Dow: Longest Winning Streak in 80 Years

It has truly been a breathtaking run, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising in 24 of 27 sessions, the longest streak since eight decades ago in 1927.

Unfortunately, Tuesday's four point drop snapped the streak. How should investors play this? Many are stuck between two prevailing ideas: either ride the momentum to ensure not missing it, or wait for a pullback and buy on the dip. The problem is, there aren't any dips. We got a 7% correction a couple months ago, but it was so short-lived that many didn't have time to get back on the train before it left the station again.

I am sitting on an above-average amount of cash right now, due to an overbought market that I am uninterested in chasing, coupled with a seasonal inflow of deposits. Since I'm a value investor, not a momentum trader, I am content with sitting on cash and waiting for an excellent opportunity. With the broad market rallying so strongly, such a dip might only occur in select names, as opposed to a widespread sell-off that makes many stocks compelling.

Why not just get my money in when short term momentum is strong? There are far fewer bargains now than there were six months or a year ago. Although I might miss some upside in the short term, due to above-average cash positions during a long winning streak, I still believe that buying dips and not rallies will prove to be more profitable when we look back a year from now.

The result could be lagging returns in coming days and weeks, but when we get another pullback and I have the ammunition to jump at true bargains, those purchases will more than likely make up the lost ground and plenty more over the intermediate to longer term.

Comments

[GeoffConsidine]

Chad:

I think that it is a big mistake to think too much about this issue of a long 'winning streak' measured in terms of daily returns. Why is this meaningful. Maybe it is, but why? Is a string of small incremental positive gains more meaningful than a choppy market that ends up at the same point? Sure, it may say something about psychology--but what? It is true that investors have been getting complacent--this is evidenced by the VERY low market volatility:

etf.seekingalpha.com/a...

But this issue of watching daily returns for the length of streak is, IMHO, a distraction.

[Chad Brand]

Geoff,

I totally agree that the streak itself is not important. The only reason we even know that it was 24/27 up days is because the media reported it constantly. I think the key is trying not to get caught up in the euphoria and chasing it too far. How we got to be overbought (whether it was one day up 9% or 24 days up 9%) isn't important itself, but it is notable only because when streaks reach once in 80 year levels, it signals that the market is indeed overly extended to the upside. After all, if such a streak wasnt usually followed by sell-offs, then streaks like this would happen far more frequently. Hence, it isn't surprising that the Dow is down 125 today, for instance.