From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Wed Jun 11 2003 - 13:01:32 MDT
From: "Hal Finney" <hal@finney.org>
> According to the efficient market theory, there are really no such things
> as bull and bear markets. They are optical illusions.
Illussion schmillusion. Even on the most bleeding-red-market day, there are
always stocks that are jumping on good news with investors lined up to buy.
And even on a bulliest of a market day, there are some stocks that are
dropping like flies on bad news with investors selling and bailing.
But when I see most of my positions on Streamer with cute little minus signs
and the DJIA and NASDAQ and S&P 500 all in red font, it's not an illusion -
it's a sucky stock day!
As for the ability to make money in whatever market, for those investors and
traders who short (which helps liquidity), they can make money even in a
"bear" market when stocks are plummeting. And traditional investors tend to
lose money if they're just holding stocks when the market is in a downslide.
> That is, it is impossible at any time to predict whether the market
> is going to rise or fall. You can't say "we are in the middle of a
> bull/bear market and therefore the market is more likely than not to
> rise/fall in the next few months."
... you're right, any more than you can say that a particular stock won't
rise or fall on a particular day. And, yet ... during the dot.com salad
days, one could throw darts at the Wall Street Journal to pick stocks and
still make money.
> You can only recognize bull and bear markets retroactively.
... yes, but ... read the last sentence in my previous paragraph. I don't
know about you, but when my stocks were making tens of thousands of dollars
a month every month for a while - I was suspecting (strongly) that we were
in a bull market (somewhat).
> When you see
> a time when prices tended to rise, you call that a bull market. When you
> see a time where prices tended to fall, you call that a bear market.
> When prices didn't have much of a trend, you'll say that was neither.
When prices don't have much of a trend, it's a "flat" market, yes.
> So it doesn't make sense to say, buy stocks during a bull market and sell
> during a bear market. That's because it is impossible at any time to say
> what the future course of stock prices will be. All you can do is look
> back, and with the wisdom of hindsight, say that you should have bought
> here and sold there. But that's not a way to make future decisions.
It makes general sense to lock in profits during a bull market. Don't worry
about selling and then seeing a stock go up, just take profits. It often
makes more sense to sell in a bull market (or bullish phase of it), and buy
at or near the bottom of the bear market (or bearish phase of it), not the
other way around. It's the opposite of what many people tend to do. And,
by studying the stock market, it is easier to make educated guesses. There
are lots of guides out there to help you - the Internet has brought Wall
Street into your kitchen, bedroom or living room.
> These observations are based both on theory and practice. I studied
> some of the academic literature several years ago, and statistically
> they found virtually no correlation between past price changes and future
> price changes.
Not certain what you mean. I personally won't be persuaded or dissuaded
trying to make sense of statistics and correlations. Playing the market is
a skill, and not for the timid. But its permutations are not difficult to
grasp (and sometimes only after losing a bit of money, but then any good
education can be expensive).
Olga
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