Stocks that head south get sold. I still have one in my portfolio; SDRL. Sold RIG after it dropped about 10%. Sold about 80% of the holding at a loss. Took most of my losses in the 80s when I still listened to brokers, analysts, and experts. I also invested in Fidelity Select Sector mutual funds which invested in sectors like the ETFs you mention. Did good in Electronics and Energy Service for a while, but didn't find sectors all that lucrative over time. Moved away from Mutual Funds in general; other than in 401Ks. I can understand one company. I can't understand 50 within a sector. I follow about 15 company metrics, but don't make purchases based on those metrics. I'm a momentum player. Find a solid company (best in class, or close)with a future and a dividend. Buy a little. Buy more as the share price reacts over time.

I generally stay away from Tech, Retail, and Biotech. Not interested in IPOs or foreign companies. I don't generally put my eggs in one basket, but don't diversify on purpose, and don't re-balance a portfolio just to stay diversified. (It never made any sense to me to bet on four horses to win in a ten horse field.) I do end-up with some interesting pairs some times. I'm holding DD and DOW, CSCO and INTC, MRK and PFE, T and VZ.

I'll add a new stock about every three to five years, and sell-out a position less often than that.

The key to making money in the market is to avoid brokers and financial advisors. They don't have ideas any better than my own, and are about as beneficial as a tick.

I found this to be a good view of investing, although I don't like Ackman.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/...-know-155511692.html

What he says are PROs for Mutual Funds, I consider CONs.

I would also delete what he has to say about A Good Money Manager. You will never be able to prove the six points he mentions. The Money Manager will tell you what he thinks you want to hear.

One thing he does say that peaks my interest is his comment about Benjamin Graham's book, "The Intelligent Investor" changing his life dramatically. Benjamin Graham is also the guy that Warren Buffet said had the most impact on his life as well. I don't buy financial "How To" books, but this one keeps coming up. If anyone's read it, I would like to hear what they thought.

Good investing in a way, is simply "brain training". I can't explain it well, but if you play video games, or solve puzzles like Sudoku or Free Cell for instance you originally aren't very good or can't get to a very advanced level. Over time, with practice and study your brain seems to recognize patterns or opportunities that lead to success. (You seem to be able to do this with your brain on auto-pilot.)

In investing, your mistakes (losses) help "train" your brain, as do your successes. You stop making emotional, knee jerk, impulsive decisions. Your brain seems to recognize successful patterns and opportunities, and you make fewer mistakes.

What you don't have to be is a financial genius, or study Balance Sheets, listen to earnings calls, have a "trading platform", watch Mad Money with Jim Cramer, etc., etc. Mostly all that is background noise. Eliminate as much of that as possible, and trust your own instincts a little more. That is my basic trading philosophy.

Going to be a very interesting open for the market this morning. Maybe a buying opportunity. Maybe a little too early. Regardless, it will be a wild ride.

Patience grasshopper.

There will be some excellent buying opportunities as the fundamentals of our market have not changed.

Volume was tough (hi) this morning. flatened out a bit now.

Picking up oils. Still looking at more. Online trading affected by volume I think. One order I placed failed. Another indicated funds unavailable, then triggered after a re-boot. Reminded me a little of 1987.

That day though, you needed to get hold of your broker by phone, or go to their office in person. Neither option worked due to panic selling. A friend got within a half a block of his broker's office in Midland, but never got in the door.

When the shit has already hit the fan, it is not the time to sell. Hunker-down and ride it out.

If you bought your stocks on margin, kiss your ass goodbye might be the best advice.

Today killed a lot of margin buyers.

Hell any levered gross book long single names and short indexes would have gotten taken out.

I am so glad i own 2 names right now and both to off the radar screen and both cannot be margined.

Today was not like 2010, 2008-2009, 2002 but like 1987.

Airlines down 30, goog amzn fb aapl down 20, autos down 20-25 the list goes on.

Nice bounce back but levered guys got taken out.

Scary - today will give me nightmares. Could have been me - luckily was not me. Still nightmare time.

I also got in my truck and drove around from 9:20 to 10:30 so i would not watch the nightmare in live action.

Mike

The past few days are a good reminder that playing the stock market has its dark side. We have been lured into believing that corrections do not happen any more.

A lot of new investors just got that little reminder. Most of us older guys have a loooong memory - some of them painful.

Some talking-heads are trying to call this a "flash-crash" now. I disagree. What happened Friday (down 500), fear about China reports over the weekend, futures today rapidly escalating to almost a negative 900 on the DOW. That doesn't spell "flash-crash". If you panicked and guessed wrong, you just guessed wrong. I don't think anyone is going to get to unwind their trades.

The money-managers that took vacation and went to the beach, only to find their stop-losses triggered them out of their (customers')positions are probably swallowing the end of their shotguns right about now.

Stop loss left for anything more than a single trading day is crazy and bluntly stupid.

Why show your cards to every algo out there ?

Today was a bad day - may not end that way but it was a very bad day.

Not healthy when AAPL trades from 92 to 108.80.

Mike

The fundamentals are no different today than they were two weeks ago. This is panic selling. It's not like China buys our crap anyhow so their cooling economy only means that they may not buy as much of our debt as they did a few months ago.

I don't think the fundamentals support the current valuations and a correction is long overdue. I just hope this is all of it.

I believe by the end of September you will see the market on much better footing.

The big question still remains - What Will Yellen Do?

A terrifying day to say the least.

I got to see what 1987 was like.

Lets hope markets calm down. i think the drift is lower as the 2009-2014 playbook is done with.

I don't see a massive crash or anything like that.

The reality of 2% bonds catching up with the equity markets. We are in a period of low returns on most assets.

Time for the african hunting industry to jack up rates 10% this year again :-)

Mike

Also for anyone involved in the financial markets - this shows the whole I go hunting africa to get away from the office stuff does not work.

Between Thursday and Monday the market drew down close to 10% and more than 13% intraday.

WIFI and communication are critical for me to even consider going on a Safari.

Any outfitter with WIFI has a critical asset for me.

Mike

8/24/2015 was second highest dollar value traded day in history.

with 14 bil. shares it ranks 37 in volume

but add in dollars traded and its 2nd - $625,175,000,000

Sept 18 2008 is 1st with 652,852,740,515

this tells you today was a real crash intraday - high dollar stock - real stocks - AAPL, GOOG, XOM, AMZN, JPM, C - real stuff got decimated intraday.

Scary day - I need to do something else for a living

Mike

The crash that took place but no one in the media really wants to talk about.


ETFs that broke down this AM on the open:

· FDN, FXD, IXJ, PIO, IWS all lost more than 40% of their value
· SDY, VIG, PDP, DVY, PPH, JETS, PGF, ICF, HACK, IJR all lost 30-40%
· PEY, VBK, IVV, IVW, IJH, IJK, IVW, XLF, XLV, XLK all lost 20-30%

Here is a list of S&P 500 names that had a similar “crash” on the open:

· XL – Dropped 33% from Friday’s close

· MDT, F, CELG, CL, JPM, GE, MCK, HD, DAL, PEP, SBUX all lost 20%+

· SBUX, BXP, HAS, CVS, ESRX, AET, ADP, FOXA, GILD, ABBV, UNH, MRK, MA, BXLT and DOW lost 17.5% - 20%

· VZ, NFLX, GM, AMP, MNST, FDX, ZTS, FB, COST, KR, GIS, APC, V, VLO, LEG, PFE, BMY, KHC all lost 15%-17.5%

Mike

Look at the DOW, S&P, and Nsdaq futures this morning. The market is going to rebound because nothing substantive has changed in the US markets and economy. The past two trading days was mass hysteria.

The good news is there were good buying opportunities yesterday. The overselling bounce is a great time to be making money assuming that you have a long term view on investing.

Got my shopping list ready and a front row seat. I don't buy rebounds, but if things flip the other way, I'll get interested.

I think this is likely just the beginning for sky high p/e stocks in the tech industry.

Ain't it always that way. For every day like yesterday, it will take five to ten days like today to get back to even.

Looks like we're going to close weak. Been a bungee-cord day again. May close in the green, if we are lucky, but just barely.

Didn't make it. Down 205. My guess is that tomorrow will be more of the same.

Biggest DOW one-day gain in history I suspect; UP 619.

Wished I was holding a bunch of CAM yesterday. It jumped 41% today.

The global economy is nowhere near as bad as some people say it is. Most decent companies worldwide are selling record amounts of goods and making record profits. Here is how I gauge the markets...I drive a major east-west interstate 45 miles each way daily and when I see truck/trailer traffic going both ways over 20 trucks/mile I know the economy is doing just fine. If I see less than 10 trucks/mile the economy is heading into trouble....less than 5 trucks/mile the economy IS in trouble. I have proof this works and my reasoning....these trucks are delivering goods/equipment/machinery that are going to households and factories....or a lack there-of. Economic education for the day...and no charge.

The market continues to come back to reality now that retail investors are more comfortable that our economy is not tanking and there is talk of stimulus in China and Japan. Of course China long term does not look good, but short term stop gaps will stop most of the bleeding.

Energy and Airlines continue to be nice plays if you bought the dip.

Will be very interesting to watch what Apple does today. Could spell a good Christmas (or not) for retailers.

The wild card still is the Fed - WWYD. What Will Yellen Do? .25 basis points will not hurt the market Janet so just DO IT already.

The dip hasn't altogether passed yet, if it will. China may have built a house of cards, in some sectors.
I wonder when the oil business will shake out; $40 oil can't last. On one hand, I think things will be reorganized around higher interest rates, on the other hand, federal tax receipts will have to go up when the rates do. There isn't enough of a cushion left in the Social Security Trust Fund to do otherwise.

The markets aren't going to calm down until the Fed get's off it's ass and raises the basis points. Janet blew it big time last week as we saw with global market reaction.

China will stabilize after their bubble and learning curve. Their government didn't handle their markets any better than ours did after our bubble.

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
The markets aren't going to calm down until the Fed get's off it's ass and raises the basis points. Janet blew it big time last week as we saw with global market reaction.

China will stabilize after their bubble and learning curve. Their government didn't handle their markets any better than ours did after our bubble.

The worst thing is uncertainty, people in general can deal with solid bad news better than uncertainty (tough, because an awful lot of decisions have to be made with incomplete information).

I see Solindra may be a great buy as well as Rambler. Putting my money there.

Sold my Chemours (CC). Bought COP. Continued to add to existing positions in BP, KMI, ESV in September.

The price of oil hasn't been the problem lately. It's the solid stream of BS, rumors, negative background noise from the financial "experts" that like to get their faces on CNBC, Bloomberg, etc. Their mantra seems to be, "if you can't spread knowledge, spread fear. It pays the same."

quote:

Originally posted by Kensco:
Sold my Chemours (CC). Bought COP. Continued to add to existing positions in BP, KMI, ESV in September.

I'll sit on the CC for awhile, maybe buy some more if it goes lower than $6 (2% dividend yield).

Sat-out the first quarter for the most part. Then started adding to positions in ESV, KMI, T, XEL, GE and COP. No real alternative investments out there in my view.

....and still going. New highs yesterday for the DOW, S&P and NASDAQ. I guess it's just not coming true for the crowd in the Political Forum that keeps preaching the economy is going over a cliff because of the guy sitting in the White House.

I'm sure they will be right eventually, if they just keep praying.

quote:

Originally posted by silvertip1:

quote:

States like CA, MI, NY, CT, that continue repressive policies of excessive regulation & high taxes will continue to experience outward migration.

You got that right. Our current governor and democratic controlled legislature are trying to drive everyone out of Minnesota, except for enough people to pay for their own higher salaries that they are trying to get through right now.

The worst of it is that they want to once again increase the tax on booze, claiming its a sin to drink it (i.e sin tax)! When will it ever end?

I hope to be an ex Minnesotan soon.
Estate tax, state income, and the politics are way too much for me

This guy's a real debbie downer....it says he's been bearish since 2009.....how's that been working out for him? Kind of a no-brainer that markets will correct/crash in cycles. I bet he's made plenty of dough during his "bearish" market panic.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/09...-years-of-gains.html

I knew who you were talking about before I clicked on the link. I believe that guy has called 37 of the last five recessions.

It is almost as bad as Ackman trashing Herbalife in the media while he's holding a billion dollar short position. There ought to be a law against that.

quote:

Originally posted by Kensco:


It is almost as bad as Ackman trashing Herbalife in the media while he's holding a billion dollar short position. There ought to be a law against that.

I can't tell you how angry that scenario made me. The "genius" getting petulant and trying to use the media to make a single stock tank because he said so....so unethical that, as you said, there oughta be a law. I felt bad when he lost billions over it.....I kid. My brother works for a hedge fund in the same building as Ackman.