Investors - Sell in May and Go Away?

cloud_dog

Ok, so we've had a fairly significant rise recently so, is this a bear market rally or have we seen the bottom and the uptrend will continue?

kingmonkey

Minimum point of bear market will be in 2013.

Blah99

Difficult call. I can't remember the exact numbers but the adage has held true more often than not, but we're in a very strange market at the moment. My feeling is that going away in may will lose you some significant opportunities. I don't have any data to back it up though, just a gut feeling.

tradetime

There is no denying the significant strength in this move, I am of the view that this is a bear market rally, however, I am also aware that in this viewpoint, I am in a lot of company which does give me pause for thought, this rally may have to continue untill we draw in enough funds to allow smart money to exit. I suspect on that viewpoint we can move higher, my original target on S&P500 was 850 - 900, next target would be around 960 ish @ the 200 sma and a breach of that 1014 a 38% retrace of the entire move down
As Faber says, "Never underestimate the power of printing money."

mrposhman

As others have stated it depends on whether this is a bear market rally or the start of the next bull market and we shall only find out through hindsight where some of us may make a lot of money whilst others don't or some of us will lose a lot whilst others don't.

It seems to work in the trends but as everyone knows with statistics it doesn't work 100% of the time and this year could be one of the small numbers to not lose in May.

We'll see in June shall we

sabretoothtigger

Theres some shares people wont ever want to sell or at least not until the price is much much higher then now, regardless of rallys and crashes.

But reduce positions now in order to buy later yea, I dont think selling everything is good advice at any point but switching over to another sector or country that'll do better in a down turn is a good idea

I'll vote yes here for active trading but its no to absolutes or over simple paradigms, positive or not

cloud_dog

Good comments one and all.

The sell in May and go away, or at least significantly reduce my holdings in my 'trading' investments has served me quite well in previous years (2006 good, 2007 very good, 2008 ok(ish) just got back in too early).

I suppose I'm trying to guage the strength of the rally and possibly even more so the buying 'fever' atm.

As touched on earlier some of my portfolio I trade in/out the remainder is more long term and traded much less frequently.

cloud_dog

cloud_dog

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

I'll vote yes here for active trading but its no to absolutes or over simple paradigms, positive or not

I think you've got all bases covered there

sabretoothtigger

Thats the idea! I voted yes on the poll but I think there are smart guys who trade so they never lose money overall whichever way the market turns on them

Selling everything till st. legers day would be taking a leap into the dark, the opposite of investing

http://www.dailyreckoning.co.uk/lessons-from-history/sell-in-may-and-go-away-stay-away-till-st-legers-day.html

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/en-gb/pricesnews/education/expertcommentary/urquhartlatest/urquhartarchive/stleger.htm

next target would be around 960 ish @ the 200 sma

I saw that and unfortunately in mid april I opened a small bet we wont see past 924 till oct, opps

tradetime

Bloomberg, did a lok at this last week, I was looking for a video clip of it, but can't find one, their view was the saying didn't hold up on a pure basis, Did find this one on Market Oracle though.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article4580.html

and another from the same site
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article4577.html

turbobob

Digital Look had a piece on this the other week as well and their view was also that it didn't really hold up (but also that they believed that the FTSE would be at a lower point in September than it is now). http://www.digitallook.com/news/2733209/Technical_Analysis_Sell_in_May_-_fact_or_fiction.html?&username=&ac=