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Ready For a Melt UP? Bears, It's Checkmate!

edited October 2020 in Other Investing
(link) Tom Bowley is one of my favorite technicians.
I remain firmly in the secular bull market theory camp. We're going higher. Forget about politics, civil unrest, the virus, the deficit, the economy, blah, blah, blah. Money flow, the Fed and historically-low interest rates will fuel higher prices. While each of those is extremely important in the performance of U.S. equities, here are the 3 really big reasons why I believe stocks are heading higher.
...
We're in a different market environment. I've been writing about it all year. Stop fighting this bull market. I'm not talking about an advance that lasts the rest of this year....or for 2021. I'm talking about a secular bull market that will last another 10-12 years, into the 2030s.
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Comments

  • Thirty years ago I would have asked for some of what he's smoking.
  • Give the man credit- right or wrong he's not pussyfooting around with "ifs, ands, or buts". I've got to respect that.
  • @Old_Joe
    Give the man credit- right or wrong he's not pussyfooting around with "ifs, ands, or buts". I've got to respect that.
    Why is blind fanaticism to be respected? Belief without rational cause is interesting from a psychological perspective, like watching a man in a padded cell who’s sure he’s Jesus, but not a good guide for running one’s life. All this author has causally is it happened yesterday. Yesterday it rained. Therefore it must rain today. Every April the stock market went up for the last hundred years. Therefore it must go up every April for the next hundred. No reason. Just because.
  • edited October 2020
    @LewisBraham- I see that I mistook Tom Bowly (whoever he might be) for FD. Yes, I understand that your observation is equally applicable no matter who might be making the "prediction", but for me there's a difference between someone who is supposedly a published "expert", and one of the "regular folks" here on MFO. Yes, I know, indefensible "logic", but then I hardly ever claim to be completely sane anymore. If we're subjected to another four years of this administration I'll be a write-off ready for the home anyway.
  • edited October 2020
    Ever hear of “pump and dump”?
  • edited October 2020

    @Old_Joe

    Give the man credit- right or wrong he's not pussyfooting around with "ifs, ands, or buts". I've got to respect that.
    Why is blind fanaticism to be respected? Belief without rational cause is interesting from a psychological perspective, like watching a man in a padded cell who’s sure he’s Jesus, but not a good guide for running one’s life. All this author has causally is it happened yesterday. Yesterday it rained. Therefore it must rain today. Every April the stock market went up for the last hundred years. Therefore it must go up every April for the next hundred. No reason. Just because.
    He is not into "blind fanaticism". If you have followed his bond posts he is very careful investing in those. No reason to think otherwise with equities. If it goes south he is out fast. Nice to see some positive presented.

  • edited October 2020
    All I did is presented Tom Bowley view. You may agree or not. Bowley is a technician and a pretty good one IMO. He is one of only several I like to read because of his short term views, after all, I'm trader. His long term is unique right now.
  • @FD1000 - who said "All I did is presented Tom Bowley view."

    If you are doing that then you should enclose his words in quotation marks so others know that they are his words and not yours.
  • My fault, actually. FD did post those remarks as a "quote" section, but for some reason I thought that the bottom part of that section was directly from FD. Sorry for starting all of this.
  • You troublemaker
  • BS or not, I have been using T/A successfully for about 20 years. T/A is only one part of my system. I never held a losing fund too long and since retirement in 2018 I didn't lose more than 1% from any last top. T/A just help me to be a better consistent discipline trader.
  • An anecdote is not evidence of a general truth. Technical analysis is bs.
  • My amateur's take on tech. anal. is that it can be useful in pointing out trading ranges on a stock that can be played, for short-term gain. A short-term, range-bound stock can be bought low, to sell high, though perhaps not very much higher. Over and over. And over. When the bottom falls out, you stop. But that's too much like work.
  • edited October 2020
    Hmm ... I’ve always assumed there was some validity to technical charting & analysis. Einstein’s “spooky science“ might apply to it however. We had a great poster here for years named Flack who was well versed in T/A. I miss his posts. I’ll agree the “head and shoulders” / “bushy eyebrow” references seem a bit far-fetched and hilarious. To me, technical analysis means charting patterns in how various assets trade and attempting to draw rational conclusions and predictions from that.

    Don’t we allude to tech analysis when referencing / displaying charts appearing to demonstrate “irrational exuberance” in some asset or market that’s in a “straight up” pattern - and than inferring (usually correctly) that the asset is in a bubble and likely to fall precipitously? Though I don’t much subscribe to T/A (the investing kind) I do enjoy listening to the practitioners and think it sometimes helps me better understand market climate. FWIW
  • edited October 2020
    Assuming good faith in FD's reports of investing success, we can argue all day about the validity of TA. (Personally I'm not a believer, because I don't believe that the market-moving potential of mass investor emotion can be accurately measured.)

    It seems to me that's somewhat irrelevant though, as applied to an individual investor like FD. If he believes in TA, and it enhances his investing success, then it's surely valid for him, at least. Whatever works.
  • edited October 2020
    Old_Joe said:

    “Assuming good faith in FD's reports of investing success ...“

    Awe shucks. Don’t get me going ... I don’t believe any unsubstantiated claims of investing success posted here. And I’d strongly discourage folks making such unsubstantiated claims. That said, I know many here who have held good funds or invested with good houses for a great many years. It’s a given I’d think that they’ve enjoyed a modicum of success. Than there’s that eternally running “Buying/ Selling” thread. Conclusions could be drawn by tracking all the reported trades I suppose.

    BTY: @Old_Joe ... I was thinking somebody should take it upon themselves to track all those reported buys and sells and than issue periodic reports on how the trades are faring ... Maybe publish reports for 1-month / 6-months / and 1-year out. If you’d like to volunteer I doubt you’ll have any competition.;)

    Bear in mind that simply buying a “winner” isn’t the whole story. What did you replace back than? Might it have actually performed better than the fund you bought?

    Edit: I’ve changed “I don’t believe any claims of investing success posted here.”
    TO “I don’t believe any unsubstantiated claims of investing success posted here.”
  • edited October 2020
    "I don’t believe any claims of investing success posted here."

    Not sure that I'd go that far. Seems highly likely that those of us who are successfully retired with no income worries have achieved a reasonable degree of "investing success", at least broadly defined to include all sources of income and assets.

    I like your idea of tracking the trading posts. Looking forward to your reports on that. :)
  • edited October 2020
    Old_Joe said:

    I don’t believe any claims of investing success posted here - Not sure that I'd go that far.

    That was a little strong. I’ve edited the remark to include “unsubstantiated” (claims).
    I’m sure there have been others, but I’m familiar with only one board member who has thus far documented a pretty enviable track record.

    https://www.amazon.com/How-Trade-Living-Gary-Smith-ebook/dp/B000WGC8ZW
  • While you might be able to reasonably track the Buy/Sell & why performance of mutual funds I don't know that you could do the same for ETF's, CEF's or individual equities unless the poster offered up their personal buy & sell points.
  • For some reason I take most here at face value and assume good faith, but it is true that FD1k should be a multimillionaire, philanthropist, and posting regularly for seekingalpha or similar.
  • +1 david Yes-FD1k should be worth 3-5 million, and posting from his boat in Key West. Maybe some additional info about new cars, expensive wines and his wife's dressage activities !
  • well, plus all the philanthropy and cause support

    plus a byline somewhere advising others about bonds and his rapid fund trading without penalty

    like the poster (sorry to draw a blank) who is now making a living selling puts, or whatever it is
  • edited October 2020
    i guess these are all swipes in one way or another at fd and i do know at least one very successful forumite who uses him as a contrarian indicator. otoh, he's taught me a lot and offered takes on the investing scene that have made me money, esp in bonds. i've been reading his posts for years and while a bunch here doubt his trading claims, i've read many of them in real time and know them to be true. and verifiable, if you want to waste hours reading past posts.

    it's all too easy to cast a bitter dismissive eye and so difficult to be a bit more generous, esp when your internal logic is flashing warning signals that are based on your own biases and experiences and have little to do with the facts at hand. i'm as guilty of that as anyone, and i don't follow FD's suggestions without lots of my own DD. and when the march meltdown hit some of his favorites harder than expected, well, what do you expect when the levee breaks on everything all at once and you've got no place to stay and crying won't help you and praying won't do you no good? i don't blame him for that, though i know a good many do. go figure.
  • edited October 2020
    I have tangled with a lot of legends in their own minds for decades now. Had diner with one trader (?) who claimed to be nearly omnipotent. He claimed to trade for a living and traded the stock index futures numerous time during the day and rarely lost. Quite a braggart was this guy. He posted these trades on his website in real time and they certainly looked good. Trouble is, in CFTC Docket # xx-xx it was discovered that this “super trader” as his friends liked to refer to him did not in fact even trade real money.

    Then there is another “super trader” trader I knew who also liked to brag about his trading and how successful he was. He claimed he had been trading for a living for many years. He too posted a seemingly 100% winning trading record. But in CFTC Docket # xx-xx it was discovered that he had lost money trading for the previous six consecutive years.

    I met another “super trader” at a seminar where I was a speaker. He was an attendee and at the time he told me how unsuccessful he had been as a trader with losses over $100,000. Less than a year later this fellow was out there bragging to everyone how he traded for a living and how successful he had been in the past. To add insult to injury many of his so called proprietary trading methods were lifted from my speech at the seminar. This fellow is still out there decades later bragging about his make believe trading prowess.

    I could go on and on with multiple stories about the crooks, con men, and habitual liars that infest the trading and investing boards. They can be distinguished by their incessant non stop bragging about their trading/past trades and the fact none of them can ever back up any of their claims via real money trading statements. In the end that is all that counts. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Their most common retort for never providing real money trading statements is “ it’s none of your business”. Posting winning trades on some investment/trading board is in no way indicative of how successful someone is at trading real money at a real trading firm.

    But does it really matter? Probably not. One of the biggest bragging liars out there who was sanctioned by the SEC for fabricating his trading record once wrote a book. That book more than any trading book I ever read on trading was the most influential of them all in turning around my trading back in the mid 80s.















  • Junkster, your sensible and often helpful posts are missed here.
  • I was hoping to draw him out of the shadows. Great post and you should post mo' often!
  • Edit: should have mentioned that the crooks, con men, and habitual liars of the trading world world also have another commonality. That is, they all seem to embrace the propaganda tactics of Joseph Goebbels. Namely, if a lie is repeated long enough it will be eventually be accepted as fact by the masses.
  • @Junkster, welcome back, you've been missed!
  • JD_co said:

    Junkster, your sensible and often helpful posts are missed here.

    The fact that he’s not here may serve as proof that he has already made his fortune. :)

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