As I mentioned last Friday, those funds/ETFs that had barely triggered my sell stop points were slated to be sold today. This plan was subject to confirming further market direction to the downside at today’s opening, to make sure we would not expose ourselves to a potential whipsaw.
So far so good! The markets rebounded nicely and pushed our holdings back below the 7% sell stop level. I will wait with any liquidation until the sell points have been clearly pierced to the downside before taking further action. It is too early to tell whether today’s rebound was just a dead-cat-bounce or the beginning of another leg in the bull market.
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Comments 2
1974 and 1975 were a lot longer than two years if you lived through them. The October 1987 crash actually started in the summer and the downturn of 2000 actually lasted well into 2001 and some might argue into 2002. The move off the lows were explosive and strong, and it would seem that we have a lot farther south to go and a long time (yet to be determined) before we will ever be able to determine if this is the beginning of a downturn. Having written that however, this is a long in the tooth bull market, and if we see another move down approaching the volume of last friday it will be ignored at the peril of your assets.
That’s why we use a sell stop discipline. Not to protect ourselves from normal corrections, but to be out of the market once the trend has reversed. As I said before, the biggest danger to anyone’s portfolio is the recurrence of a bear market.