(09-29-2021, 09:27 AM)The Real Marty Wrote:

(09-27-2021, 10:18 AM)HURRICANE!!! Wrote: Right on cue as usual -- cruise lines are up ~ 15% since your post.  Reopening stocks (including cruise lines, hotels, and other travel stocks) are on fire.

The big money, Goldman Sachs and the like, know what these companies are worth.  The big money also gets the latest news before we do.   That's why the price is set by the big money.  Any little guy who tries to out-trade the big money is going to lose eventually.  Because eventually, the stock will trade at what the company is actually worth.  That's the whole idea of a stock market.  And if anyone thinks they can assess the value of a publicly traded company better than the big money, they are deluding themselves.  

This is why I don't try to trade stocks.  I try to pick really solid companies, and never sell.  Every now and then I get lucky.  I bought MSFT at about $28.  Today it's about $280.  I didn't sell it when it doubled, or tripled, or quadrupled, or quintupled.   Buy and hold forever really works sometimes.   I've seen too many people sell out prematurely because they were afraid of losing their profit in a stock.  

I've had plenty of failures, too.   One year, I had a trifecta of solid value stocks and all three had CEOs that went to jail and the stock collapsed.  It was Worldcom, Tyco, and something else.  These stocks were highly recommended "value" stocks.  You "couldn't lose money" on those companies, they said.  I owned all three.  Lucky me.  

The only reliable way to really beat the market is to do what Warren Buffet does.  Research, analyze, work work WORK.  Turn over every rock.  Look at and understand every number in every financial statement, every footnote, know their suppliers, know their customers, know the business environment they are in, know the management, know everything.  Because I guarantee you Goldman Sachs knows all that, and that's why they have a much better idea than any of us what these publicly traded businesses are actually worth.   I'm way too lazy for that.  So why try to beat the market when you can match the market with an index fund and do really well, if you are willing to hold on for significant period of time.  It takes no work.  Except having a job and saving up some money, of course.

I'm kind of in between an investor like you and a "day trader/gambler" like some others.  I very seldom buy individual stocks and will ride them for a while, but most of what I do is sectors and ETF's.  I tend to hold for the most part and have been holding through this latest dip.  A few months ago as a "hedge" I got into some energy and financial ETF's.  They tend to do well on a down slide which happened for me.  I also look more at dividends.

I rode Boeing for a while and if I had held it I would have done better than I did, but I got out of it a while back because they don't pay a dividend.  However, I still hold an ETF that is heavily weighted by Boeing so I still reap some of the benefit of it moving steadily up.

I toyed with the idea of taking some profits last week, but didn't.  I'm thinking that I might move into a little more conservative stance rather than an aggressive stance (I am heavy into technology right now).  Between the inflation that is upon us right now and the chaos in Washington with the threat of higher taxes and raising the debt ceiling I do think that the economy is going to slow down much more than it already has.

The bond market right now doesn't necessarily look good to me either.  I would rather be in stocks right now and probably concentrate more on the "safer" sectors such as energy, consumer staples and maybe materials.

---