[Rickson9]

Hi everyone, I have been following your forums for a few weeks now and I have learned alot.

I have a question about investing now.

Given that the TSX is currently up around the 10K mark, which is up about 1/3 from its levels in March (it was around 7.5K), do you think now is a good time to invest, or are things headed for a correction.

It just seems to me that the market has risen very sharply in a short time, but given the circumstances esp. in the US with the car companies...still unresolved and could result in a lot of job losses...are things going to turn down again?

I am generally not a market timer. I save each pay cheque but am wondering if I should be holding my funds in my ING account and wait to invest if things are going to turn back downward.

Any thoughts?

My thoughts are:
1) The future is not knowable so it is a waste of time to think about it.
2) The best time to buy is when you find a company you understand, with strong historical financial statements, selling at an inexpensive price.

 

[Rickson9]

Not sure where the "makets" are headed and equally not sure where the stock "markets" are headed. Is there not a consensus that these things are unpredictable in the short term but over the long haul -- shown by the Andex charts -- equities tend to rise? In the short term, I like the phrase used by American personal finance writer Jason Zweig: "I don't know and I don't care."

www.wealthyboomer.ca

Good quote. Strongly agree.

 

[Rickson9]

Thanks for the comments. In keeping with my strategy, I am hanging in with the solid dividend-payers in my diversified portfolio, with the preferreds and Claymore's Corporate Bond ETF as the outer defences, sort of like a vegetable garden!

One thing I've noticed is how successive guests on Market Call and Market Call Tonight will have diametrically oppposed positions. The first loves Telus and Shaw, for instance, while the next goes for BCE and Rogers, and on and one. It makes my head spin.....

I subscribe to the Post and read the Globe Investment pages online or at the library. Anyone have further resources that they like?

In order to differentiate between opinions, I use Morningstar (they have 10 years of historical financial statements), Yahoo! (they have a free stock screener), and I also look at the SEC Form 4 submissions (showing insider buys/sells).

In this economic environment we are buying buying buying. No dividend. No GICs. No bonds. No short-term savings. Stocks. There is absolutely no way we are going to let an opportunity of a lifetime just pass.

 

[Rickson9]

Hey, if this strategy works for you, my hats off to you. Definitely not for the faint-of-heart. Did you use the same strategy going into the crash? If so, you must have taken a massive haircut, if not then let me borrow some of your horseshoes .

During the last stock market run-up during the late 90s we piled up cash as there was very few inexpensive stocks. When the bottom fell out we bought. We never sold those stocks.

As the stock market recovered and started climb again, cash piled up as there was nothing inexpensive to buy. Now that the bottom has fallen out (again) we are buying (again). We don't plan to sell these stocks either.

You can view our performance at the link in my sig.

The cycle of boom and bust is well-documented but most people can't seem to build wealth because only 1% believe in value investing and portfolio concentration; and those 1% are genetically determined (since the belief can't be taught). In other words, 99% of the population creates opportunities for the 1% on a fairly predictable schedule. There are no horseshoes involved. Investors like myself depend on the population as a whole to create wealth for ourselves.

 

[Rickson9]

I don't consider myself genetically gifted...

Genetically "determined". Not "gifted". I am far far from gifted!