[quote author="blackvault_cm" date=1225360129][quote author="stepping_up" date=1225357447]I've been doing well with BAC buys at extreme lows and selling when it rallies, but check out JOYG.... 29% in 19 hours of owning it. I'm no expert, but this stock has been over sold and when it tanks on the bear days, it comes back a day or tow later and comes back strong. I wanted to keep it at the price I paid for it Monday, but I knew I could pick it back up later for less than I sold it for at mid morning our time.</blockquote>
I disagree. Is it oversold on a day to day basis? week to week? month to month? Perhaps. Are we going to enter a bull market now for years to come? Not a chance. (I still think we are still heading for a 7000 DOW in near term.)
I define oversold is when Future P/E ratios are lower than current P/E ratios. (many are still not)
If stock A has a P/E ratio of 5 this is good right? Well what happens when next quarter they earn much less and their P/E adjust to 25? Not so hot huh?
Due to the fact we are heading into a global recession, earnings will plummet.
You have to remember the crisis hit us really hard just recently; the past month and a half. So companies will still have some decent profits built in and some will continue to do ok in next couple of quarters as they have contracts. However, people will spend less and many companies won't renew business contracts and will bunker down instead. We are only in the beginning stages. Volatility will settle, we might even pop up for a week or two maybe even a month, but expect the market to continue its downward trend.
Earnings will fall and bears will continue to tear this market apart.
Now if tomorrow we report a GPD of +5% (lol) then my view will completely change and I'll agree with you that we are entering a bull market.</blockquote>
In my view, the cascade of bad news peels off layers of sellers panicking in succession. Each time a new level of "badness" in the news is reached, each time it's like peeling the layers of an onion. The first layers are the largest, and cause the largest drop. Then on each layer of bad news, another smaller layer of is peeled, and a few more sellers get off. This goes on until we hit more and more the hardcore sellers who become desensitized to bad news.
So, in my view, the level of bad news required to cause more panic becomes exponential. At this point I can't imagine anyone on the planet believes we won't have a recession, and most expect a deep one. The view that we are going to have a true full fledged depression seems to be in the minority (and afaik even Roubini isn't going that far).
So we all know about Alt-A loans, we all know most banks are insolvent (but will be made whole), we know a few banks will fail every week, we know credit is frozen, we know the dry shipping rates have crashed, we know currencies are completely out of whack, we know lots of money is appearing out of nowhere... Well, at this point, the stakes are high enough that we'll need even a higher level of doom to cause further panic in my view. I guess the US defaulting on debt would do it, or multiple states/counties going bankrupt...
So, imho, it will take very little good news to bring the market somewhat higher, just because the remaining sellers become desensitized , and short traders, if they still want to make money, need to stay flexible and flip to the long side for a while.
Even in the great depression the market didn't go down in a straight line.
It's much easier for the market to go lower if it goes up for a bit (a few weeks/months) first. Hardened sellers at these levels will think "well what the heck, too late to sell now so I'm keeping my shares". A 15-20% rally could certainly convince those sellers to sell ("ok, good enough, I'll sell now that my losses aren't as bad"), creating selling pressure for more dowturn later.
It's the lack of sellers that cause the bear market rallies. It's an influx of new buyers that finally creates a bear market bottom.