Time out of joint
The problem most investors suffer is the desire to have their analysis (or instinct, feelings, etc) ratified before buying or selling. This translates to questions as to whether Google/GOOG, for example, will run to $400+ on this earnings report. Never mind that I have recommended it for months prior to its IPO -- and still do -- the decision has been wrested from one of money management to that of prediction.
Technical analysis of stocks as final arbiter of your decision to buy or sell a stock -- leave alone as part of the decision-making process -- mostly is frowned upon, and arguably rightly so. One justifiable gripe re technical analysis is that once a stock is sold, the investor rarely gets back in at the appropriate moment -- although not always. For example, on 11 May -- the day the shares hit their low -- I said (here) that Apple/AAPL shares had bottomed, and limned my rationale as to why. This analysis was unpopular, mostly because the erstwhile bulls had allowed short term price direction to confuse their perception of long term trajectory. Successful investing is not a 'science' of predictions but the art of trading around the trend in the periodicities immediately inside and outside of your time frame.
Thus, while some investors write to moan about Abercrombie & Fitch/ANF or Coach/COH during their recent pullbacks, I was buying; all while trading around the primary trend. In other words, these unlucky investors waited and waited, and then waited some more, finally buying these stocks and others on the apex of their short term trends, sometimes even at all time highs... only to watch aghast while the shares immediately pulled back. Why did you wait to purchase, for example, Google/GOOG ("a singular opportunity") until it crossed $300? (Of course, not each person who visits this site has been familiar with my investing- and investment-related comments for the past months and years.) Only you have the answer to that question; an answer that would allow you to invest successfully within the limits of your fallibility and foibles, your (our) nature as a human.
A quick update of a select few...
Apple/AAPL: The decline ended on 11 May, and the base is very near complete. What price signal do you seek before you finally purchase, $60? Perhaps an obvious up trend?
Abercrombie & Fitch/ANF: Should soon 'take out' its former high ($74.10) on its way to much higher prices.
Cameco/CCJ: I mentioned CCJ when it was under $40; now it pushes the breakout from an obvious intermediate term base. What do you need to convince you to purchase? Perhaps new all time highs, or an obvious up trend?
Dominos Pizza/DPZ: Trades beautifully, despite the disbelief and the desire to find what is wrong with either the breakout or the burgeoning trend.
Google/GOOG: Earnings reported at 130pm pdt this Thursday. See post below for the link to the company's webcast of the conference call.
Urban Outfitters/URBN: Despite the imbecilic comments of one Wall Street commentator last week to sell, URBN achieves today a new all time high on the way to even higher highs.
(There are many others, but they await another blog entry.)
Successful investing is a matter of finding your limitations, and then working with or around them. It is not the ability (even if only perceived as such by the user) to recognize Fibonacci retracement levels, or trend lines, or anything other. Gosh, I can only chuckle at those brainiacs on Silicon Investor who discerned a head & shoulders top in the chart action of Google/GOOG... $130 points lower than it is today!
Oh, the meaning of the title, you wonder? Shakespeare (who else?) said it originally, but I have felt it of late. The power to my house and that of six or eight neighbors went out Sunday evening. Ordinarily, this would not be a big deal, but the weather here has been pushing 120°. With no air conditioning and no power to the computer (until finally restored), my desire to write a lengthier version of this post wilted in the heat. And try sleeping in a house that is 90° inside and nothing stirs, or outside when it is 100° -- at midnight! Anyway, my days and nights became discombobulated, out of joint. I wonder how Shakespeare knew almost 400 years ago this would occur...?
Technical analysis of stocks as final arbiter of your decision to buy or sell a stock -- leave alone as part of the decision-making process -- mostly is frowned upon, and arguably rightly so. One justifiable gripe re technical analysis is that once a stock is sold, the investor rarely gets back in at the appropriate moment -- although not always. For example, on 11 May -- the day the shares hit their low -- I said (here) that Apple/AAPL shares had bottomed, and limned my rationale as to why. This analysis was unpopular, mostly because the erstwhile bulls had allowed short term price direction to confuse their perception of long term trajectory. Successful investing is not a 'science' of predictions but the art of trading around the trend in the periodicities immediately inside and outside of your time frame.
Thus, while some investors write to moan about Abercrombie & Fitch/ANF or Coach/COH during their recent pullbacks, I was buying; all while trading around the primary trend. In other words, these unlucky investors waited and waited, and then waited some more, finally buying these stocks and others on the apex of their short term trends, sometimes even at all time highs... only to watch aghast while the shares immediately pulled back. Why did you wait to purchase, for example, Google/GOOG ("a singular opportunity") until it crossed $300? (Of course, not each person who visits this site has been familiar with my investing- and investment-related comments for the past months and years.) Only you have the answer to that question; an answer that would allow you to invest successfully within the limits of your fallibility and foibles, your (our) nature as a human.
A quick update of a select few...
Apple/AAPL: The decline ended on 11 May, and the base is very near complete. What price signal do you seek before you finally purchase, $60? Perhaps an obvious up trend?
Abercrombie & Fitch/ANF: Should soon 'take out' its former high ($74.10) on its way to much higher prices.
Cameco/CCJ: I mentioned CCJ when it was under $40; now it pushes the breakout from an obvious intermediate term base. What do you need to convince you to purchase? Perhaps new all time highs, or an obvious up trend?
Dominos Pizza/DPZ: Trades beautifully, despite the disbelief and the desire to find what is wrong with either the breakout or the burgeoning trend.
Google/GOOG: Earnings reported at 130pm pdt this Thursday. See post below for the link to the company's webcast of the conference call.
Urban Outfitters/URBN: Despite the imbecilic comments of one Wall Street commentator last week to sell, URBN achieves today a new all time high on the way to even higher highs.
(There are many others, but they await another blog entry.)
Successful investing is a matter of finding your limitations, and then working with or around them. It is not the ability (even if only perceived as such by the user) to recognize Fibonacci retracement levels, or trend lines, or anything other. Gosh, I can only chuckle at those brainiacs on Silicon Investor who discerned a head & shoulders top in the chart action of Google/GOOG... $130 points lower than it is today!
Oh, the meaning of the title, you wonder? Shakespeare (who else?) said it originally, but I have felt it of late. The power to my house and that of six or eight neighbors went out Sunday evening. Ordinarily, this would not be a big deal, but the weather here has been pushing 120°. With no air conditioning and no power to the computer (until finally restored), my desire to write a lengthier version of this post wilted in the heat. And try sleeping in a house that is 90° inside and nothing stirs, or outside when it is 100° -- at midnight! Anyway, my days and nights became discombobulated, out of joint. I wonder how Shakespeare knew almost 400 years ago this would occur...?
posted by David M Gordon | 9:39 AM
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