"But with Ford you have a weird situation where their profits are going way up, their guidance for 16' is very strong, yet their stock price is down 20% over the last year and a half."
The last 2 considerations are common to many, only the first is (somewhat) unique. Having said that, I love F because they were the only one to take essentially no bailout monies, even though they lobbied for the bill. If they made decent cars, I'd buy one. Or, if I could successfully and economically import a F car from Europe, I might do that, too--looked into it, too much hassle, Ford here won't back it, even if new.
I agree that there can be specific reasons for buying a stock even at this very moment, but I disagree that publicly-available information is sufficient for the retail investor to make such a decision to the degree of probability with which I personally feel comfortable. YMMV, of course.
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This mini-feud between Igy and d seems to me to amount to nothing more than a tiny disagreement over timing. They're splitting hairs. In my case I tend to always be "too early" in my big moves, and I'm fine with that because the markets are not my main activity. However, I do recognize that if I applied myself more diligently, I could delay my big moves to capture more gain, while still making the big moves in time. I know this because I fantasy-tried it after each of my big moves (which is also how I know how much I "lost out on").
Igy may disagree with d that his methodology has any valuable substance, but from where I sit, d still looks prepared for big market changes to occur, and prepared to maybe incur a small loss after a larger period of gain, and is also hedged via commodity shorts and other instruments playing the downside.
It's splitting hairs. They both probably move a bit later than myself, but that's how these things work.