Down goes the Dow

Sell Tesla -- massive rally.

Hold Twitter -- massive dump.

This is unreal

Dumped bitcoin a week ago.

Big rally pre opening trades.

the thing is this. In moments of high fear and greed the stock market becomes a meter of investor's minds. Toss out discounted cash flow, earnings predictions, etc. It's just a meter of mob hysteria. Since humans are very very social critters, we tend to all think the same thing at the same time. So thousands or more people felt the same panic you felt, at exactly the same moment and sold hard.

The only cure to this is to consume less or zero business news. The more you read and hear stock market news the worse your returns will be. Watching a stock tick by tick is very bad for your stomach. And investors need a strong stomach.

Your social nature makes you extremely receptive to news that inspire greed and fear, and it happens the same time as everyone else at extreme moments of fear.

I totally disagree.

if many felt the same fear as me, the sell off would continue and I would have made the right move by selling sooner rather than later.

I view the market more as an entity being manipulated by insiders and big players who can create fear and drive the market down and then scoop up assets on the cheap.

The game is to to guess what they are up to.

I do agree that I am not very risk tolerant, have a hard time taking the long view when I am losing so much money pretty much daily

well of course you feel that.

so tell me....what made you sell impulsively yesterday? What was it?

When Tesla kept falling, finally dropping below $700 I felt I had ridden it down long enough. From over $1,000 in the 3rd week in April I rode it down for 4 weeks or so. I would not call it impulsive. But looks like they got me.

If people were panicking like me -- and there had to be a lot of people like that -- then why did the selling stop and the price rebound? Your theory of the market would mean more selling, no? My theory works

Ok so you agree you got to a moment of panic and sold. That's what so many other people felt at the same time.

Obviously there is not infinite selling. Every step down affects a different pile of shareholders. You seem to have been in a very large group of shareholders that collectively felt $680 was just too much pain. You all sold at the same time.

And some other group of buyers felt under $700 was the bargain they were waiting for.

Another way to avoid panic selling is to ask yourself if you would buy the stock today, if you had that much cash in your brokerage account. In other words, pretend you don't own the stock and ask yourself if $680 feels like a price you would get in at. This is to avoid sunk cost fallacy. The quality of an investment going forward doesn't matter what you paid for it many months or years ago. (unless cap gains taxes are part of the equation)

Maybe if you had gone through that exercise and said 'wow I'd be a buyer at $680' you would not have panic sold.

I will say that in this instance you had some bad luck - that you sold just before Musk blew up the twitter deal. Obvi tesla shareholders don't want musk buying twitter so the news helps TSLA shares today.

so in this case musk may be manipulating tsla shares, trying to give them a boost by walking away from twitter. So that actually is a form of conspiracy I suppose, in this case.

Twitter deal will probably (?) go ahead.

Musk might be looking to lower the purchase price (not good for those of us holding the stock).

It's all guess work for the little guy.

Maybe the big players were waiting for it to go under $600 before buying. Or $800. Even $700 -- I waited a bit after it dropped under $700 and it continued on down to below $690 and I did not want to ride down any longer.

Like I said. WE can only guess. The big players and the market movers however do have the power to manipulate the market

the big players are getting slaughtered.

TOKYO— SoftBank Group Corp. 9984 12.22% , one of the world’s most aggressive high-tech investors, said Thursday it lost more money in its last fiscal year than it ever has—$13.2 billion—and will cut back its pace of new investments.
“The world is in a chaotic situation,” said Chief Executive Masayoshi Son, citing Covid-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “In this chaotic world, the approach we at SoftBank should take is defense.”
The rough results at the Tokyo-based conglomerate come as investors throughout the globe are dealing with a dramatic pullback in tech stocks, particularly the young, high-growth companies that were a magnetic investment for investors until recently. SoftBank lost $26.2 billion in the first three months of this year.

//

Hedge fund Tiger Global roared in 2020 and early 2021 as its huge bets on tech companies paid off. But the dramatic market sell-off this year has left the investment company licking its wounds.

Tiger has racked up losses of $17 billion so far in 2022, according to LCH Investments, in one of the biggest drops in hedge fund history.

Igy with the hottest of hands. SARK down to $65.

Sometimes the actual big players = Wall Street -- have their fear mongering get away where they cannot stop it.

2008 for example.

They don't care though.

They know they will be bailed out

Goldman stock fell 31%. They care.

Now's a tough time for market timers.

some will buy back in, figuring the bad news is priced in, at a market down 20% and in an utter panic.

others will wait, thinking this is a bear market rally.

Many of the waiters will still be waiting a year from now, two years from now, for the last shoe to drop. Those people are the worst investors. The ones who wait too long for the last laugh.

Isn't down 20% good enough, waiters?

When?

2008?

They got bailed out and did not have to miss one bonus payment.

Their stock price fell to like $80 and is now over $300.

They are down 22% YTD 2022

At their worst GS shared traded down 31% from their 52 week highs.

On May 12. yesterday.

Yep.

We can only guess.

If you assume that over the long run (10 years? 20? More?) the market will rise and you are a ways from retirement, you can just put a lot into the cheapest ETfs and let it run.

History for the most part says the market will rise over time.

No guarantee it will in the future.

A serious NATO vs. Russia hot war for example would not be a good thing on every level.

Not for me, as I explained yesterday.
I recognize I could be leaving money on the table. But I think a continued decline is the more likely future and I’m managing my money according to that belief. As you manage yours according to yours…