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Dow plunges 1000 points

cnbc.com

51–60 of 365 posts

Re: Dow plunges 1000 points

#51
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously, either way a decline in the stock market indexes is good news for almost everyone. I'm hoping for a real crash as I need to save lots more money, not just for my retirement but also for my kids college. Could you elaborate?

You don't want to buy your groceries when they're not on sale.

because that would be stealing? :p

Seriously though, I think this is a bad analogy. I buy groceries when I need groceries, sales have little bearing on that. A car however, that is something that wait for a deal before I buy.

Re: Dow plunges 1000 points

#52
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly a good idea to buy when stocks are undervalued. However at the moment they are likely still overvalued, and it's also quite early days in this current sell-off. I just sold my entire portfolio (apart from retirement funds) earlier this morning, as we want to buy a house later in the year and don't want to get trapped if the stock market completely crashes.

I’ve been watching for a sell signal for about 6 months, and I also got (mostly) out this morning.

The chance of you actually timing getting back into the market at the right point is really low. Miss the best days of a run up and you're giving up 75%+ of your returns.

Far better to hold steady.

Re: Dow plunges 1000 points

#56
Interesting to see the volatility in all these market these days.

I wonder how much the spread of information/social media plays a role in this. it does seem like most of these swings seem to be from retail investors.

Re: Dow plunges 1000 points

#57
post #56

Interesting to see the volatility in all these market these days. I wonder how much the spread of information/social media plays a role in this. it does seem like most of these swings seem to be from retail investors.

Interesting that VIX has been at an all time low for the last year or more. So volatility has been at an all time low. These last few days have been rough, though.

Re: Dow plunges 1000 points

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different reasons. I suspect this is due to traders taking their yearly profits and then stampede set in. The volatility index has a very sudden spike at the end of the market https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/%5EVIX/

> I suspect this is due to traders taking their yearly profits Thought that happened in December, not February. A short year for traders this year, I guess. (unintentional pun)

Nope, Nov through January are historically great months for stocks with February usually being one of the worst. One cause of this may be fiscal tax years not necessarily aligning with calendar tax years.

Edit: One of the more interesting and notable causes is that many fund managers and investment advisors will actually rebalance portfolios so that at years end it appears they were holding the biggest winner stocks/assets. Basically a marketing trick.

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