Adding Exposure and Pulling Stops
As mentioned previously, in Model Update, Blood in the Streets, and Time to Buy Some Panic, I think we’re closer to an intermediate term bottom than we are to a long term top, and while we can reasonably argue about degrees of “panic,” I certainly think this fits the bill. While players with intraday or days of timeframe can trade the noise, my interpretation of the signal, for someone with weeks and months of time horizon, is that money is made buying here. I’ve currently got money in play based on that thinking. I will bet that your favorite bear bloggers are buying in their “aggressive” managed accounts and selling their puts and getting levered long right now, and telling their paid newletter clients to do the same, despite all their bloviating about the economy and their bragging about “getting it right” on their free blogs directed at the rubes. Think about it.
Some portfolio changes:
I am buying back iShares South Korea (EWY), it stopped out for a profit, no wash needed. Assigning a 5% weight.
I am removing the stops on Energy - Oil Equipment and Services (IEZ) and iPath India (INP).
With those changes, I’ll be about 65% long with beta over 1.00 and dry powder left. If action continues downward, it may stop me out of ATRO, EBIX, or TRXI, but the ETF plays on indices and sectors will stay. I don’t anticipate other changes until next weekend, although a spectacular “crapping out” of the stock market may move me to buy even more and get really levered long.


July 29th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
bill: u should actually take a stand once in awhile…your always waffling :-)
July 30th, 2007 at 12:42 am
Bill,
Dr. Brett has a TraderFeed update out just recently— http://www.traderfeed.blogspot.com/— that isn’t quite as sanguine. That is, his backtesting (done admittedly in a very particular way) shows that selloffs as deep as this don’t always bounce right away but can dip deeper.
Possibly pulling off some of your stops isn’t the best approach.
July 30th, 2007 at 5:52 am
Maybe. What I don’t want is to have a hammer or dragon’s tail whip down and take out the stop before moving the market up.
I like Brett’s work, but I think he trades a shorter timeframe than I’m looking at. If this dips deeper, I may buy more.
July 31st, 2007 at 12:27 am
Bill,
Part of the problem the market has right now is the nearly universally negative responses to EPS reports so far. I saw a lot of gap ups get sold off and then there was continuation selling in the the following days. So there is not the same sense of urgency to rally into Q3 earnings. This should eventually set us up for a positive response to the Q3 earnings and then give us traction through Q4.
My best guess is that we could chop around for a while in August and September. Market could retrace most of the decline then come down to a marginal new low again. My gut feeling at the moment is that the S&P 100 high at 720 will not be breached in the near future but that the market also does not have significant downside. The 10% correction wont happen but I think the S&P could hit bottom about 2.5% lower from here, about 1438.
In the meantime i own CROX and WRLS both bought post earnings.