Author Topic: LOL — MarketWatch says to sell your investments in a bear market  (Read 2434 times)

Freedomin5

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https://www.marketwatch.com/story/that-massive-one-day-stock-market-rebound-was-a-suckers-rally-2018-12-27?mod=hp_minor_pos20

Another hilarious doomsday article. DH sent it to me trying to convince me to sell our Vanguard index funds. I gently reminded him that the investment accounts that do the best are the ones whose owners died or forgot that the account existed.

A few gems from the article:

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Diversify into cash

Many investors believe they are diversified until all asset classes go down at once. To protect yourself during a bear market, it’s essential you put some of your money in cash.

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Sell losing stocks and mutual funds

Take the opportunity to reduce losing positions, or stocks that you bought too high.

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Do not dollar-cost-average in a falling market

Dollar-cost-averaging works great in an uptrend, but it can damage your account if used in a downtrend or bear market. When the market changes direction, as it has lately, you must adjust to it. The strategies that brought you profits in an uptrend are not going to work well in a downtrend.

The only advice I actually like is his advice to never borrow money to buy stocks in a bear market, but even then, I would say it depends on the situation.

Zola.

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Re: LOL — MarketWatch says to sell your investments in a bear market
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2018, 04:21:18 AM »
No one cares more about your money than you - these guys all want people to be jittery and irrational, as it makes other wealthy.

obstinate

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Re: LOL — MarketWatch says to sell your investments in a bear market
« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2018, 08:07:56 AM »
This dude is a writer, not a trader. As bad as this advice would be coming from a professional trader, at least it would have some credibility. This guy should post his personal performance numbers at the top of each column so people can judge whether his advice is worth more than dogshit on a sidewalk.

WhiteTrashCash

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Re: LOL — MarketWatch says to sell your investments in a bear market
« Reply #3 on: December 27, 2018, 08:10:54 AM »
"Experts" opinions are absolutely worthless. All I look at business websites for is to see how the indexes are doing each day. That's it. All the articles and advice are a waste of electricity. As soon as someone developed a smartwatch app to display the indexes with live information (as opposed to what I have now that only showed the S&P 500), I'll stop looking at those website entirely.

TomTX

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Re: LOL — MarketWatch says to sell your investments in a bear market
« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2018, 09:36:18 AM »
What a remarkably stupid article.

forgerator

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Re: LOL — MarketWatch says to sell your investments in a bear market
« Reply #5 on: December 28, 2018, 11:20:01 AM »
The trend for the market right now is bearish. It's been a good 10 yr bull market and I think I have to agree with the author that it's time to take profit and reenter at a suitable time. Most of the technical analysis at the macro level indicates S&P may fall to 2000 and Dow to 18000. With that scenario in mind lots of investors are starting to exit or already exited from the market.

Lan Mandragoran

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Re: LOL — MarketWatch says to sell your investments in a bear market
« Reply #6 on: December 28, 2018, 11:25:58 AM »
How does this technical analysis typically fare for those taking stock of such advice?

Aelias

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Re: LOL — MarketWatch says to sell your investments in a bear market
« Reply #7 on: December 28, 2018, 01:07:34 PM »
"Dollar-cost-averaging works great in an uptrend, but it can damage your account if used in a downtrend or bear market."

Huh?  Why?

I mean, if you were psychic and could tell good and bad times to buy and sell, yes this would be good advice.  But, for us non-psychics, why wouldn't dollar-cost averaging work on the way down?  My understanding of the concept is, "You can't really predict a good or bad time to buy most of the time, so just keep buying and, in the end, it'll work itself out."  Am I missing something here?

Yeah, this is not a good article.

Curmudgeon

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Re: LOL — MarketWatch says to sell your investments in a bear market
« Reply #8 on: December 28, 2018, 02:05:13 PM »
My understanding of the concept is, "You can't really predict a good or bad time to buy most of the time, so just keep buying and, in the end, it'll work itself out." 

Another aspect of DCA is "Buy more shares when the price is low, less shares when the price is high".  This works equally well whether you're in a bull or bear market.
Selling at the beginning of a bear and buying at the start of a bull is actually great advice - assuming you're psychic enough to pick those points accurately.

mathlete

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Re: LOL — MarketWatch says to sell your investments in a bear market
« Reply #9 on: December 28, 2018, 02:15:57 PM »
All that advice is terrific if you're one of the few people on the planet who can accurately call ups and downs over an investing horizon of several decades.

accolay

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Re: LOL — MarketWatch says to sell your investments in a bear market
« Reply #10 on: December 29, 2018, 12:18:14 AM »
With that scenario in mind lots of investors speculators are starting to exit or already exited from the market.

FIFY

 

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