Those who pick bottoms get a hand full of s**t, i think is the phrase that comes to mind!

Reality is that if you go long or short, you are not going to pick the issues up at the most desirable price for either cause, so whether you be a intraday trader or a 5 year saver, the theory is still the same.

For ETFs now should represent a good time to gain some exposure, because the indices have suffered, yes in the short term it very well may go down more.....but if you are a 5 year investor and are not looking at these things on a daily basis, as your hypothesis states, i would agree profit is to be had using these tools. Any chartist or semi experienced investor can appreciate these corrections in the pricing of the market occur on a 5-6 year cycle, all be it not quite as savage as what we are enduring at present.

Yeah, i have a Super Silver Black Edition on order for June/July delivery.....roll on 2009!!

 

6700 a year ago,now at 3700 so well on the way.

Presume that 'bottom' means when the shares are actually worth nearly diddly squat?

 

I strongly suspect that matters are considerably worse all round than we have been led to believe so far and it will be a long time before we start to recover significantly.

Les

 

For those who have access, look at the intra-day of Volkswagen (VOW GR).


Now that's a graph

 

The power of Porsche . Just goes to show this market is heavily driven by sentiment and expectation

 

Holy crap

 

Daft as it sounds,I wanted to buy 'porsche' shares.

Not to make mony,just to have shares in porsche

 

I'm sure i read somewhere that last year Porsche made substantially more money from it's derivatives and market exploits than it's retail car sales. The article porbed the company as acting more like a hedge fund than a car producer. Haven't looked for it but i'm sure if you want to get the exact figs, its a google search away

 

Most profitable car company in the world too.

 

Its up another 100% today!

 

Now officially the world's biggest company!

 

Deep, In regards to your plan to trade indices a good example of what would be my concern can be seen today in the DAX, now all but two companies in the market are in positive territory the exceptions being Hypo Real estate down 0.2% and VW down 38%. Because of VW's weight the index has come off 1% purely as a result of VW. Obviously any form of trading/investing carries risk, but it just serves as an illustration how dependent the index is on so many more variables.

 

Alloy I take your point. At the moment though we are in the middle of unprecedented volatility which should hopefully calm down at some point in thhe future. Its not usual (outside of this current turmoil) for large companies to yoyo the way VW has, do you agree?

As an investor with at least a 3-5 year horizon a 1% slip won't really make any difference. On the other hand if I tried to stock pick and happened to buy something that dropped 38% I would be nursing huge losses.

I'm basing my strategy (if you can call it that!) on cycles and the belief that capitalism will prevail. Therefore, the biggest companies in the largest indices( or ETFs reflecting sectors) will continue to make money and recover in the next cycle and hence increase in value.

On the other hand I could just be talking out of my ****!

 

Not being funny,but talk about percentages and percentage forecasts and the like amuse me.

Since this so called credit crunch (and perhaps before) it seems to me that no one has the slightest idea what they are doing and it is luck as much as anything.

Reminds me of Economics when you had to pick a batch of shares and see who did the best by the end of term

 

With out doubt recent and future months are/will be the most volatile times we will probably see in the next two decades. Outside of this current climate, these heavily weighted stocks can still have a rather influential factor on the market and can and will go against the general flow or consensus depending on fundamental factors that drive them.

The plan of attack seems technically sound, a known fact is that the markets do move in cycles! For an investor with 3-5 year horizon the markets do appear very cheap and as a result have the ability to show a great deal of growth. But this is common knowledge, the reason we still are seeing skinny trading volumes is the fact a great deal of uncertainty still remains and recession is already being priced into the market, but as i'm sure you will have read amongst economists and analysts alike, the worst is believed still yet to come.

Out of interest are you looking at FTSE associated ETFs or international markets? Any specific front runners? Please feel free to pm me if you don't want to disclose to the public

 

8% rise in the FTSE today - one of the biggest gains ever!

 

When the turmoil started it was interesting.

In the last few weeks/months though it seems to have been 'biggest %loss or gain since 1985 or 92 or whatever for the dow/ftse/others.

Just seems the norm now to see up 8% one day,down 8% the next day etc.

Suppose day traders could make money at this time?

 

I wanted to sell iShares MSCI Brazil this afternoon, but the bid-offer spread were often over 5% even though the Bovespa was open and the LSE where the iShare is listed was open. The market wasn't terribly volatile.

It is disappointing to not be able to trade on the price you want because of market makers or brokers covering their asses?

Any suggestions?

For a frequent trader, 5% spread is death.

Are ETFs just a bit illiquid?