Investors - Sell in May and Go Away?

Hatone

It's still early days, so I wouldn't even contemplate on selling now. I'm a holder, rather than a profit trader. My strategy is to hold my shares, in the hope that companies will start to pay a dividend once we see out bad times.

purch

I consider the Sell in May adage, as market folklore which grew over the years due to the markets being quieter in the Summer months for numerous reasons, the main one being vacations not just in the market but also in the political arena. With the markets being far more 24/7 365 nowadays it has much less influence.

I think this is still a Bear Market, so even a rally and a trend this strong needs to be traded from a defensive standpoint.

theGrinch

dont come back to st leger day (12th sept this year) generally holds true more often than not. from memory the actually "best" time to start buying was late October.

sabretoothtigger

Not last year it wasnt :eek: or the year before

cloud_dog

purch wrote: »

I think this is still a Bear Market, so even a rally and a trend this strong needs to be traded from a defensive standpoint.

I think that is a key statement.

My portfolio has had an exceedingly good run and I believe we (the markets) are not out of corrections yet.

As I've had a good run I sippose my mind is turning to trading to retain value as opposed to increase value. As always.......... time will tell.

sabretoothtigger

cloud_dog wrote: »

I think you've got all bases covered there

Just to clarify, I just meant this rule could be true in the current market context.
Taking it absolutely would be silly, if we'd just had a 40% crash then selling now would not make much sense. Some shares now are above last autumns price

So if we combine it with the present rise, some low volume, news which is mixed at best or misleading and awful at worst then taking this rule into consideration seems prudent.

I'd say the same for TA or any market predicting voodoo, its got to be weighed up and put into context, how people do that part for themselves is the real judgement call

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).

2007 I just see a decline the whole year on, I wish I'd sold everything in 07 tbh. Didnt turn rosy till jan 08 ?

cloud_dog

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

2007 I just see a decline the whole year on, I wish I'd sold everything in 07 tbh. Didnt turn rosy till jan 08 ?

See, now you've got me scrabbling round seeing what I was holding in early 07.

For me selling in late April / early May 07 was gook/ok, I saved/increased (however you want to look at it) - AZM almost 20%, TMC around 19%, WTN 9%, Central Fund of Canada 9%, MXP 50+% (but thats because it fell of a cliff in mid August). Obviously there were stocks which did continue upwards so I lost some on those, and as mentioned in an earlier post I rarely liquidate all my investments.

Thats why I classified 2007 as 'good' (I made/saved a reasonable percentage of my investment money) by liquidating.

Possibly the difference is that I was (am) heavilly in to resource / energy stocks (ignore AZM that was more a bet).

jzi19

Rise until Mid May then drop steadily till late summer! However, I fancy playing russian roulette and think I will hold on and see what happens.

theGrinch

in reality, you should be phasing money in regularly over next 5 years.

purch

Interesting article from Marketwatch.com (part of the Wall Street Journal)

The Stubbornly Bullish Insiders
Commentary: Insiders are more bullish than they have been in years
by: Mark Hulbert

This by no means guarantees that the bottom of the current bear market has been seen, of course, since the insiders were also quite bullish last year prior to the market going over a cliff.
But that blunder is not necessarily a good reason to ignore them now.

The insiders have been right more often than wrong over the last four decades, after all. In order to permanently stop paying attention to their behavior on the basis of what happened last year, we would need additional evidence showing, in effect, that "this time is different"-- that insider purchases and sales don't mean what they used to.


http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/insiders-upbeat-about-their-companies/story.aspx?guid=%7B7B6A6FDE-A1BC-455E-9203-0E4DA0B55C05%7D&dist=TNMostRead