| What Investors and Traders Should Do! |
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| Written by Ric Conzet |
| Friday, 17 October 2008 06:18 |
The stock market is long overdue for an oversold bounce – a quick rally that catches everyone by surprise, forces cash-heavy investors to chase stock prices higher, and inflects massive amounts of pain on greedy short sellers who held on to positions for too long...It wouldn't surprise me at all to see the Dow rally 1,000 points, and the S&P 500 could explode 150-points higher. It could happen in a matter of days.
The problem is oversold bounces are temporary. And strong intermediate-term bottoms have to be retested. No matter how strong of a bounce we get here, the odds are quite high stocks will come back down to retest today's low prices. Traders can do quite well buying stocks at current levels in anticipation of a bounce. Investors, on the other hand, should wait for a retest of the bottom. In 1987, the stock market rallied for two days after the crash and then spent the next six weeks chopping back and forth before testing the bottom on December 4. Back in 2002, stocks rallied 20% in just one week after the bear market finally bottomed on July 24. Ten weeks later, stocks were right back down at the bottom. Traders had another opportunity to buy. Yesterday’s rally was powerful. And the S & P can probably still rally another 50 points or so before hitting resistance. But there’s no need to go chasing stocks higher. Friday’s low, just like the low’s in 1987 and 2002, will be retested. Then we put some money to work. Be careful, very careful |