I'm calling a major market bottom. Its safe to buy now

[Data]

Bet Shooter, thank you for the kind words, nice to hear when coming from a quality poster like you.

Crazyl, Bet Shooter clarified quite nicely what following the market means. Still, your analogy is very appropriate. The behavior of the participants of different markets, be it a stock market or a sportsbetting market, is quite similar. Come to think of it, if we think of the markets as the playgrounds we can include other games, like poker, for example. So, the squares are trying to pick winners (win a hand) because that pleases their egos, while the sharps are putting their money in when they know they have the best of it, or "invest", as you wished, because that pleases their wallets.

[Bet Shooter]

Bet Shooter, thank you for the kind words, nice to hear when coming from a quality poster like you.

Crazyl, Bet Shooter clarified quite nicely what following the market means. Still, your analogy is very appropriate. The behavior of the participants of different markets, be it a stock market or a sportsbetting market, is quite similar. Come to think of it, if we think of the markets as the playgrounds we can include other games, like poker, for example. So, the squares are trying to pick winners (win a hand) because that pleases their egos, while the sharps are putting their money in when they know they have the best of it, or "invest", as you wished, because that pleases their wallets.

Quite welcome. Fear and Greed can be measured in any and all markets. Some call it investing and others gambling, but it is still the fear and greed that cause the non random patterns that we can all try to successfully predict for profit. Markets exist everywhere. The Poker game at your kitchen table with friends is a market, as well as all of the major financial markets of the world. The same fear and greed exists in all of them. There are some people in this world (I am not one of them) that can enter any market in the world and trade for a profit and never even know what the product or instrument is that they are trading. They are trading fear and greed and market movement. To them the product is irrelevant. Their process is to factor the here and now of the market and not what they think will happen 10 minutes out.

[wtf]

so fundamentals mean nothing? wrong.

[Bet Shooter]

so fundamentals mean nothing? wrong.

For long term trading they mean alot. But I think we can all agree in this climate, fundamentals would have made you broke by this point. A simple buy and hold strat using "funnymentals," as I like to call them, for the past 5 years would have you in the poor house. This has been the case ever since defined benefit plans (pensions, annuities etc.) have been replaced with defined contribution plans (401K, 403B, IRA, Roth etc.) by most companies. Companies have placed the burden on the average Joe to hopefully invest his future retirement money by himself. This will be a disaster for most people when they start to reach retirement age.

Some people don't realize this either: It is mandatory for all 401K participants to take scheduled withdrawls from their 401K plans after reaching the age of 70.5. This will start to create more downward pressure on equities as the largest segment of the population (baby boomers) start to reach this threshold of 70.5. I futher believe a basic buy and hold strat using funnymentals going forward will continue to be a losing proposition with this law still in place. But they can't lift the law because the goverment hasn't received any taxes on this money yet!

[RageWizard]

For long term trading they mean alot. But I think we can all agree in this climate, fundamentals would have made you broke by this point. A simple buy and hold strat using "funnymentals," as I like to call them, for the past 5 years would have you in the poor house. This has been the case ever since defined benefit plans (pensions, annuities etc.) have been replaced with defined contribution plans (401K, 403B, IRA, Roth etc.) by most companies. Companies have placed the burden on the average Joe to hopefully invest his future retirement money by himself. This will be a disaster for most people when they start to reach retirement age.

Some people don't realize this either: It is mandatory for all 401K participants to take scheduled withdrawls from their 401K plans after reaching the age of 70.5. This will start to create more downward pressure on equities as the largest segment of the population (baby boomers) start to reach this threshold of 70.5. I futher believe a basic buy and hold strat using funnymentals going forward will continue to be a losing proposition with this law still in place. But they can't lift the law because the goverment hasn't received any taxes on this money yet!

You are so right about this 401K and leaving the retirement investing to the average JOE thing. Mutual funds are the biggest scam going for the past decade.
One point about fundamentals is even if the numbers can be trusted, they will never let you know when to get in and when to get out. Try chart reading, it is much easier and more reliable.