Anybody Buying Yet? Where’s the Bottom?

[NEWHunter]

So, does anyone want to predict where the bottom is?

I’ll take a stab at when. Spring break is starting. There’s a lot of folks, especially college kids that aren’t going to take this thing seriously. They’ll travel all over in the coming weeks, along with many families, and cases in the US will grow exponentially. The end of April, we’ll see the real impact on the US. Markets will sort this out and sometime in the first part of May we’ll hit bottom.

And for the next two months I’ll be wishing I had the balls to sell today.

 

[Irrelevant]

Agree, certainly not solely the reason. I think that part of the problem is that the stats typically measure the average and the economy has become more and more bifurcated into the haves and have nots. The Haves are savers. The Have Nots are spenders. There are a lot more Have Nots so they can tilt the spending data, but the Haves save a lot of the discretionary income. Mostly because there isn't much to spend it on, at least that is required. We see that in the frugality of corporate america. Corporations last big spending push was on the personal computers in the 90's. Ever since they have been on upgrade cycles.

So what happens when all the old people die and the younger generation gets a pile of inheritance early? Hypothetical.

 

[noharleyyet]

So what happens when all the old people die and the younger generation gets a pile of inheritance early? Hypothetical.

A retroactive inheritance tax hike would be my best guess....

 

[SAJ-99]

So what happens when all the old people die and the younger generation gets a pile of inheritance early? Hypothetical.

Someone has to pay off the debt that Boomers racked up over the last 70 years.

 

[Irrelevant]

Debbie downers...

 

[buckbull]

You know, the government post the stats on that kind of stuff so you don't have to make up numbers.

So I looked it up, diesel was over $4 per gallon for 6 months out of the year. Why did you infer that he made up his statement?

U.S. No 2 Diesel Retail Prices (Dollars per Gallon)

 

[Jasher]

There is a lot things I don’t know chit about, so thank you. I will let the EIA know their data is bad.

I believe everything the government tells me. Just like "everyone pays taxes" that's why my wife and I paid nearly $20k in last year and still owed over $2k claiming 0 and married filing at a higher with holding. Then Joe smoe living off the system gets back 10x more than they paid in.

Maybe you can't remember all that stuff. That's what happened to flying j. The bought a ton of oil when the price was really high because it was just going up and up. The prices plunged and pilot bought them out.

If you go by "the average price" in any state they must be going by the average between the two cheapest places in the state because it's never close to that at any stations I see.

 

[SAJ-99]

So I looked it up, diesel was over $4 per gallon for 6 months out of the year. Why did you infer that he made up his statement?

U.S. No 2 Diesel Retail Prices (Dollars per Gallon)

He said “In 2009 it was almost $4.00 a gallon.” It sounded odd. 2008- sure, 2009 - no way unless he was getting cheated. I was mostly joking and figured it was a typo. Our memory of things is often skewed the how we felt during the experience. And 2009 generally sucked, I’m sure especially so if you drove a truck.
Back to the data, Are you and I reading the same chart? None of those 2009 numbers are over $3 much less $4. They post those numbers weekly and for various regions. There may have been an outage at a refinery in a specific region that I don’t remember but $4 seems like a stretch.

Getting 4 numbers in Mega Millions ain’t “almost” winning the lottery.

 

[RobG]

Studies show it is not the strongest investment strategy on pure numbers, but it tends to encourage more consistent and larger saving over time while reducing the risk of an average investor chasing market swings that rarely end well for the lay investor.

What is the strongest investment strategy?

 

[jeremys4]

Toilet paper, mask and hand sanitizer of course it’s up high and nearly impossible to find but it’s the new gold.

 

[Jasher]

He said “In 2009 it was almost $4.00 a gallon.” It sounded odd. 2008- sure, 2009 - no way unless he was getting cheated. I was mostly joking and figured it was a typo. Our memory of things is often skewed the how we felt during the experience. And 2009 generally sucked, I’m sure especially so if you drove a truck.
Back to the data, Are you and I reading the same chart? None of those 2009 numbers are over $3 much less $4. They post those numbers weekly and for various regions. There may have been an outage at a refinery in a specific region that I don’t remember but $4 seems like a stretch.

Getting 4 numbers in Mega Millions ain’t “almost” winning the lottery.

My whole point of the post was I don't care how much money the oil companies are loosing. I was also going off my memory so what if I was 6 months off. Most people couldn't tell you what they ate for lunch 3 Tuesdays ago. So if I can remember the price of diesel fuel 12 years ago and 17 years ago within a few months I say I'm doing pretty damn good.

 

[Tradewind]

Both the virus and the Saudi/Russia issue have taken its toll. The virus fear will, at some point pass, and I for one am not upset with the oil prices being down and the Saudi/Russian issue will be interesting to watch but doubt it will create a long term effect.

Have not bought or sold any blue chip stocks but did first thing this morning request that my son sell some puts. Provides a bit of income now and if the stock gets put to us, they are stocks we are willing to own, bought at a price below todays opening.

But who knows, I could be wrong and it will not be the first time.

All the best to each of you, regardless of your "trading" strategy

 

[Tradewind]

As an aside, I felt just like @wllm1313 when I posted those big statistical charts

---

 

[Tradewind]

What is the strongest investment strategy?

take the middle out oif the bell curve. It isn't sexy, but you'll do fine

 

[jryoung]

 

[VikingsGuy]

What is the strongest investment strategy?

Buy low, sell high - haha

For long term net gains an appropriate risk-balanced mix of low load funds has been shown in numerous fancy ivy league studies to out perform the "stock pickers". Continuous automatic investing is the best technique for the average person to build the amounts in those funds. i.e., $500 every month into a set of vanguard funds over 10 years.

This is different than "dollar cost averaging", and it is possible the person on the original comment and I are using the term differently. Technically, dollar cost averaging asks the question, if I have $10,000 today is it better to invest it all today or better to spread it over $1,000 investments made each month for ten months. The theory was you would average out the highs and lows and avoid making that one time buy decision on the worst day. But as markets rise over time the math shows that more often than not making the one time bet sooner is better than the spread bet. Of course hindsight can pick moments where it would have helped, but not knowing the future, statistically you are better off putting what you can into the market as soon as you can.

 

[RobG]

Buy low, sell high - haha

For long term net gains an appropriate risk-balanced mix of low load funds has been shown in numerous fancy ivy league studies to out perform the "stock pickers". Continuous automatic investing is the best technique for the average person to build the amounts in those funds. i.e., $500 every month into a set of vanguard funds over 10 years.

This is different than "dollar cost averaging", and it is possible the person on the original comment and I are using the term differently. Technically, dollar cost averaging asks the question, if I have $10,000 today is it better to invest it all today or better to spread it over $1,000 investments made each month for ten months. The theory was you would average out the highs and lows and avoid making that one time buy decision on the worst day. But as markets rise over time the math shows that more often than not making the one time bet sooner is better than the spread bet. Of course hindsight can pick moments where it would have helped, but not knowing the future, statistically you are better off putting what you can into the market as soon as you can.

Oh, ok. I agree, getting it in the market sooner is better than spreading it out. Most of the time I've heard DCA describe as regular automatic investments like your first description, but also spreading out risk instead of making rash decisions to move large amounts of money. When the world looked like it was going to end in 2009 Bogle was recommending moving some money into the market every month or so instead of making huge bets.

I'm guessing you would agree that if you have been sitting on a bunch of cash more than a year waiting for a dip like this to "buy cheap" you'd have lost money as the price level has just dropped to what it was nine months ago. The next few months ought to tell us if this is a blip about a virus or the people fleeing an overvalued market.

 

[SAJ-99]

My whole point of the post was I don't care how much money the oil companies are loosing. I was also going off my memory so what if I was 6 months off. Most people couldn't tell you what they ate for lunch 3 Tuesdays ago. So if I can remember the price of diesel fuel 12 years ago and 17 years ago within a few months I say I'm doing pretty damn good.

No worries. My original comment didn't come across well, so I apologize for that.
On a more positive note, I will remove this from the list of "Things I don't know Chit about".

 

[RobG]

The next few months ought to tell us if this is a blip about a virus or the people fleeing an overvalued market.

or it be the Chuck Norris effect. https://apple.news/A28j_eQPZTu-xq3Ti5lRf8g

 

[SAJ-99]

When the world looked like it was going to end in 2009 Bogle was recommending moving some money into the market every month or so instead of making huge bets.

Investing is mostly about minimizing your regret. There probably isn't much long term difference in investing all at once or smaller bites at regular intervals. You just hope you don't top tick the market with that lump sum investment and then have to wait a year or so to get your money back. There are some extreme examples, like you buy the Nasdaq QQQ's in March 2000 and have to wait 15 years to get back to break even (not including dividends). Or worse, you invested in the Japan Nikkei in 1989 and are still waiting to get your money back. Most professional investors will always tell you to invest because 1) over the long term it has shown to be a good strategy and 2) they make more money if you invest. The same people that said you should buy in December are telling you to buy today.