Crashnburn

On the Santa Claus Rally and Other Year-End, New-Year Indicators

How do taxes help the poor? The higher taxes are, the bigger brake they are on the economy, fewer jobs are created and more are lost. This means less tax revenue overall (look at tax revenues after Reagan cut taxes), and thus less money for social programs.

Sell Off Ahead? 25 Ways to Profit and Protect from a Stock Market Correction

I'm no expert, and lately my timing has been atrocious. Still, I'm almost 100% invested in the market, since late March, early April, and was out from Sept 8 until the above time frame.

I won't be at all surprised if the market pulls back significantly in Sept/October, mostly because about half the world's economy (Europe) shuts down completely in August. I don't know if I'll have the courage of my convictions.

Probably, the most I'll do will be to sell my excess weight in my diversified portfolio in late August, early Sept. I don't do options.

U.S. Markets Reach New Year High

I don't understand why prices on longer term Treasuries are going up, and yields down, if people are expecting higher inflation. I'd expect just the opposite,.

I own shares of the TIP ETF and its price is going up but I think that is because people are buying it as an inflation hedge.

TIPS Are Untested: What Happens When Inflation Takes Over?

I have a target weight of 10% TIPS in my portfolio. For the most part, fixed income instruments exist to store wealth, not make it, and to cushion against portfolio losses in down markets. So, in down markets you can draw down the fixed income portion to put into undervalued stocks and/or live on the draw down while waiting for stocks to rebound.

If you are going to have some of your money in fixed income, it seems to make sense to have some inflation protection built into it, as opposed to no inflation protection at all, even if the inflation numbers are fudged. TIPS have tge protection built in, while the other Treasuries do not.

Missing the Early Bull Market Can Be Costly

Warren Buffet says to be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. I think its time to be greedy because most of you are fearful. I am about 95% invested in a well diversified portfolio of ETFs, CEFs, and OEFs.

Dent, Napier, and Prechter - Wise to Heed Their Predictions

Anyone can predict the future. However, can they reliably predict it accurately? My whole portfolio is an insurance policy.I'm not trying to predict winners and losers so much as covering all the bases.

My target portfolio has about 20 asset classes, and I avoid single company risk by only buying mutual funds, closed end funds, and ETFs. On occaison, I sell my excess winners and buy more shares of the funds that are underweighted.

I don't mind selling expensive shares so I can buy cheap shares. Someone has to buy low and sell high, and it might as well be me!

Reports of Equities' Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

To quote someone else, maybe Geoff Constantine, "The market is inefficient in the short run, and efficient in the long run".

Thus, the market was probably inefficient at 1300, and is probably inefficient again at 800. In otherwords, it was irrationally exuberent then, and is irrationally pessimistic now.

The takeaway is sell exuberance, and buy pessimism. Benjamin Graham had this philosophy many years ago, and it works.

I lucked out and sold my entire portfolio in early September, and am now buying back into the market. Its going to happen in stages because I'm trying to keep my cash in the account under the 250K insurance limit the brokerage provides. The non-invested cash is actually in TIP ETF shares, so I have to sell them before I have the cash to buy. This is a 401K so I can't buy on margin.

The Value of Timing

Germany tried "controlled capitalism" under Hitler, but they called it Fascism!