and never comes down, it doesn't really matter much what specific companies you choose to invest in because everyone gets rich.    

TMF exists for the rest of us, who anticipate neither the apocalypse or nirvana but who do believe that despite our many daunting problems, the market will continue to rise, as it always has, over an extended period of time.  

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