Don't Think Too Much, Nadeem Walayat's Trading Lesson's

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Don't THINK too MUCH !

Don't get lost in reasons of why the market must move, rather focus on what the market is doing on the price charts! As you are trading the PRICE CHART and NOT the fundamental DATA! They can and DO move in OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS!

Fundamentals are a RED HERRING that continue to sucker both the professionals and the inexperienced, whereas they should amount to no more than 10% to 20% of the your decision making process when trading rather than the over inflated 80% or more that many weight towards in depth fundamental studies into for instance corporate earnings forecasts.

Remember March 2009 ? How the forecast fall in corporate earnings meant that any rally could not last more than a few weeks before the bear market resumed? Here's a link to google news for March 2009.

Back in March I did my best to try and warn readers as to why corporate earnings and fundamentals should be ignored, especially at market junctures - Stealth Bull Market Follows Stocks Bear Market Bottom at Dow 6,470.

Yes I am aware of the on-going corporate earnings contraction forecasts that SUGGEST stocks should be going MUCH lower, though some of the estimates of where the market should be heading to are pretty ridiculous, were talking ridiculous price levels of as low as DJIA 400! However the stocks bull market was also elevated to Dow 14,000 on the basis of corporate EARNINGS forecasts that suggested that Stocks should go MUCH HIGHER. So what does that tell you ? It tells you that what you tend to read is always suggestive of the JUNCTURE being FAR AWAY, NOT imminent. IT IS ONLY LONG AFTER THE FACT, AFTER MARKET'S HAVE ALREADY MOVED THAT THE JUNCTURE IS RECOGNISED AND ANALYSIS PRESENTED AS TO WHAT WENT WRONG WITH THE SCENERIO THAT CALLED FOR MUCH LOWER PRICES.

Similarly wide spread consensus today exists for SHARPLY LOWER CORPORATE EARNINGS going into 2010 THAT MUST MEAN MUCH LOWER STOCK PRICES. However this earnings analysis that is so abundant today, should have been presented OVER A YEAR AGO ! in October 2007 I.e. at or near the market peak! So that ordinary investors could actually ACT on the information. NOT NOW AT THE MARKET BOTTOM ! We are again seeing REASONS as to WHY INVESTORS should avoid investing INTO the Stealth Bull market!, precisely as we all witnessed what was effectively Bullish propaganda during the final stages of the Stocks Bull Market, so we are NOW witnessing what is effectively BEARISH propaganda in the final stages of the Bear Market. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the analysis is not genuine, what I am saying is that IT IS IRRELEVANT! As it is always much easier to build a scenario in favour of a trend that has been in force for sometime that has generated much data and analysis in support of why it exists and therefore it should continue for much longer, then to "Think Out side of the Box" to disregard bearish data that has been magnified by the growing consensus that really should have been known more than a year earlier in favour of the technical picture that as the analysis of October 2008 stated, that a. we are NOT heading for a Great Depression (as I will further elaborate upon in the Q&A below) and b. The stocks bear market HAS fulfilled its bear market objectives in terms of price and time, more than anyone could have been imagined a year ago!

But now, even after the stock price wipeout to below Dow 6,600. The analytical weight bearing down of overwhelming information is that in support of a continuing meltdown for even as long as several more years towards Dow targets such as 4,000 or even as low as 400 by what can only be termed as perma-bear psychology. Remember Dow 14,000, NO ONE PAID ATTENTION to the perma-bears at that time. As the market was firmly in grip of the perma-bull psychology which was eyeing Goldilocks levels of 18,000. There were even calls that China's SSE at 6,000 should go much higher, despite being on a P/E of about 60. The uber bullish media played on the fact that the NASDAQ peaked on a P/E north of 100, so much for the earnings factor! In fact I pointed out in November 2007 that investors should get out of china AT SSE 6,000 and to forget SSE 9,000, its going straight down towards an initial target of 4,000. Instead today earnings is brought to the fore to support a further collapse of stock prices to what is commonly referred to as reversion to below the mean, AS AN EXCUSE TO FALL FOR THE TRAP OF PERPETUATING A DISTANT JUNCTURE BOTH IN TERMS OF PRICE AND TIME. Therefore repeating the same mistakes that occur at ALL market Junctures ! Which is DATA is PUT AHEAD of PRICE ! To which my answer is this - What are you trading ? Are you trading the Corporate Earnings Data or the actual Stock Index ?

Source: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14284.html

By Nadeem Walayat
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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Nadeem Walayat has over 20 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis specialises on the housing market and interest rates. Nadeem is the Editor of The Market Oracle, a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. We present in-depth analysis from over 400 experienced analysts on a range of views of the probable direction of the financial markets. Thus enabling our readers to arrive at an informed opinion on future market direction. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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