Needless to say, it has been a very ugly market this week and looking at the technical charts alone (never mind those pesky fundamentals...!) suggests that we're headed lower still. Now the talk on Wall Street is that this is just a very healthy correction in an overall equities environment that has risen more than 20% in 2013. We can't go on like this forever, they reason, so buy these opportunities while you can. Well, the Street is right on one thing...
You always have to be careful whenever an "incentivized person" offers you advice, whether that be financial in nature or something far more mundane. The investment sector is rife with what I would call "legal conflicts of interest." Whenever someone has something to gain by directing you towards a specific opportunity (ie. a commission on sales of company stock), that person's advice has to be taken with a huge grain of salt. You're not going to get an honest appraisal of a BMW at a Mercedes Benz dealership, so why would anybody trust the Street's assessment that now is a buying opportunity? Of course they would say that : their livelihoods depend on you constantly churning the equity machinery!
I understand the perception that the elite scoops up discounts when "there's blood on the streets." Especially with the rise of the internet and the proliferation of ideas (many of them conspiratorial or downright insane), being an investing contrarian is considered to be the "in" thing to do. Unfortunately, what people don't realize is that the elitist blood buyers wait for the perfect opportunity, since scooping up a discount now will be rather moot if prices continue to erode substantially later.
What I would stress as a "long-termist" is to wait. Though there may be a pop up in the domestic equities, this would only be a day trade, not a position trade. Caution is king during these upheavals, and until those aforementioned fundamentals improve on a irrefutably substantive basis, there's no need to engage in wild gun-slinging here.
Better to avoid being a hero for a day and save for a more permanent legacy.
You always have to be careful whenever an "incentivized person" offers you advice, whether that be financial in nature or something far more mundane. The investment sector is rife with what I would call "legal conflicts of interest." Whenever someone has something to gain by directing you towards a specific opportunity (ie. a commission on sales of company stock), that person's advice has to be taken with a huge grain of salt. You're not going to get an honest appraisal of a BMW at a Mercedes Benz dealership, so why would anybody trust the Street's assessment that now is a buying opportunity? Of course they would say that : their livelihoods depend on you constantly churning the equity machinery!
I understand the perception that the elite scoops up discounts when "there's blood on the streets." Especially with the rise of the internet and the proliferation of ideas (many of them conspiratorial or downright insane), being an investing contrarian is considered to be the "in" thing to do. Unfortunately, what people don't realize is that the elitist blood buyers wait for the perfect opportunity, since scooping up a discount now will be rather moot if prices continue to erode substantially later.
What I would stress as a "long-termist" is to wait. Though there may be a pop up in the domestic equities, this would only be a day trade, not a position trade. Caution is king during these upheavals, and until those aforementioned fundamentals improve on a irrefutably substantive basis, there's no need to engage in wild gun-slinging here.
Better to avoid being a hero for a day and save for a more permanent legacy.
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