Greetings! I trust that this finds you well and enjoying life.
It’s hard to determine when the stock market has peaked and it’s time to get out. It is likely even harder to know when the damage is over and it’s opportune to get back in. But making both calls in succession is very uncommon. But it is tempting to attempt to time the market, particularly since we recently entered the sixth year in a bull market and it has been quite some time since we experienced a correction of 10% or better.
It’s fairly easy to get out; to put it bluntly most often what happens is that fear overrides greed. The real challenge occurs at the bottom of the market when the essential and valuable emotion of courage is necessary to initiate the buying process. That’s when you separate the bulls from the boys and the decision gets tricky. Getting out at an acceptable point in the market is easy, all that’s necessary are gains at a level to satisfy that greed emotion I mentioned earlier. But buying back in, that’s where the rubber meets the road because the emotions of greed, fear and courage all collide.
It’s extremely difficult to determine the bottom of the market and even the best often fail. Day in day out the most effective strategy is to determine appropriate asset types to own based on your objectives. Then wait until a reasonable buying opportunity occurs and wait until the cycle completes itself and brings you to a place of acceptable profits which allows you to harvest profits. It’s worth reinforcing from week before last newsletter, that adequate cash reserves and a reliable income plan go a long way in managing emotions and lifestyle if you have a market driven portfolio.
If you have anything at all that you would like information about regarding your retirement, don’t hesitate to call.
Best regards,
Jeff Christian CFP, CRPC