So now that the prices are falling...

scoot on

The slide continues, Japan down over 5%, Uk in pre-opening is down 4%, DAX down another 2%, CAC down almost 3%.

Do people think it's a good time to start buying now? Or do you think there's going to be more of a slide in the next few weeks/months?

And what are the best bets.

TheBigLebowski

scoot on wrote: »

The slide continues, Japan down over 5%, Uk in pre-opening is down 4%, DAX down another 2%, CAC down almost 3%.

Do people think it's a good time to start buying now? Or do you think there's going to be more of a slide in the next few weeks/months?

And what are the best bets.

I know I left that crystal ball around here somewhere. If I could just find it...

is_that_so

The Fed have just cut rates by 0.75%, first time since October 1994. The effect or not will become clearer today.
Deep breath and hold would be my thoughts. Stock markets love "carnage". All on Bloomberg -good viewing for a change!

mcirl2

ok I am not an expert on stocks and I asked the same question before - ie when to buy - Now or when we think the worst is over....

The response was - If you find a bargain buy it - it doesnt matter whether its now or 6 months / year down the line.

By a bargain I mean after you have valuated the company, you think its value is more than what the stock price is.

Read these books!
The Intelligent Investor and The Interpretation of Financial statements by Ben Graham. Warren Buffett learned from him!

Cantoris

With the markets so volatile and nobody really having a clue where it is going, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to buy at the moment. Irrespective of what stock it is, they are all open to events outside your control. Now I know that is the case most of the time but the markets are so volatile at the moment that the best thing you can do is stay cool. Wait for the storm to blow over, in six weeks, six months or whenever. There will be plenty of upside in the market in the long term. Losing a little of it now won't make much of a difference and you may as well as the monkey how the markets are going to go over the next week.

A Random Walk

On the other hand, you could be waiting only to pay more in the future. It's a times of massive turbulence like this that a long term averaging in buy and hold strategy is rewarded because you don't have to pay a blind bit of difference to what the market is doing. Up 5%, down 5%, not interested and you're buying more shares (or pension or mutual funds etc) for your money.

pjproby

if you bought Bank of Ireland on Monday and sold them on Friday this week you would have made 12.5% gross.
this is not the first time in recent months that you could have made such a gain on Bank of Ireland!

radioactiveman

there would be a fair bit of luck involved in actually realising that profit though.. even though you will always win by holding long you still have to figure out what is good value - you'll get plenty of advice to just hold long but there's nothing like researching it properly beforehand

pjproby

surely the problem is that at the moment research appears almost meaningless in the case of Bank of Ireland. There is no currently known reason why the share price is so low. You cannot research sentiment.
Next time it drops at or near 9 euro, buy it!

portomar

A Random Walk wrote: »

On the other hand, you could be waiting only to pay more in the future. It's a times of massive turbulence like this that a long term averaging in buy and hold strategy is rewarded because you don't have to pay a blind bit of difference to what the market is doing. Up 5%, down 5%, not interested and you're buying more shares (or pension or mutual funds etc) for your money.

ah buy and hold.hold for what!? Just because shares always go up long term dsnt mean entry and exit strategies are bad ideas.thats the same logic that has people advising me to buy a house as soon as i can because property always goes up eventualy.intelectualy bankrupt

Minder

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/revealed-the-hedge-funds-who-short-ireland-1229986.html

Revealed: the hedge funds who 'short' Ireland
Secretive groups profit from market carnage

By Nick Webb
Sunday November 25 2007

A HIGHLY secretive coterie of London and New York-based hedge funds has made hundreds of millions in profits from driving down Irish share prices.

Last week, Anglo Irish Bank boss, David Drumm, criticised hedge funds which were shorting Anglo shares, adding that it had been hugely damaging to the bank, which has shed almost half its value since June.

For the first time, the Sunday Independent can reveal the identities of the principal hedge funds targeting the Irish market.

Ironically, many of these hedge funds have listing on the Dublin market. Bank of Ireland, AIB, CRH and Irish Life & Permanent are among the stocks that have been devastated by hedge fund trading.

Lansdowne Partners, the €20bn London hedge fund run by former Schroders executive, Paul Ruddock, is the outfit most widely cited as "shorting" Irish stocks, particularly financial ones.

Ruddock declined to comment on hedge funds shorting Irish stocks, when contacted by the Sunday Independent last week.

Short selling is a perfectly legal market practice and there is no suggestion that any of the hedge funds named have been involved in an unscrupulous behaviour, other than making huge sums of money.

Ruddock and his partner, Stephen Heinz, are thought to have been paid about €150m each last year, as the hedge fund made major stratospheric profits.

Lansdowne has been involved in a number of Irish companies, holding a chunky stake in Tullow Oil at one stage. The hedge fund was also a shareholder in Manchester United football club at the same time that John Magnier and JP McManus were investors. Along with Magnier, it is also a backer of Asian exploration firm Salamander Oil.

Crispin Odey's Mayfair-based Odey Asset Management is the best performing hedge fund in Europe this year, with its European fund making a fortune from shorting irish banks and financial stocks, according to a recent interview with the Financial Times.

JP Morgan's specialist sales have also been linked to aggressive selling of Irish shares, along with New York-based Oz Capital.

Kenneth Griffin, the billionaire hedge fund boss described as the "most feared man on Wall Street", may also be profiting from falls in the Irish market.

Market sources have linked his $16bn (€10.7bn) Citadel Investment Group with shorting Irish bank shares in the last two months. London hedge funds, Marshall Wace and GAM, are also thought to have banked millions in profits from shorting certain Irish stocks.

While the drastic slowdown in the economy, soaring oil prices and forced sales from CFD buyers have all contributed to the market carnage since the summer, top stock market observers feel that hedge fund activities have had a pivotal role.

"Over €40bn has been wiped off Irish shares this year. A major percentage of that has to be down to hedge fund activities. I'd say its more than a couple of billion," says Dolmen's Stuart Draper.

"Hedge funds are a major reason for the fall in the Irish market," added Bloxham chief Pramit Ghose. "It's one thing to make money and that's all very well but it's another thing entirely when you start to threaten the whole financial system," he said.

"While hedge funds will be in there, ultimately it's about a lack of buyers," according to Merrion's Rory Gillen.

- Nick Webb

portomar

give it a few hours and some "expert" from davy will be on rte saying this is the reason 4 the recent declines.meanwhile their buy recommendation on irish financials hasnt been under threat 4 years.

ther27

I am massively disappointed with my investments. I put €5000 into Bank of Ireland Evergreen and it is now valued at €4200. I have made the decision to cash in my policy and I feel the markets will remain turbulent and I won't be able to sleep if the value falls further.
:mad:

ixus

ther27 wrote: »

I feel the markets will remain turbulent and I won't be able to sleep if the value falls further.
:mad:

Well zee markets are not for you so. Take your own advice and get out.
Don't take any other advice on this.

portomar

agreed, those "your investments may go down aswell as up" thing on the ads isnt just a disclaimer.

A Random Walk

portomar wrote: »

ah buy and hold.hold for what!? Just because shares always go up long term dsnt mean entry and exit strategies are bad ideas.thats the same logic that has people advising me to buy a house as soon as i can because property always goes up eventualy.intelectualy bankrupt

You're talking about market timing. Many have tried, many have failed.

ixus

A Random Walk wrote: »

You're talking about market timing. Many have tried, many have failed.

many have been successful....

If you believe that an investor should average in on a regular (we'll say monthly) basis why not employ some kind of timing strategy on this?

For instance, one could add to their portfolio on a day when the market has taken a hit as opposed to a day where there has been a rise.

If you insist on this averaging in strategy, this is probably a good time to "time the markets".

***please note I wouldn't follow an averaging strategy at present, but if I was, this is how I would do it******

Idu

Losers average Losers - Paul Tudor Jones

A Random Walk

ixus wrote: »

For instance, one could add to their portfolio on a day when the market has taken a hit as opposed to a day where there has been a rise.

Assume that our averaging in investor usually buys on the first of the month. Let's say the share price goes like this

Day 1 100
Day 2 102
Day 3 104
Day 4 108
Day 5 107

Adopting your strategy, the averaging in investor would only buy on a down day which is day 5. He could have bought at 100 on day 1.

Market timing simply does not work for the average investor. Maybe you're better than the rest, good for you and good luck.

ixus

Expected this example to be honest...

What if you picked the 4th day to invest each month
Day 1 100
Day 2 102
Day 3 104
Day 4 108
Day 5 107

It's no different to locking into to mortgage rates at a particular time.12 months ago, one should have been able to see that rates were on the up and lock in. There was enough warning. There was plenty of warnings in the market and even the media over the last 6 months to get out of the ISEQ, if you didn't you missed the peak.....in 6 - 12 months, the ISEQ may be worth looking at again, maybe....

You can miss the bottom, miss the top, miss the downslide and still make a profit.....just be there when "things" are on the up.....

or profit from shorting..

averaging isn't a complete waste of time, it's just lazy.

A Random Walk

ixus wrote: »

one should have been able to see that rates were on the up and lock in. There was enough warning.

eh yeah it was an example to illustrate that your "why don't you only buy on down days" comment isn't so straightforward.

If it is that easy for you to see the direction of rates then you should become a trader and make millions. Where do you see rates in 1 month, 6 months and a year please? We'll come back to this thread and see how good your predictions were

ixus

I robbed this from http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?showtopic=2669&st=160&start=160



The next FED rate cut will depend on how the markets react to this cut. There will probably be another 0.5 cut next month if/when market sentiment remains bearish. I had only thought there would be a 0.25 cut today though.....FED seems to want to use a defribillator though. Either way, it's a downward path for FED rates. Wouldn't you agree?

In the UK, it's not as clear cut, they tend to make incremental 0.25 movements. And I would expect a rate cut next time around of that size.

I don't expect the ECB to change.

My guesses are coming with the limited information available to me. I can't tell you what further losses the banks/insurers are going to have. Additional large losses could speed up the process of rate cuts.

Traders have a wealth of information available to them. They can see volume, volatility, have live information and are closer to the action, so should be able to pick up on sentiment. I shouldn't be able to compete with that.

Traders are not all special, I've seen them making mistakes first hand. Even the Nobel prize winners can get it wrong (LTCM).

My point was that with the markets so volatile and swings of 5-10%, if you were to employ an averaging strategy, you would be better of buying on the day the market took a hit.

It's probably better put in by these guys :
http://www.victoradair.com/pdf/BasicPoints200801.pdf
taken from
http://www.thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?t=6310

"Use panic days to strengthen your equity portfolio, buying the agricultural,
gold, and oil stocks you will want to own after the bear retreats to his
cave—and selling stocks that are too dependent on US consumers. Retain
your quality base metal stocks: they may well be taken out by other mining
companies, or a Sovereign Wealth Fund."

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

ixus

A Random Walk wrote: »

If it is that easy for you to see the direction of rates then you should become a trader and make millions. Where do you see rates in 1 month, 6 months and a year please? We'll come back to this thread and see how good your predictions were

Hey ARW, so far, I can predict the future up to a week. :cool:

Maybe I should change my name to Nostrodamus....

It's Euro millions for me tomorrow

kaiser sauze

ther27 wrote: »

I am massively disappointed with my investments. I put €5000 into Bank of Ireland Evergreen and it is now valued at €4200. I have made the decision to cash in my policy and I feel the markets will remain turbulent and I won't be able to sleep if the value falls further.
:mad:

May I ask how long you were invested in this fund?