what if this time is actually different?

[Yodean]

Thank you, Y. I will stop kicking the cat too.

Continue to kick the cat, if you look anything like her:



Otherwise, best to get a punching bag.

[LoriPrecisely]

....everyone is as a quiet as a church mouse. Thoughts on today? Where treasuries might go? Is the Biden administration really out to destroy our country and usher in a national emergency so elections cannot be held in November? I'm no spring chicken, and I have been a disciplined investor my entire life, but the gut feeling I have right now is void of emotion but not feeling so good. Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? All welcome at this point.

The following is a post by Sol in the thread--
West's duplicitous double standards: Russia War
Post by SOL » Mon Jun 13, 2022 9:39 am
"On a separate note it appears that the markets are letting the US know that their moves so far are wrong and now that everyone thinks that all hell will break loose, a move by the Dow to test the 30K ranges which it was supposed to do in the 4th quarter is underway, this will pave the way for a strong leg up , after a bit more blood letting, then if nothing changes on the energy frontier, the ensuing strong rally could fizzle. While it is painful and downright disturbing in the short to intermediate timelines, the long term outlook is still bright. It is hard to see this when there is so much blood everywhere."

[harryg]

....everyone is as a quiet as a church mouse. Thoughts on today? Where treasuries might go? Is the Biden administration really out to destroy our country and usher in a national emergency so elections cannot be held in November? I'm no spring chicken, and I have been a disciplined investor my entire life, but the gut feeling I have right now is void of emotion but not feeling so good. Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? All welcome at this point.

Everyone is quiet because we're losing money hand over fist. It's an unpleasant time and who knows when it will end.

History tells us that it will end at some point, and experience tells me that I don't know when that will be. It could flip next week or it could grind flat to down all year. It's not very nice to realise that you don't have much insight into short-term market direction, especially if you never realised that before.

I have done very little. With hindsight selling everything in Jan would have been nice, but there you go. I don't have much of a feel for this market, I'm not tempted to capitulate (see above), but neither am I inclined to purchase aggressively.

Fear is probably the strongest human emotion, it's certainly much much stronger than greed. So as markets grind downwards, it can be very difficult to avoid looking at your losses and then fixating on them. This is a downward spiral. Furthermore, sometimes people realise in a down market that they are not actually playing with money that they can afford to lose in the short term. If this is the case then it should be addressed, and rapidly.

How to deal with it? Oddly enough as mentioned by Yodean I also go for longer and longer walks in the park with our Lab. She loves it (which is uplifting) and of course she doesn't know how much AMZN dropped yesterday. I tell myself (rightly or wrongly), that GOOGL could be 10,000 eight years from now so what does it matter if it's 2,500 or 1,800 now. The usual nonsense.



Me explaining the NASDAQ:

[Yodean]

How to deal with it? Oddly enough as mentioned by Yodean I also go for longer and longer walks in the park with our Lab. She loves it (which is uplifting) and of course she doesn't know how much AMZN dropped yesterday. I tell myself (rightly or wrongly), that GOOGL could be 10,000 eight years from now so what does it matter if it's 2,500 or 1,800 now. The usual nonsense.

Another superficial Jedi Mind Trick (JMT) that I practice as much as possible - it's pretty easy to do, and only takes a few seconds - is at least once a day, I try to think in terms of amount of assets, as opposed to nominal value of assets.

Instead of "fiat thinking" - thinking in terms of the nominal value of your assets in USD or sterling terms - I try to think in terms of how many shares I own of good companies.

A practical example would be instead of looking at the Sea of Red numbers on the right column of one's portfolio, I try to keep my eyes more towards the left columns (i.e. # of shares).

Seems to help a tad.

[SOL]

If one looks at the TQQQ a very leveraged instrument. From a low of roughly 8.50 in march 2020 it traded past 90 In fact one got in at 15.00 one would still be up. But nobody in his right mind would hold without taking some profits. The point I am trying to make is to make is that even a highly leveraged instrument like TQQQ has trended upwards over time

I am not going to lie, this correction is a combination of a thousands cuts with bouts of severe stabbing akin to 2020, without the immediate relief rallies. In hindsight it is always easy to say I could have sold here and there and the few times in the past that I did that in the very distant past (prior to 2008) i ended up buying much higher because psychologically i thought that those stocks would go much lower. Why did i think this, because I had wired my mind to see only the potential downside on those plays.

Many of us TI learned the hard way that one should focus more on holding during sudden crashes and slowly deploying new lots of funds (the keyword is slowly) and one should always have some spare ammunition. This is something that is advocated in the suggested reading materials. Always maintain some cash for those opportunities that have a nasty habit of showing up when you least expect it

I have gone through hundreds of charts over the past few days and can't find one instance where in the long run stocks were not trading significantly higher. the only potential time when things were bad was during the great depression and that was because the Fed was 1/1000th less aggressive than it was today and at that time it was attempting to do the right thing. Those days are gone forever

I do what a lot of others are doing to keep a balanced state of mind

• Take long walks; I do this quite often even during good times but now my walks are becoming longer
  Look at historical charts to keep focused on the long term
  Don't log in too often to my account, but then again this is something i would do in the past. Would only log in if i was going to sell or buy something for the most part.
  create screaming buy entry points that seem insane by today's standards. This is a good game to play all the time for you can see how your mind shifts. 9 months ago everyone would have been eager to buy GOOGL, APPL, MSFT, AMAT, and a host of other companies for a discount of 20 to 30 percent, but today everyone hesitates when so many good companies have shed over 50 percent from their highs

Lastly I always remember the uncountable number of times I have said I wished I bought more of this when i had the chance, or if I only could go back and buy this stock at this price, etc, etc.

[bpcw]

I do lots of walking too, nice dog Harryg, we have one of those too, funny he seems to want to lick my face regardless of how my portfolio is doing!

One thing that can help is to find a homeless person and buy them some food, getting perspective always helps!

I'm now not thinking about how my portfolio was in November last year but where it could be in a years time or longer, holding positions and looking forward to buying up some shares in good companies.

Don't get me wrong I've been through the mill a bit but I've reframed my mindset, and am now really at peace!

[jlhooter]

Woulda shoulda coulda. I just bought a bunch of stuff in an incremental fashion. Looking to buy more if it goes down more.

Now is exactly what I wanted to see. I actually want to see it drop more and bottom but that is for fools so I actually hesitated a bit. Thanks Sol for the comments.

[MarkD]

Visiting the mother in law at times like this is not a good strategy. I should have gone for a walk instead.

To make up for this error, I contacted her financial advisor and suggest she buy more stocks.

[bpcw]

Visiting the mother in law at times like this is not a good strategy. I should have gone for a walk instead.

To make up for this error, I contacted her financial advisor and suggest she buy more stocks.

Ha ha, nice one!

What if you're due some nice inheritance from her, might be worth a visit!

[Budge]

What me panic? What's your timescale? It'll depends on whether you're looking at the trees (short-term) or the forest (long-term). Here's two of my own charts of DJIA - day and quarter. The daily could have you running around with your hair on fire whereas the quarterly would have you in a beatific state of calm adopted by Sol.

[SOL]

@Budge it's not that I am calm. I am an avid student of history and I know history clearly indicates even though my gut may disagree at times that crashes should be embraced. I am less stupid than I was say 15 or 20 years ago, but I won't call myself wise. The annotation of being wise is reserved for a few, but I am not that stupid that I will defy history. I know that markets will resolve to the upside. I tried to guess many times before and paid the price as have all those that work behind the scenes of TI. I will say this we are battle-hardened to know that it's far better to bet on the upside than the downside over the long run. All of us are down, some of us more than others but I will be dammed If will give into fear and sell now. Resistance is what life is all about; the day you cave is the day you stop living, provided you follow the trend. History indicates the long trend for the markets is up.

Might I also add that if you can't walk the walk, then you have no business opening your mouth and talking? Talking without walking is a special privilege reserved for Bum Chums and Wankers

[MarkD]

Never, ever, give up. Especially to fear mongers who have the goal of control.

[SOL]

Never, ever, give up. Especially to fear mongers who have the goal of control.

Well Said, the big players are trying to scare the shit out of the small players. As long as you are not using the money you need for your daily living expenses, then the only logical option is to call their bluff; 90% or more will cave in. Remember the end game, the big players want to make money, so any downturn is temporary

[Yodean]

Here's two of my own charts of DJIA - day and quarter.

I really should start looking at quarterly charts more often.

Logarithmic charts work especially well for assets like BTC and ETH.

[harryg]

Here's two of my own charts of DJIA - day and quarter.

Merci budge.

I found this quite interesting long-term S&P annotated one (goes to April 24th)