Thank you ShivaPrasad (The Critic) for the Profit booking alert -
That is "market sense".And Kudos to Sujatha, Sethu for that contrarian call & to Ankhurbbhatt's +ve div.*******************************************************************
Trend continues to remain down with a short term reversal - the quality of which will decide its longevity.*******************************************************************
Thank you Manoj (Tryin2Trade) for the following link (www.thestreet.com)One of the questions we get each correction is whether or not traders/investors should try to pick market bottoms. The background music is an orchestra of bottom callers, the vast majority of who are, shall we say, premature. Eventually someone gets it right, but I never have been convinced it wasn't a function of random luck.
For the vast majority of market participants, however, this guessing game tends to be rather expensive.
The good news is that it can be done. There are, on occasion, situations where all of the technical and sentiment indicators align "just so." When all the stars and planets line up, it may be worth taking a high-probability stab at that with a
little money (a toe in the water so to speak).
The bad news is this is exceedingly difficult. The ideal conditions and circumstances for bottom picking are rare, and the tools necessary to do so are even rarer. Most traders and investors do not have:
- the requisite skill to identify these circumstances;
- the obligatory patience to wait for these conditions;
- or the compulsory discipline to cut losses when the trades don't work out.
Rather than tell you if it is safe here or not, let's consider a different strategy.
Consider the following chart (it's either a market or stock). Each of the red circles is a potential bottom where you could have caught the proverbial falling knife:
Had you bought this at what looked like any of these bottoms, you would have suffered significant losses.
From a risk/reward standpoint, there are much higher-probability trades/investments to make, with lower risk. This balance leads to better overall returns.
Now consider the same company as above, only with the chart extended a little further in time. It reveals two much better entry points than the bottom guesses. The first is when the downtrend was broken, and another entry when the horizontal resistance was overcome.
You would have been much better served buying this stock (or market) when the relentless, multi year downtrend broke (circle 1) than trying to repeatedly guess the bottom. The next advantageous strategy would be to add to the position -- average up -- after the horizontal resistance is broken (circle 2).
The bottom line: Most investors do not have the tools to play this bottom-guessing game. They lack the ability to wait for lows, and they lack the skill set to see the bottom when it's there. Too few employ stop losses or risk management. Worst of all, even when they do, they lack the discipline to follow their own rules.
Might today be the bottom? My best guess is that we are getting nearer a tradeable low -- the oversold point where a rally can run a few days to a few weeks. But my instinct is that we are nowhere near the 2008/2009 recession bottom. But why guess? Why not wait until the downtrend is decisively broken?
