Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Monday 26 July 2010
Friday 23 July 2010
Thursday 17 June 2010
The VIX Indicator: Beat the Crowds to Big Profits with the Ultimate "Fear Gauge"
The VIX Indicator:
Beat the Crowds to Big Profits with the Ultimate "Fear Gauge"
June 17th, 2010
Investors are motivated by two things and two things only: Fear and Greed. It's just that simple.
So more often than not, investors turn quite bullish when they think a stock is headed higher and quite bearish when they fear that all is lost. The trouble with this strategy is that during these extremes in sentiment they often lose their shirts.
While conventional financial theory suggests that markets behave rationally, not accounting for the emotional aspect of the trade often leads to the wrong entry and exit points.
And believe me when I tell you this: It's hard to turn a buck on the Street when you're constantly getting one or both of them wrong.
That's why successful traders often rely on the VIX indicator to assess whether or not the current market sentiment is excessively bullish or bearish... which helps them plot their next move.
You see, the VIX is a contrarian indicator. That is, it tells you whether or not the markets have reached an extreme position. If so, that tends to be a sure sign that the markets are about to stage reversal.
The idea here is that if the wide majority believes that one bet is such a sure thing, they pile on. But by the time that happens, the market is usually ready to turn the other way.
Of course, "the crowd" hardly ever gets its right.
It's counter-intuitive, but it's true nearly all of the time - especially in volatile markets.
And that's why the VIX indicator is a trader's best friend right now.
Beat the Crowds to Big Profits with the Ultimate "Fear Gauge"
June 17th, 2010
Investors are motivated by two things and two things only: Fear and Greed. It's just that simple.
So more often than not, investors turn quite bullish when they think a stock is headed higher and quite bearish when they fear that all is lost. The trouble with this strategy is that during these extremes in sentiment they often lose their shirts.
While conventional financial theory suggests that markets behave rationally, not accounting for the emotional aspect of the trade often leads to the wrong entry and exit points.
And believe me when I tell you this: It's hard to turn a buck on the Street when you're constantly getting one or both of them wrong.
That's why successful traders often rely on the VIX indicator to assess whether or not the current market sentiment is excessively bullish or bearish... which helps them plot their next move.
You see, the VIX is a contrarian indicator. That is, it tells you whether or not the markets have reached an extreme position. If so, that tends to be a sure sign that the markets are about to stage reversal.
The idea here is that if the wide majority believes that one bet is such a sure thing, they pile on. But by the time that happens, the market is usually ready to turn the other way.
Of course, "the crowd" hardly ever gets its right.
It's counter-intuitive, but it's true nearly all of the time - especially in volatile markets.
And that's why the VIX indicator is a trader's best friend right now.
Friday 21 May 2010
US stocks plunge as economy worries bite. There's a whiff of fear back in the air.
US stocks plunge as economy worries bite
May 21, 2010 - 6:43AM
Dow Jones slides on world's woes
US stocks plunged again Thursday on fears Europe's debt crisis might spread around the world.
US stocks sank nearly 4 per cent overnight on growing fears the euro zone's efforts to tackle its sovereign debt crisis will fall short, jeopardising the global economic recovery.
Selling picked up speed late in the day and indexes closed around their session lows after the US Senate voted to end debate on the sweeping overhaul of financial regulation, allowing a final vote on the bill later on Thursday or Friday.
What you need to know
The SPI was down 89 points at 4228
The Australian dollar was buying 82 US cents
The Reuters Jefferies CRB index fell 1.02%
The S&P 500 finished down 12 per cent from its April 23, 2010, closing high, signaling a correction and marking the worst day since late April 2009. The index also ended below its 200-day moving average, a sign the momentum downward could build.
The correction comes on the back of a stream of negative news out of Europe, from worries over Greece's debt crisis to Germany's unilateral decision this week to ban naked short-selling.
Banks and commodity-related stocks, which are more sensitive to economic cycles, were among the hardest hit, with the KBW Bank index sliding 5.1 per cent. The S&P Energy index fell 4.4 per cent, while US June oil futures fell 2.7 per cent, or $US1.86, to settle at $US68.01 a barrel in volatile trade on the day of its expiry.
"The primary mover is coming from Europe. There are still fears of a debt crisis over there and the fact that it could spread to the banking system," said Bernie McSherry, NYSE trader at Cuttone & Co in New York. (Liquidity issue is temporarily solved, but not the solvency issue.)
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 376.36 points, or 3.6 per cent, to 10,068.01. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index slid 43.46 points, or 3.9 per cent, to 1071.59. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 94.36 points, or 4.11 per cent, to 2204.01.
May individual equity options and some options on stock indexes will stop trading at Friday's close and expire on Saturday, which may increase volatility.
The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility index, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, surged 31.3 percent earlier to 46.37, its highest intraday level in more than a year. But the VIX pared back slightly to end up 29.6 per cent at 45.79.
In a sign of heightened fear, 2.5 million puts have traded across all the exchange traded funds, which is three times the normal and about 51 per cent of the total put volume.
Disappointing economic data on the domestic front also contributed to the downdraft. The number of US workers filing new applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week for the first time since early April.
The index of leading economic indicators slipped last month for the first time since March 2009, while factory activity in the US mid-Atlantic region accelerated less than expected in May.
Large manufacturers' shares ranked among the heaviest weights on the Dow, with Caterpillar down 4.5 per cent at $US58.67 and 3M falling 3.5 per cent to $US79.62.
Uncertainty surrounding the final outcome of the financial reform bill weighed on financial shares and hindered the market overall, McSherry said.
"Put it all together and there's a whiff of fear back in the air. Hopefully, it doesn't metastasize and get worse."
Analysts said the correction could be healthy for a market that surged as much as 80 percent from the March 9, 2009, closing low. But if worries over the recovery's sustainability persist, it will be difficult for stocks to bounce back.
Reuters
May 21, 2010 - 6:43AM
Dow Jones slides on world's woes
US stocks plunged again Thursday on fears Europe's debt crisis might spread around the world.
US stocks sank nearly 4 per cent overnight on growing fears the euro zone's efforts to tackle its sovereign debt crisis will fall short, jeopardising the global economic recovery.
Selling picked up speed late in the day and indexes closed around their session lows after the US Senate voted to end debate on the sweeping overhaul of financial regulation, allowing a final vote on the bill later on Thursday or Friday.
What you need to know
The SPI was down 89 points at 4228
The Australian dollar was buying 82 US cents
The Reuters Jefferies CRB index fell 1.02%
The S&P 500 finished down 12 per cent from its April 23, 2010, closing high, signaling a correction and marking the worst day since late April 2009. The index also ended below its 200-day moving average, a sign the momentum downward could build.
The correction comes on the back of a stream of negative news out of Europe, from worries over Greece's debt crisis to Germany's unilateral decision this week to ban naked short-selling.
Banks and commodity-related stocks, which are more sensitive to economic cycles, were among the hardest hit, with the KBW Bank index sliding 5.1 per cent. The S&P Energy index fell 4.4 per cent, while US June oil futures fell 2.7 per cent, or $US1.86, to settle at $US68.01 a barrel in volatile trade on the day of its expiry.
"The primary mover is coming from Europe. There are still fears of a debt crisis over there and the fact that it could spread to the banking system," said Bernie McSherry, NYSE trader at Cuttone & Co in New York. (Liquidity issue is temporarily solved, but not the solvency issue.)
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 376.36 points, or 3.6 per cent, to 10,068.01. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index slid 43.46 points, or 3.9 per cent, to 1071.59. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 94.36 points, or 4.11 per cent, to 2204.01.
May individual equity options and some options on stock indexes will stop trading at Friday's close and expire on Saturday, which may increase volatility.
The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility index, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, surged 31.3 percent earlier to 46.37, its highest intraday level in more than a year. But the VIX pared back slightly to end up 29.6 per cent at 45.79.
In a sign of heightened fear, 2.5 million puts have traded across all the exchange traded funds, which is three times the normal and about 51 per cent of the total put volume.
Disappointing economic data on the domestic front also contributed to the downdraft. The number of US workers filing new applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week for the first time since early April.
The index of leading economic indicators slipped last month for the first time since March 2009, while factory activity in the US mid-Atlantic region accelerated less than expected in May.
Large manufacturers' shares ranked among the heaviest weights on the Dow, with Caterpillar down 4.5 per cent at $US58.67 and 3M falling 3.5 per cent to $US79.62.
Uncertainty surrounding the final outcome of the financial reform bill weighed on financial shares and hindered the market overall, McSherry said.
"Put it all together and there's a whiff of fear back in the air. Hopefully, it doesn't metastasize and get worse."
Analysts said the correction could be healthy for a market that surged as much as 80 percent from the March 9, 2009, closing low. But if worries over the recovery's sustainability persist, it will be difficult for stocks to bounce back.
Reuters
Thursday 20 May 2010
Fear is gripping markets: economists
Fear is gripping markets: economists
EOIN BLACKWELL
May 19, 2010 - 7:44PM
AAP
Fear and uncertainty, not market fundamentals, drove the Australian dollar to an eight-month low on Wednesday and pushed the domestic share market into the red, economists say.
Fears over US and German regulatory reform, the European debt crisis and the Australian government's resource rent tax saw the local dollar hit an eight-month low of 85.17 US cents on Wednesday,
Local shares fell, too, sliding 1.87 per cent to close at a nine-month low at 4,387.1 points for the All Ordinaries index.
Investor sentiment darkened further after the Westpac-Melbourne initiate consumer sentiment index showed a seven per cent slide for May, its biggest percentage drop since the height of the credit crunch in October 2008.
"It's just been one hit after the other," ICAP economist Adam Carr said of the global and domestic concerns.
He said the worries were unfounded with the economic fundamentals of nations in general, and Australia in particular, strengthening.
"The US is seeing what looks like a V-shaped recovery," he said.
"Everyone is waiting for the fall to come in China and it's not going to happen.
"When you look past all the hysteria, the Australian economy, employment, both are going at a very strong rate and interest rates are only about average."
Yet the headlines have been dominated over the past week by the uncertainty surrounding Europe.
A 750 billion euros ($A1.06 trillion) bailout package for debt-laden EU nations like Greece initially calmed markets last week.
But the mood didn't last long amid renewed speculation the crisis could spread and slow EU growth.
4Cast Financial Markets economist Michael Turner said it was hard to see how Europe could escape its debt woes without serious structural damage.
"The way people are expressing that at the moment is through the euro and the stock market," he said.
The Euro was trading at 1.2215 US cents at Wednesday's close, compared with 1.3240 US cents on May 1.
The euro is still above its long-term average of 118 US cents, Mr Turner said.
"It certainly goes a long way to show how fearful markets are with the way all this plays out."
Investor uncertainty reignited on Tuesday when Germany's securities market regulator, Bafin, banned naked short selling of certain securities - often cited as key factor leading to the 2008 financial crisis.
In the US, meanwhile, proposed reforms to the financial regulations that govern Wall Street are before the US Senate and are being fought over Democrats and Republicans.
But it's all just noise, ICAP's Adam Carr said.
"If you're pessimistic over Europe then you might as well quit your job, buy a gun, get some land and learn how to farm," he said.
"Because if you're going to be pessimistic on Europe, then you have to write off the US and write off Japan."
ANZ senior rates strategist Tony Morriss said the safe-haven bond market should to do well amidst the uncertainty and fear.
"I think on the sentiment at the moment you'd sell on any sort of rally in currency, which means that bonds should be supported."
© 2010 AAP
EOIN BLACKWELL
May 19, 2010 - 7:44PM
AAP
Fear and uncertainty, not market fundamentals, drove the Australian dollar to an eight-month low on Wednesday and pushed the domestic share market into the red, economists say.
Fears over US and German regulatory reform, the European debt crisis and the Australian government's resource rent tax saw the local dollar hit an eight-month low of 85.17 US cents on Wednesday,
Local shares fell, too, sliding 1.87 per cent to close at a nine-month low at 4,387.1 points for the All Ordinaries index.
Investor sentiment darkened further after the Westpac-Melbourne initiate consumer sentiment index showed a seven per cent slide for May, its biggest percentage drop since the height of the credit crunch in October 2008.
"It's just been one hit after the other," ICAP economist Adam Carr said of the global and domestic concerns.
He said the worries were unfounded with the economic fundamentals of nations in general, and Australia in particular, strengthening.
"The US is seeing what looks like a V-shaped recovery," he said.
"Everyone is waiting for the fall to come in China and it's not going to happen.
"When you look past all the hysteria, the Australian economy, employment, both are going at a very strong rate and interest rates are only about average."
Yet the headlines have been dominated over the past week by the uncertainty surrounding Europe.
A 750 billion euros ($A1.06 trillion) bailout package for debt-laden EU nations like Greece initially calmed markets last week.
But the mood didn't last long amid renewed speculation the crisis could spread and slow EU growth.
4Cast Financial Markets economist Michael Turner said it was hard to see how Europe could escape its debt woes without serious structural damage.
"The way people are expressing that at the moment is through the euro and the stock market," he said.
The Euro was trading at 1.2215 US cents at Wednesday's close, compared with 1.3240 US cents on May 1.
The euro is still above its long-term average of 118 US cents, Mr Turner said.
"It certainly goes a long way to show how fearful markets are with the way all this plays out."
Investor uncertainty reignited on Tuesday when Germany's securities market regulator, Bafin, banned naked short selling of certain securities - often cited as key factor leading to the 2008 financial crisis.
In the US, meanwhile, proposed reforms to the financial regulations that govern Wall Street are before the US Senate and are being fought over Democrats and Republicans.
But it's all just noise, ICAP's Adam Carr said.
"If you're pessimistic over Europe then you might as well quit your job, buy a gun, get some land and learn how to farm," he said.
"Because if you're going to be pessimistic on Europe, then you have to write off the US and write off Japan."
ANZ senior rates strategist Tony Morriss said the safe-haven bond market should to do well amidst the uncertainty and fear.
"I think on the sentiment at the moment you'd sell on any sort of rally in currency, which means that bonds should be supported."
© 2010 AAP
Thursday 8 April 2010
Tempting But Investors Resisting Lure Of Cheap Stocks
PERSPECTIVE | 06 MARCH 2009
Tempting But Investors Resisting Lure Of Cheap Stocks
It is easy to forget about valuations especially in a super bear market where fear overwhelms common sense and logic. It is funny how we all chase after things that are expensive but shunning the same thing when it is cheap, and this can only be explained by the simple reason that we fear today’s seemingly low price will become even lower the next day.
Fear is such a powerful weapon so much so that it can totally knock all sense out of us: We buy and sell at the wrong time and mistakes are often painful.
I remember writing about sentiment being a far important factor than fundamental analysis and/or technical analysis whenever fear grips investors. At this moment, although fear factor is not as high as it was back in October/November, investors have turned despondent and have almost given up hope with some even not bothering to watch the stock market because bad news and more bad news are being reported by the media on a daily and hourly basis.
Nightmare On Wall Street
Watching the DJIA in action was better than watching the famous horror epic “Nightmare on Elm Street”, as Wall Street played out its own version of a horror show.
During the fortnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) shed about 800 points from 7,555 to 6,726, breaking the October low of 7,449 with the utmost ease and traded to a 12-year low. While there was no fresh spark that triggered the selling, investors just cannot wait to get out of the market – a sign of desperation and exasperation rolled into one.
At the same time, the Straits Times Index (STI) was a battlefield for the bulls and the bears who tried to slug it out in search of a direction. For most part of early-to-mid February, the STI traded sideways refusing to budge even when the US and regional bourses rallied or tanked, with the bears securing a decisive victory on 16 February when the STI went below 1,650 and then tested the next support at 1,570.
In the previous issue of Shares Investment, I mentioned that the STI could test 1,570 and may even overshoot this support if the DJIA were to fall below 7,450. On the other hand, I also mentioned that the STI could move to 1,750 if the DJIA were to go above 8,000 in the most bullish scenario. We were unfortunate that the former came true and the STI had indeed gone as low as 1,502 but had since rebounded on the same day to close at 1,544 on 4 March.
As a matter of fact, all the major regional indices including the Hang Seng Index, the Nikkei 225, the STI and the Shanghai Composite Index did not revisit the October lows while the US indices, the European indices as well as the Australian and Kiwi indices all fell below October levels.
Of all the indices, the Chinese stock market fared the best with a blockbuster 700-point gain from 1,700 to 2,400 from October to February. This phenomenon tells a tale, as it clearly highlights what the world thinks of the Chinese economy and, to a smaller extent, the Asian economies.
Can We Pin Our Hopes On China?
Most people hope that China can help us out of this rut, with the exception of a handful who thinks that their respective economies have the divine right to be the messiah that we have all been crying out for.
No matter who the messiah is, the sooner we get out of this rut, the better it is for everybody.
China is the only major growing economy and with a reserve of some US$1.45 trillion, has the ability to spend its way out of trouble while helping others along the way. Some signs of China being the first to get out of trouble have appeared in the form of the February Purchasing Manager’s Index rising to 49 from 45.3 a month ago. At its worst month in November, the PMI read just 38.8. This is a sign that its US$585 billion stimulus package may be working.
Also, Premier Wen’s remarks that surging loans, growth in retail sales in January, and an increase in electricity output and consumption from the middle of February are signs that government measures are working, which may aid in the first-half recovery of China’s economy.
Most importantly, export orders, which make up a huge chunk of China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), rose to 43.4 from 33.7 while employment rose for the first time in six months from 43 to 46.1.
According to reports, government officials have indicated that the authorities may pump in RMB8-10 trillion of “government-sponsored investment” while an expanded stimulus package has been rumoured to be on its way to speed up the recovery.
All these measures, together with the “encouragement” of more lending by banks to unfreeze the credit market, will to a big extent boost an economy that is already strong, in relative terms.
Stocks across the board are looking cheap but buyers do not seem to be suitors as yet. If we were to talk about financial stocks, investors are worried that the contagion effect of a weak US financial system coupled with a weakening global economy may hit the three local banks even further in the next few quarters when non-performing loans start to grow. This is the main reason for the share price of the three banks being hammered.
If stocks were trading at 2X historical earnings, way below the net asset value, then what is stopping investors from jumping at this opportunity?
Flipping through Shares Investment has revealed that former darlings such as Celestial Nutrifoods (CEL) and China Hongxing (CHX) are both trading at 1.6X and 4X FY08 earnings, respectively. On a price to book basis, CEL is now trading 0.17X ($0.125 versus $0.732) while CHX trades at 0.34X ($0.10 versus $0.34).
Ridiculous? There are more such examples but these two companies deserve a closer look despite the troubles that investors believe they are in.
CEL continued to report growth in its net profit for FY08 but 4Q08 showed a profit decline primarily due to higher soybean prices despite higher selling prices. The point of contention now lies in the fact that its cash position (RMB811m) is lower than its debt (RMB1,225m) – a taboo in today’s market – arising from its convertible bonds that could be redeemed as early as 19 June this year. The market now speculates that CEL could follow in the footsteps of Ferrochina and become insolvent in the event that it fails to source for the funds that could allow the company to face redemption.
The more the share price falls, the higher the fear factor will become despite the management reassuring investors that it has several proposals on the table regarding the refinancing on the convertible bonds.
In the case of CHX, and also CEL, the failure to declare dividends for FY08 has also raised fears that both companies are in financial trouble. Although CHX also reported net profit growth for FY08 despite a profit decline in 4Q08, investors are concerned about its business model of providing advances to its distributors for running stores. The amount of RMB1.15b advanced to these distributors is feared to have been “lost” or “uncollectable” and hence the selloff in the share price of CHX.
The RMB1.15b aside, CHX still has RMB1.98b in cash, which translates into about a cash value of $0.149 per share – a premium of almost $0.05 per share over its last done price of $0.10. If an investor were to buy into this stock at $0.10, he would be covered by almost $0.15 in cash and getting the entire shoe/sports operation of CHX for nothing!
Of course the risks involved in buying these two stocks are high, especially if we were to consider the worst-case scenario. But if both companies were to pull through, the rewards could be high especially when CEL owns the hi-tech soybean zone in Daqing City as well as a biodiesel fuel ready for production in 1Q09 while CHX is one of the top five sports shoe brands in China.
Where Do We Go From Here?
A short-term rebound looks likely at the time of writing with the DJIA up more than 100 points 6,830 on 4 March. Should the DJIA not falter for the next two trading days, it is likely to test the resistance at 7,100 before it meets 7,450. While the former looks possible, the resistance at 7,450 looks quite out of reach for now.
Rallies for the past few weeks have been a flash in the pan and nothing more than that. The short-term target for the STI is at 1,570 followed by 1,600 and 1,650. Nothing has changed fundamentally and rebounds are still very much technical in nature and, thus, weakness should follow almost immediately.
Stay nimble and sell into rallies for now.
Comment: Very good article except for the final sentence asking to "stay nimble and sell into rallies for now." We all know what happened to the market after March 2009.
Saturday 6 February 2010
Factors influencing decision making process-Stock Market
Factors influencing decision making process-Stock Market
Nits | Feb 05, 2010 | 0 comments
Factors influencing Decisions:
A Quest for the proper course of Decision-making in Share-investments
It has been seen for a long time that human being is not always rational and his decisions are not always objective. For instance, if one watches share market, technically the price of a stock should be reflection of its P/E, P/CF & P/BV values, but such is not the case most of times, because the prices of indices are also governed by various aspect and factors of human mindset- expectations, sentiments and excitement to name a few.
This unpredictability of human behavior has led to emergence of a new field in psychology termed as ‘Behavioral Finance’. Behavioral Finance is the study of roles of behavioral factors in the field of finance, especially investment
It is well-known fact that intelligence is one of the important factors, besides hard work and perseverance for achieving success in life. It is generally expected from an intelligent individual to perceive and understand situation properly, think rationally and reason out everything, before making any decision. Clarity of goal, a well-thought strategy to achieve the same, moderate level of motivation, a disciplined behavior with flexibility to reassess the strategies with new developments is certain other requirements to achieve success. This is applied everywhere, in all decisions and goals including individual’s investment decisions as well.
But since human beings do not live in isolation, therefore there are other factors as well which influence his interpersonal relations, and consequently his decisions. Rationality in a man’s decisions or behavior is not always seen as to be expected from them. For instance, people do make different decisions in the two similar situations or behave similarly in two different situations depending upon their emotive state of mind. Thus, emotion plays a vital role in influencing his behavior and decisions. This becomes more apparent in case of investment-related decisions when taken in relation to the share market.
But debate does not end just here. Human beings are not just born for investment; they have other things to do as well. There are numerous occasions when people make mistakes in investment-decisions mostly under the influence of emotions and stress. It is not possible for a person to be totally immune to his emotions, but once he is aware of the risks involved with emotional instability, one can limit the losses. In this context, fear and greed are the most well-known emotions. There is tendency in human-beings to make more money in short time and this tends him to invest in share-market, even when it is at boom. So when market is bearish, the emotion of fear replaces greed. Human-beings love profit, but hate loss even more. A slightly negative indication brings in a lot of negative emotions and consequently, fear comes in. Initially, investor holds position (while rationally, if he wants to quit, he should book losses at that time only) and once the market’s bottoming out tendency to quit gets bigger (though if investor has been rational, he should have waited for a little longer duration and should have stuck to his position). In this way, it would not be wrong to say that not only fear and greed have negative effect on rational thinking, but they also have adverse effects on the long-term strategies of individual. These two unfortunate passions bring in impulsiveness in the individual’s character and continue to press him to take irrational decisions.
Further, Defense-mechanism of denial used by a person to save his self esteem and his ego are also significant factors which prove dangerous in the long run. An investor is, most of the times, adamant to accept that he has made wrong decision. So, he sticks to his decision and end up holding his loosing position longer than what should have been. The anticipation of ‘being wrong’ by any investor, cuts his losses and enables him to take decisions which help him to recover the loss.
Another aspect of Defense-mechanism of denial is its effect on analytical reasoning. Under emotional state of denial, an individual perceives selectively. He tends to emphasize data and information which confirm his position and viewpoint. It also restricts the individual to rationally analyze any new adverse information. Sometimes, it also generates tendency to overemphasize any subtle good indicator and underemphasize the bad indicators, and so, compel the investor to continue with the loosing position, thus aggravating loses.
These factors always influence the decisions of an individual, but the degree of their influence differs. Now, it depends on the individual how he (or she) manipulates these factors for profit. A good investor is one who not only comes out of loss by applying logical thinking but also makes it profitable one. Moreover, one should not stick to his decisions , if situations have changed. The people with low self-esteem and low EQ stick with their decision and apply defense mechanism. False impression of hope leads them to further losses. They even set aside the direction of necessary indicators.
’Never Say Die’
Read more:
http://ansblog.com/2010/02/factors-influencing-decision-making-process/#ixzz0ehyAKUQA
http://ansblog.com/2010/02/factors-influencing-decision-making-process/
Nits | Feb 05, 2010 | 0 comments
Factors influencing Decisions:
A Quest for the proper course of Decision-making in Share-investments
It has been seen for a long time that human being is not always rational and his decisions are not always objective. For instance, if one watches share market, technically the price of a stock should be reflection of its P/E, P/CF & P/BV values, but such is not the case most of times, because the prices of indices are also governed by various aspect and factors of human mindset- expectations, sentiments and excitement to name a few.
This unpredictability of human behavior has led to emergence of a new field in psychology termed as ‘Behavioral Finance’. Behavioral Finance is the study of roles of behavioral factors in the field of finance, especially investment
It is well-known fact that intelligence is one of the important factors, besides hard work and perseverance for achieving success in life. It is generally expected from an intelligent individual to perceive and understand situation properly, think rationally and reason out everything, before making any decision. Clarity of goal, a well-thought strategy to achieve the same, moderate level of motivation, a disciplined behavior with flexibility to reassess the strategies with new developments is certain other requirements to achieve success. This is applied everywhere, in all decisions and goals including individual’s investment decisions as well.
But since human beings do not live in isolation, therefore there are other factors as well which influence his interpersonal relations, and consequently his decisions. Rationality in a man’s decisions or behavior is not always seen as to be expected from them. For instance, people do make different decisions in the two similar situations or behave similarly in two different situations depending upon their emotive state of mind. Thus, emotion plays a vital role in influencing his behavior and decisions. This becomes more apparent in case of investment-related decisions when taken in relation to the share market.
But debate does not end just here. Human beings are not just born for investment; they have other things to do as well. There are numerous occasions when people make mistakes in investment-decisions mostly under the influence of emotions and stress. It is not possible for a person to be totally immune to his emotions, but once he is aware of the risks involved with emotional instability, one can limit the losses. In this context, fear and greed are the most well-known emotions. There is tendency in human-beings to make more money in short time and this tends him to invest in share-market, even when it is at boom. So when market is bearish, the emotion of fear replaces greed. Human-beings love profit, but hate loss even more. A slightly negative indication brings in a lot of negative emotions and consequently, fear comes in. Initially, investor holds position (while rationally, if he wants to quit, he should book losses at that time only) and once the market’s bottoming out tendency to quit gets bigger (though if investor has been rational, he should have waited for a little longer duration and should have stuck to his position). In this way, it would not be wrong to say that not only fear and greed have negative effect on rational thinking, but they also have adverse effects on the long-term strategies of individual. These two unfortunate passions bring in impulsiveness in the individual’s character and continue to press him to take irrational decisions.
Further, Defense-mechanism of denial used by a person to save his self esteem and his ego are also significant factors which prove dangerous in the long run. An investor is, most of the times, adamant to accept that he has made wrong decision. So, he sticks to his decision and end up holding his loosing position longer than what should have been. The anticipation of ‘being wrong’ by any investor, cuts his losses and enables him to take decisions which help him to recover the loss.
Another aspect of Defense-mechanism of denial is its effect on analytical reasoning. Under emotional state of denial, an individual perceives selectively. He tends to emphasize data and information which confirm his position and viewpoint. It also restricts the individual to rationally analyze any new adverse information. Sometimes, it also generates tendency to overemphasize any subtle good indicator and underemphasize the bad indicators, and so, compel the investor to continue with the loosing position, thus aggravating loses.
These factors always influence the decisions of an individual, but the degree of their influence differs. Now, it depends on the individual how he (or she) manipulates these factors for profit. A good investor is one who not only comes out of loss by applying logical thinking but also makes it profitable one. Moreover, one should not stick to his decisions , if situations have changed. The people with low self-esteem and low EQ stick with their decision and apply defense mechanism. False impression of hope leads them to further losses. They even set aside the direction of necessary indicators.
So, to be a good investor, the proper way to act is not simply to book profit at appropriate time, but also to minimize losses in the adverse situations.
’Never Say Die’
Read more:
http://ansblog.com/2010/02/factors-influencing-decision-making-process/#ixzz0ehyAKUQA
http://ansblog.com/2010/02/factors-influencing-decision-making-process/
Friday 27 November 2009
People are risk takers or risk avoiders by nature.
As market rises, investors tend to forget that risk is a four letter word, greed takes over, and those who once thought themselves in the conservative camp abandon caution in search of higher returns and what looks to be easy money to be made.
But an investor's tolerance for risk is part of his or her basic personality, and tolerance for risk rarely changes. People are risk takers or risk avoiders by nature.
Investors and the markets are said to be rational, but most people are heavily influenced by their emotions. The primal emotions of fear or greed often cause investors to play the loser's game of buying high and selling low.
But an investor's tolerance for risk is part of his or her basic personality, and tolerance for risk rarely changes. People are risk takers or risk avoiders by nature.
Investors and the markets are said to be rational, but most people are heavily influenced by their emotions. The primal emotions of fear or greed often cause investors to play the loser's game of buying high and selling low.
Thursday 17 September 2009
Greed and Fear
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Greed and Fear
I have been noting down on my emotions : When I was greedy, when and why? When I was in fear, when and why?
How I survived a nightmare(day-mare, actually)
ZiJin-cw : Yesterday, I queued for 0.148 and it was done. Shouldnt I be jumping for joy after TWICE it shot up above 0.14(my target price) to 0.144 and 0.142, only to see it pullback the next day to go below 0.130?! Should I be relieved that I could sell it at such a "HIGH" price as I saw it plummeted to a low of 0.07 last month?? I was not in joy after I sold it, as I m seeing more upside on it TODAY as gold reaching for 1020. Now, yesterday morning it was at 1005(and even went down to 990 level days ago!!) ... so, I do know it will jump, and placing a 25% increment from the previous closing price, I thought it wont be done(like I dont wish to sell? GREED in play) ... cool. It closed at 0.155. OUCH. Later I wont be surprise if it jumps up another 10-20% to 0.17 level, and breaching new high above 0.20 soon. SHOULDNT I BE in JOY? Hmmm ...
Now, for TWO times when it breached my target price at 0.140 ... I got GREEDY and did not sell it at 0.140(lack of discipline with GREED in play). But, both of the times, it dived below 0.130 the next few trading days. I was cursing myself for not being disciplined. I SHOULD HAVE SOLD IT AT 0.140, I said. As it reached 0.125 level(FEAR in play?), I was kicking myself(in my trading room ... without anyone know about it, and also I do not write about it. This is a confession of a novice trader!) ... and promised to sell it at 0.140 the next time. Yesterday, it breached 0.140 for the third time in as many weeks.
I bought ZiJin-cw at 0.142 with great confidence it will shoot up back to 0.20 level(it dived from 0.16+ to 0.14 level when I decided to buy into it). For first few days, it went up to 0.150. I started to feel confident. I even think of buying more?? GREED in PLAY. But, I did not as that was not in my trading plan. As China markets pullback, ZiJin started to show weakness and back to 0.140 level, and without much problem, going below 0.130 after a week or so!! I do not put a stop-loss, but thought of buying more at 0.120 level.
Yes, it reached 0.120 level ... I was in FEAR and was too stunned to execute my plan? Hello novice trader, you are supposed to follow your plans? I did not. It went back to 0.130 level ... then, HAI YAH, why I didnt buy at 0.120 as planned? It it going to shoot up 0.15 soon!! Yeah, right. Emotions in play ...
Funny, it dived below 0.120 level ... and I was watching it and braved myself : You better buy at 0.10 level or else I will slap you. PIAK. I bought more at 0.10, to avoid being slapped by myself.
FEARS? Wait till you see my face when it went below 0.10, and dived to 0.07 level. I will buy at 0.05 level, I mumbled. Yeah right ... when it really reached 0.05 level, we will be shivering??! I was holding on to 180k units averaging at around 0.12, so at 0.07 ... I m losing almost half of my values. With the expiry date shorten each day, the FEAR is very real. What should I do? As I searching for answers(like looking at my palm lines and the formation of stars above) ... ok, last plunge to 0.05 ... BUY!
It rebounded from 0.07 very quickly back to 0.10 level. PHEW!! What a relieve tho I was still down. As markets in HK recovering, gold price shooting higher to 980 level ... wow. Suddenly there is a great interest in ZiJin. It was shooting like 20% per day. Do the calculations : 0.070 to 0.100, the 0.120. That was just in a week!! It reached my average price. What a relief. Suddenly the FEAR disappear(very fast) and confidence is back. Ok ... I will be VERY glad to clear it at 0.140, I told myself.
Arrghh ... it did reach 0.14 ... ok, I think it will reach higher, say to 0.15?? Then, I started to write about it 2/3 weeks ago, exposing my rollercoaster ride with it. Well, it reached 0.140 TWICE but finally I sold it yesterday as it reached 0.140 again for the third time.
ZiJin breached HKD8 yesterday to close at 8.15, a level never expected in such a short period of time. I started to stalk ZiJin in Feb when it was at HKD3.50 level.
There are so much emotions involved that I was numbed. I m learning to ride on roller-coasters and to numb myself when I trade. But, frankly ... I dont like the emotions in play. I wish I m totally emotionless. Guess I just need to learn and experience more ... I m such a novice. HAHA.
I m trying to be a contrarian but due to lack of discipline, I have not really been doing that. I tend to 'follow the herd', and being slow, I will be slaughtered. The control of emotions is VERY essential and important. Move on after we sell(not looking back with regrets due to greed) ... and hold on after we bought it. Markets up and markets down ... it is the trend that we should TRY to follow. As the saying goes, market ALWAYS win. We buy, it goes down ... we sell, it shoots higher. It is wiser to be longer term investor rather than short-term trader if we could not contain our emotions.
NOTE : The above story is fictional as it is being used to illustrate FEAR and GREED in a novice trader like me and should not be taken seriously.
http://cpteh.blogspot.com/
Greed and Fear
I have been noting down on my emotions : When I was greedy, when and why? When I was in fear, when and why?
How I survived a nightmare(day-mare, actually)
ZiJin-cw : Yesterday, I queued for 0.148 and it was done. Shouldnt I be jumping for joy after TWICE it shot up above 0.14(my target price) to 0.144 and 0.142, only to see it pullback the next day to go below 0.130?! Should I be relieved that I could sell it at such a "HIGH" price as I saw it plummeted to a low of 0.07 last month?? I was not in joy after I sold it, as I m seeing more upside on it TODAY as gold reaching for 1020. Now, yesterday morning it was at 1005(and even went down to 990 level days ago!!) ... so, I do know it will jump, and placing a 25% increment from the previous closing price, I thought it wont be done(like I dont wish to sell? GREED in play) ... cool. It closed at 0.155. OUCH. Later I wont be surprise if it jumps up another 10-20% to 0.17 level, and breaching new high above 0.20 soon. SHOULDNT I BE in JOY? Hmmm ...
Now, for TWO times when it breached my target price at 0.140 ... I got GREEDY and did not sell it at 0.140(lack of discipline with GREED in play). But, both of the times, it dived below 0.130 the next few trading days. I was cursing myself for not being disciplined. I SHOULD HAVE SOLD IT AT 0.140, I said. As it reached 0.125 level(FEAR in play?), I was kicking myself(in my trading room ... without anyone know about it, and also I do not write about it. This is a confession of a novice trader!) ... and promised to sell it at 0.140 the next time. Yesterday, it breached 0.140 for the third time in as many weeks.
I bought ZiJin-cw at 0.142 with great confidence it will shoot up back to 0.20 level(it dived from 0.16+ to 0.14 level when I decided to buy into it). For first few days, it went up to 0.150. I started to feel confident. I even think of buying more?? GREED in PLAY. But, I did not as that was not in my trading plan. As China markets pullback, ZiJin started to show weakness and back to 0.140 level, and without much problem, going below 0.130 after a week or so!! I do not put a stop-loss, but thought of buying more at 0.120 level.
Yes, it reached 0.120 level ... I was in FEAR and was too stunned to execute my plan? Hello novice trader, you are supposed to follow your plans? I did not. It went back to 0.130 level ... then, HAI YAH, why I didnt buy at 0.120 as planned? It it going to shoot up 0.15 soon!! Yeah, right. Emotions in play ...
Funny, it dived below 0.120 level ... and I was watching it and braved myself : You better buy at 0.10 level or else I will slap you. PIAK. I bought more at 0.10, to avoid being slapped by myself.
FEARS? Wait till you see my face when it went below 0.10, and dived to 0.07 level. I will buy at 0.05 level, I mumbled. Yeah right ... when it really reached 0.05 level, we will be shivering??! I was holding on to 180k units averaging at around 0.12, so at 0.07 ... I m losing almost half of my values. With the expiry date shorten each day, the FEAR is very real. What should I do? As I searching for answers(like looking at my palm lines and the formation of stars above) ... ok, last plunge to 0.05 ... BUY!
It rebounded from 0.07 very quickly back to 0.10 level. PHEW!! What a relieve tho I was still down. As markets in HK recovering, gold price shooting higher to 980 level ... wow. Suddenly there is a great interest in ZiJin. It was shooting like 20% per day. Do the calculations : 0.070 to 0.100, the 0.120. That was just in a week!! It reached my average price. What a relief. Suddenly the FEAR disappear(very fast) and confidence is back. Ok ... I will be VERY glad to clear it at 0.140, I told myself.
Arrghh ... it did reach 0.14 ... ok, I think it will reach higher, say to 0.15?? Then, I started to write about it 2/3 weeks ago, exposing my rollercoaster ride with it. Well, it reached 0.140 TWICE but finally I sold it yesterday as it reached 0.140 again for the third time.
ZiJin breached HKD8 yesterday to close at 8.15, a level never expected in such a short period of time. I started to stalk ZiJin in Feb when it was at HKD3.50 level.
There are so much emotions involved that I was numbed. I m learning to ride on roller-coasters and to numb myself when I trade. But, frankly ... I dont like the emotions in play. I wish I m totally emotionless. Guess I just need to learn and experience more ... I m such a novice. HAHA.
I m trying to be a contrarian but due to lack of discipline, I have not really been doing that. I tend to 'follow the herd', and being slow, I will be slaughtered. The control of emotions is VERY essential and important. Move on after we sell(not looking back with regrets due to greed) ... and hold on after we bought it. Markets up and markets down ... it is the trend that we should TRY to follow. As the saying goes, market ALWAYS win. We buy, it goes down ... we sell, it shoots higher. It is wiser to be longer term investor rather than short-term trader if we could not contain our emotions.
NOTE : The above story is fictional as it is being used to illustrate FEAR and GREED in a novice trader like me and should not be taken seriously.
http://cpteh.blogspot.com/
Wednesday 1 July 2009
How I Deal With My Financial Fears
How I Deal With My Financial Fears
August 14, 2008 @ 8:00 am - Written by Trent
Even though I write a lot about personal finance on here and elsewhere, I still have a lot of my own hang-ups about personal finance. One of the big reasons I started The Simple Dollar was to learn how to deal with those fears, and once I dealt with that new batch, a fresh batch came along. Right now, my biggest fears revolve around taxes, the possibility of a third child, identity theft, and future career directions.
I think this is actually a pretty normal thing for most people. We all have areas where we’re less than confident and we all have areas that concern us about the future.
It’s very easy to push these fears aside and just not worry about them, especially if they’re not vital to our day to day life. We’ll tell ourselves, “I’ll think about that later,” and then when it comes up again, tell ourselves the same thing again, until it’s sat around for years, untouched.
This can really be dangerous. Take, for example, my fear of taxes. I’m making myself face this fear this year and that means I’m digging into an uncomfortable subject, saving for the taxes, and paying them when they’re due. If I had taken the “typical” route and worried about it later, I would be suffering dearly when tax time came around.
What can a person do to step up to the plate and tackle our financial fears? The obvious “just do it!” tactic is nice, but it doesn’t really work here - if it were that simple, we’d already have faced the fear and moved on with life, wouldn’t we? Here are six alternate tactics to try.
Make a list of what exactly makes you nervous
Quite often, a fear of a financial move is actually just related to some small aspect of the move. Spend a bit of time figuring out exactly what it is that makes you afraid. I find that doing this with a pen in hand and a piece of paper in front of me makes it easy for me to jot down thoughts, which I can start working through.
Sometimes what you’ll find out is that you’re actually stressed out about something else entirely or you’re only stressed out by a very small part of the equation. For example, I know one person who was avoiding dealing with his retirement situation because he intensely disliked the retirement specialist at his workplace. It wasn’t a fear of retirement, it was a fear of interaction with someone.
Do some research
One big fear is fear of the unknown. Quite often, a lack of knowledge will make someone afraid of something else - we can all think of examples of this in life, where ignorance makes people afraid.
Don’t succumb to it. If you’re afraid of something because you don’t know about it, investigate it. Hit the library or visit Wikipedia and find out more. Dig in, a piece at a time, until you understand the topic - and the fear of it is lifted.
Talk to someone about it
If something makes you uncomfortable, put forth the effort to talk to others about it. Find someone you trust deeply, preferably someone with some experience in the area in question, and just ask questions.
This might mean contacting a financial advisor. If it does, seek out a fee-only financial advisor, as they won’t be engaged in selling you products and are most interested in just providing information to you. If a fee-only advisor isn’t available to you, you can use another, but be very hesitant to invest or put money in specific places based on their advice - instead, just take their information with you and follow up yourself with your own research.
Write out the pros and cons of your decision
One alternative to having a conversation, especially if the fear is related to an important decision, is to simply write out all of the pros and cons related to that decision.
For example, I kept putting off my decision to switch to a full time writing career. One of the big steps that helped push me towards writing was simply making a giant list of the pros and a list of the cons of making the leap. This really helped put things in perspective, as it became clear I was letting the “cons” guide my way of thinking, even though the “pros” were a much more powerful list.
Spend some time each day thinking about the fear
Don’t let yourself lay the fear on the table, because once you start ignoring it, it’s easy to just let something very important slide by until it’s too late. Instead, add consideration of the fear to your daily to-do list and actually spend a bit of time thinking about the fear seriously.
This is often good to do if you’ve gathered the information but are still hesitant about what to do. Steady and informed consideration of a fear is a great way to make that fear go away. I like to think of my two year old son who fears sharks in his room. After giving him a flashlight to investigate the room and some talk about how sharks need water to swim in and there’s no water in his room, he thinks about this information, overcomes the fear a little, and goes to sleep. Over time, his fear of sharks has become less and less intense.
Take a baby step
Once you’ve made up your mind that you’re going to do this, get started with a first little baby step. Take a little action that moves you in the right direction, and feel the relief that comes with wiping away your fear.
Then, take another little step, and another. Soon, you’ll be well on your way to completely eliminating the challenge that brought you so much fear to begin with. And it will feel really good.
What are your financial fears? Feel free to share them in the comments, and good luck on trying to conquer them.
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/08/14/how-i-deal-with-my-financial-fears/
August 14, 2008 @ 8:00 am - Written by Trent
Even though I write a lot about personal finance on here and elsewhere, I still have a lot of my own hang-ups about personal finance. One of the big reasons I started The Simple Dollar was to learn how to deal with those fears, and once I dealt with that new batch, a fresh batch came along. Right now, my biggest fears revolve around taxes, the possibility of a third child, identity theft, and future career directions.
I think this is actually a pretty normal thing for most people. We all have areas where we’re less than confident and we all have areas that concern us about the future.
It’s very easy to push these fears aside and just not worry about them, especially if they’re not vital to our day to day life. We’ll tell ourselves, “I’ll think about that later,” and then when it comes up again, tell ourselves the same thing again, until it’s sat around for years, untouched.
This can really be dangerous. Take, for example, my fear of taxes. I’m making myself face this fear this year and that means I’m digging into an uncomfortable subject, saving for the taxes, and paying them when they’re due. If I had taken the “typical” route and worried about it later, I would be suffering dearly when tax time came around.
What can a person do to step up to the plate and tackle our financial fears? The obvious “just do it!” tactic is nice, but it doesn’t really work here - if it were that simple, we’d already have faced the fear and moved on with life, wouldn’t we? Here are six alternate tactics to try.
Make a list of what exactly makes you nervous
Quite often, a fear of a financial move is actually just related to some small aspect of the move. Spend a bit of time figuring out exactly what it is that makes you afraid. I find that doing this with a pen in hand and a piece of paper in front of me makes it easy for me to jot down thoughts, which I can start working through.
Sometimes what you’ll find out is that you’re actually stressed out about something else entirely or you’re only stressed out by a very small part of the equation. For example, I know one person who was avoiding dealing with his retirement situation because he intensely disliked the retirement specialist at his workplace. It wasn’t a fear of retirement, it was a fear of interaction with someone.
Do some research
One big fear is fear of the unknown. Quite often, a lack of knowledge will make someone afraid of something else - we can all think of examples of this in life, where ignorance makes people afraid.
Don’t succumb to it. If you’re afraid of something because you don’t know about it, investigate it. Hit the library or visit Wikipedia and find out more. Dig in, a piece at a time, until you understand the topic - and the fear of it is lifted.
Talk to someone about it
If something makes you uncomfortable, put forth the effort to talk to others about it. Find someone you trust deeply, preferably someone with some experience in the area in question, and just ask questions.
This might mean contacting a financial advisor. If it does, seek out a fee-only financial advisor, as they won’t be engaged in selling you products and are most interested in just providing information to you. If a fee-only advisor isn’t available to you, you can use another, but be very hesitant to invest or put money in specific places based on their advice - instead, just take their information with you and follow up yourself with your own research.
Write out the pros and cons of your decision
One alternative to having a conversation, especially if the fear is related to an important decision, is to simply write out all of the pros and cons related to that decision.
For example, I kept putting off my decision to switch to a full time writing career. One of the big steps that helped push me towards writing was simply making a giant list of the pros and a list of the cons of making the leap. This really helped put things in perspective, as it became clear I was letting the “cons” guide my way of thinking, even though the “pros” were a much more powerful list.
Spend some time each day thinking about the fear
Don’t let yourself lay the fear on the table, because once you start ignoring it, it’s easy to just let something very important slide by until it’s too late. Instead, add consideration of the fear to your daily to-do list and actually spend a bit of time thinking about the fear seriously.
This is often good to do if you’ve gathered the information but are still hesitant about what to do. Steady and informed consideration of a fear is a great way to make that fear go away. I like to think of my two year old son who fears sharks in his room. After giving him a flashlight to investigate the room and some talk about how sharks need water to swim in and there’s no water in his room, he thinks about this information, overcomes the fear a little, and goes to sleep. Over time, his fear of sharks has become less and less intense.
Take a baby step
Once you’ve made up your mind that you’re going to do this, get started with a first little baby step. Take a little action that moves you in the right direction, and feel the relief that comes with wiping away your fear.
Then, take another little step, and another. Soon, you’ll be well on your way to completely eliminating the challenge that brought you so much fear to begin with. And it will feel really good.
What are your financial fears? Feel free to share them in the comments, and good luck on trying to conquer them.
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/08/14/how-i-deal-with-my-financial-fears/
The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself
The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself
Fear is the best salesman, after all.
October 2, 2008 @ 8:00 am - Written by Trent
Over the last several days, many readers have asked for my take on the economic crisis. I’m not an economist - my opinion is just that of an average person who has read a number of economics books and talked to a lot of people from all walks of life. Here’s my humble take on the situation.
From Franklin Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, March 4, 1933 (please, listen in):
I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
Over the last two weeks, I’ve read countless articles and heard countless podcasts talking about financial apocalypse, spreading fear around like mayonnaise on a turkey sandwich. Most of the suggestions are maddening - I’ve heard previously rational people talking about pulling all of their money out of FDIC-insured bank accounts and putting them under their mattresses.
All of this is based on fear, not fact. Over the last few months, several financial institutions have failed, but in each case, the resources of those institutions were immediately absorbed by other companies or, in a few cases, by governmental buyouts. No one has lost a dime in a bank account. No one has lost a single cent of insurance coverage. Many large banks - like Bank of America - have already taken their losses from the subprime mortgages and rolled right through them, and they’re strong enough that they see this as a buying opportunity.
We all know the general storyline by now - these failures were the result of investing too much in bad mortgages. The truth is that no one knows how serious the actual problem is. No one. The ludicrous plan that Paulson proposed last week served one purpose alone - it gave him tons of cash to make sure that the banks run by his cronies wouldn’t outright fail. The truth is that he doesn’t know how bad it actually is. Neither does Bernanke. Neither do you, and neither do I.
The panicked talk, the whispered statements about apocalypse - they’re fear. Nothing more, nothing less.
I don’t claim to know what the “best” plan for resolving the situation is. My level of information about the true nature of the economic situation is extremely limited - and so is yours.
I’ll tell you what I do see, though.
I look out my window here in Iowa and I see the ongoing harvest of one of the largest soybean and corn crops ever - not the cropless Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
I don’t see a single person with a bank account that has lost their deposits, like my grandfather’s family did circa 1932.
I see people going to work, working hard and producing value for their wage, coming home, and buying the things that they need to keep their family going, which puts money directly into the economy.
I see unemployment barely over six percent, not the 25% rate at the time of FDR’s address.
I see industrial production still rising - in 1932, it had fallen by more than half in just three years.
I see a dollar that’s actually strengthening, not weakening, while the price of oil is down sharply from its highs earlier this year.
In short, I see a lot of things that make me optimistic about our ecnomic situation, a pretty stark contrast from the fear being peddled by some. I’m actually much more reminded of 1987, when banks were failing thanks to the Savings and Loan crisis and Black Monday, when the Dow dropped 22% of its value in a single day. We haven’t yet seen anything as worrisome as that, in my opinion - and that was just a drop in the bucket compared to the 1930s.
To put it simply, I’m still not worried a bit, and when I see the fear being bandied about, I’m reminded of FDR’s words.
So what have I been doing with my money as of late?
First, I haven’t taken a dime out of any bank. I haven’t seen any FDIC-insured bank account fail, and none have in the history of the FDIC.
Second, I actually maxed out my Roth IRA contributions earlier this month. Almost all of that money went into broad based index funds - namely, Vanguard’s Target Retirement 2045 fund.
Third, I haven’t made a single change in any plans I’ve had for investing other than the early Roth IRA buy. I’m still following my own game plan.
Now, ask yourself this. If you make any irrational moves, like pulling all of your money out of stocks, does someone profit from it? Of course they do. Your brokerage will make a fee from the sale, and a happy buyer out there will be glad to buy that stock from you at a nice discount. Fear is the best salesman, after all.
My sole piece of advice to you is this: don’t panic. Don’t make any hasty decisions. Sit back and get informed - and don’t just rely on one source for information, either. Get a bunch of different angles on what’s happening, from liberals and conservatives and moderates alike. If you’re worried about your money, do your own research and find out reasonable things to do with it. Take a serious look at what people who really know what they’re doing are doing with their money - in the last two weeks, Warren Buffett has invested $3 billion in General Electric stock and $5 billion in Goldman Sachs stock (an investment bank … weren’t we supposed to be afraid of those?) - he sees this current situation as an opportunity to buy, not sell.
And one more thing. Even in the darkest heart of the Great Depression, 75% of Americans had a steady job with a steady paycheck, which they steadily used to buy the things they needed. Those years also produced the Greatest Generation and an economic steamroller that ran through the last half of the Twentieth Century like a tidal wave.
It was true 75 years ago. It’s true now.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/10/02/the-only-thing-we-have-to-fear-is-fear-itself/
Fear is the best salesman, after all.
October 2, 2008 @ 8:00 am - Written by Trent
Over the last several days, many readers have asked for my take on the economic crisis. I’m not an economist - my opinion is just that of an average person who has read a number of economics books and talked to a lot of people from all walks of life. Here’s my humble take on the situation.
From Franklin Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, March 4, 1933 (please, listen in):
I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
Over the last two weeks, I’ve read countless articles and heard countless podcasts talking about financial apocalypse, spreading fear around like mayonnaise on a turkey sandwich. Most of the suggestions are maddening - I’ve heard previously rational people talking about pulling all of their money out of FDIC-insured bank accounts and putting them under their mattresses.
All of this is based on fear, not fact. Over the last few months, several financial institutions have failed, but in each case, the resources of those institutions were immediately absorbed by other companies or, in a few cases, by governmental buyouts. No one has lost a dime in a bank account. No one has lost a single cent of insurance coverage. Many large banks - like Bank of America - have already taken their losses from the subprime mortgages and rolled right through them, and they’re strong enough that they see this as a buying opportunity.
We all know the general storyline by now - these failures were the result of investing too much in bad mortgages. The truth is that no one knows how serious the actual problem is. No one. The ludicrous plan that Paulson proposed last week served one purpose alone - it gave him tons of cash to make sure that the banks run by his cronies wouldn’t outright fail. The truth is that he doesn’t know how bad it actually is. Neither does Bernanke. Neither do you, and neither do I.
The panicked talk, the whispered statements about apocalypse - they’re fear. Nothing more, nothing less.
I don’t claim to know what the “best” plan for resolving the situation is. My level of information about the true nature of the economic situation is extremely limited - and so is yours.
I’ll tell you what I do see, though.
I look out my window here in Iowa and I see the ongoing harvest of one of the largest soybean and corn crops ever - not the cropless Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
I don’t see a single person with a bank account that has lost their deposits, like my grandfather’s family did circa 1932.
I see people going to work, working hard and producing value for their wage, coming home, and buying the things that they need to keep their family going, which puts money directly into the economy.
I see unemployment barely over six percent, not the 25% rate at the time of FDR’s address.
I see industrial production still rising - in 1932, it had fallen by more than half in just three years.
I see a dollar that’s actually strengthening, not weakening, while the price of oil is down sharply from its highs earlier this year.
In short, I see a lot of things that make me optimistic about our ecnomic situation, a pretty stark contrast from the fear being peddled by some. I’m actually much more reminded of 1987, when banks were failing thanks to the Savings and Loan crisis and Black Monday, when the Dow dropped 22% of its value in a single day. We haven’t yet seen anything as worrisome as that, in my opinion - and that was just a drop in the bucket compared to the 1930s.
To put it simply, I’m still not worried a bit, and when I see the fear being bandied about, I’m reminded of FDR’s words.
So what have I been doing with my money as of late?
First, I haven’t taken a dime out of any bank. I haven’t seen any FDIC-insured bank account fail, and none have in the history of the FDIC.
Second, I actually maxed out my Roth IRA contributions earlier this month. Almost all of that money went into broad based index funds - namely, Vanguard’s Target Retirement 2045 fund.
Third, I haven’t made a single change in any plans I’ve had for investing other than the early Roth IRA buy. I’m still following my own game plan.
Now, ask yourself this. If you make any irrational moves, like pulling all of your money out of stocks, does someone profit from it? Of course they do. Your brokerage will make a fee from the sale, and a happy buyer out there will be glad to buy that stock from you at a nice discount. Fear is the best salesman, after all.
My sole piece of advice to you is this: don’t panic. Don’t make any hasty decisions. Sit back and get informed - and don’t just rely on one source for information, either. Get a bunch of different angles on what’s happening, from liberals and conservatives and moderates alike. If you’re worried about your money, do your own research and find out reasonable things to do with it. Take a serious look at what people who really know what they’re doing are doing with their money - in the last two weeks, Warren Buffett has invested $3 billion in General Electric stock and $5 billion in Goldman Sachs stock (an investment bank … weren’t we supposed to be afraid of those?) - he sees this current situation as an opportunity to buy, not sell.
And one more thing. Even in the darkest heart of the Great Depression, 75% of Americans had a steady job with a steady paycheck, which they steadily used to buy the things they needed. Those years also produced the Greatest Generation and an economic steamroller that ran through the last half of the Twentieth Century like a tidal wave.
It was true 75 years ago. It’s true now.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/10/02/the-only-thing-we-have-to-fear-is-fear-itself/
Wednesday 6 May 2009
When investing in stocks control your greed and fear
Wednesday May 6, 2009
When investing in stocks control your greed and fear
Personal Investing - A column by Ooi Kok Hwa
We need to know who we are in order to do well in stock market investing
THE recent strong market rally caught many investors by surprise again.
Most investors, including some analysts, predicted earlier that it was just a bear market rally. They have been hoping the market will turn down again. Unfortunately, it has been moving up strong without looking back.
For investors who have not invested during the recent low in March 2009, they are getting very worried as they are not benefitting from the recent rally. They may even wonder whether they should jump in now in order not to miss the boat.
Another group of investors, who have managed to catch some stocks at cheap prices during the previous market low, are also facing the dilemma of whether to lock in their gains now or continue to hold on to their gains. Some even regretted selling their stocks too early last month.
We all know that it is very difficult, in fact impossible, to predict stock market movement. Most investment gurus will refuse to time the market.
Howard Kahn and Cary Cooper published a book titled “Stress in the Dealing Room” in 1993. According to their surveys done on 225 dealers, 73.8% of them suffered from fear of “misreading the market.” Most dealers have the same problem of acquiring and handling information.
We believe that in order to do well in stock investing, we need to know ourselves, especially in controlling our emotion on greed and fear.
Due to information overloading, our emotion is highly influenced by the news that we read. Each time we feel that the market is getting bullish and time to buy stock, the overall market will collapse the moment we enter.
On the other hand, the moment we fear that it will drop further and we have decided to cut losses, we will notice the market will recover after that. Most of the time, the prices of stocks that we sold were at the lowest of the recent fall.
In order to control our greed and fear, we need to ask ourselves whether the market has discounted the news that we have received.
For example, many analysts have been bullish lately, having the opinion that the worst may be over for the market based on the recent economic indicators which showed that the overall economy may have stopped contracting or is on its way to recovery.
Nevertheless, the recent strong market rally would have discounted this bullish news. In fact, we need to ask ourselves whether the current stock prices can be supported by the fundamentals for certain listed companies.
In our experience, in most cases, the moment we feel like buying stocks is the best time to sell them while the moment that we feel like selling them is in fact the best time to buy. We can apply this contrarian theory quite successfully in most periods.
Sometimes, if we are taking in too much contradicting information and, as a result, get confused over the market direction, we feel that the best strategy is to stay away from the market until we have a better and clearer picture of the overall market or the economic situation.
We should not be influenced by other opinions.
There are times that we need to follow our heart. Sometimes, our hearts try to warn us from taking hasty investment decisions. However, we refuse to follow our intuition but instead, choosing to get influenced by others or the information that we read and ending up making mistakes.
In conclusion, we need to maintain our concentration.
We should not be led by the market sentiments regardless whether it is on the way up or crashing down fast. We need to go back to the fundamental of economic situation and the companies’ performance and future prospects.
One way to minimise the feeling of regret is to stagger our purchase and selling. We will only know the peak when the market starts turning downwards and vice versa. Therefore, by staggering, we will have an averaging effect rather than taking a one-time hit, especially if it is at the wrong timing.
Ooi Kok Hwa is an investment adviser and managing partner of MRR Consulting
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/5/6/business/3838362&sec=business
When investing in stocks control your greed and fear
Personal Investing - A column by Ooi Kok Hwa
We need to know who we are in order to do well in stock market investing
THE recent strong market rally caught many investors by surprise again.
Most investors, including some analysts, predicted earlier that it was just a bear market rally. They have been hoping the market will turn down again. Unfortunately, it has been moving up strong without looking back.
For investors who have not invested during the recent low in March 2009, they are getting very worried as they are not benefitting from the recent rally. They may even wonder whether they should jump in now in order not to miss the boat.
Another group of investors, who have managed to catch some stocks at cheap prices during the previous market low, are also facing the dilemma of whether to lock in their gains now or continue to hold on to their gains. Some even regretted selling their stocks too early last month.
We all know that it is very difficult, in fact impossible, to predict stock market movement. Most investment gurus will refuse to time the market.
Howard Kahn and Cary Cooper published a book titled “Stress in the Dealing Room” in 1993. According to their surveys done on 225 dealers, 73.8% of them suffered from fear of “misreading the market.” Most dealers have the same problem of acquiring and handling information.
We believe that in order to do well in stock investing, we need to know ourselves, especially in controlling our emotion on greed and fear.
Due to information overloading, our emotion is highly influenced by the news that we read. Each time we feel that the market is getting bullish and time to buy stock, the overall market will collapse the moment we enter.
On the other hand, the moment we fear that it will drop further and we have decided to cut losses, we will notice the market will recover after that. Most of the time, the prices of stocks that we sold were at the lowest of the recent fall.
In order to control our greed and fear, we need to ask ourselves whether the market has discounted the news that we have received.
For example, many analysts have been bullish lately, having the opinion that the worst may be over for the market based on the recent economic indicators which showed that the overall economy may have stopped contracting or is on its way to recovery.
Nevertheless, the recent strong market rally would have discounted this bullish news. In fact, we need to ask ourselves whether the current stock prices can be supported by the fundamentals for certain listed companies.
In our experience, in most cases, the moment we feel like buying stocks is the best time to sell them while the moment that we feel like selling them is in fact the best time to buy. We can apply this contrarian theory quite successfully in most periods.
Sometimes, if we are taking in too much contradicting information and, as a result, get confused over the market direction, we feel that the best strategy is to stay away from the market until we have a better and clearer picture of the overall market or the economic situation.
We should not be influenced by other opinions.
There are times that we need to follow our heart. Sometimes, our hearts try to warn us from taking hasty investment decisions. However, we refuse to follow our intuition but instead, choosing to get influenced by others or the information that we read and ending up making mistakes.
In conclusion, we need to maintain our concentration.
We should not be led by the market sentiments regardless whether it is on the way up or crashing down fast. We need to go back to the fundamental of economic situation and the companies’ performance and future prospects.
One way to minimise the feeling of regret is to stagger our purchase and selling. We will only know the peak when the market starts turning downwards and vice versa. Therefore, by staggering, we will have an averaging effect rather than taking a one-time hit, especially if it is at the wrong timing.
Ooi Kok Hwa is an investment adviser and managing partner of MRR Consulting
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/5/6/business/3838362&sec=business
Sunday 19 April 2009
Fear Is Your Friend
Fear Is Your Friend
By Andrew Sullivan, CFA April 17, 2009 Comments (1)
Warren Buffett said back in October that he was buying U.S. stocks. In his widely publicized editorial in the New York Times, he didn't seem all that concerned about our ailing economy. And in times past, he's been right. But since October:
- The U.S. consumer confidence index hit three consecutive all-time lows.
- Trade activity has collapsed, with shipping rates from Asia to Europe hitting zero for the first time ever.
- Citigroup (NYSE: C) was brought to its knees -- its shares falling 75% since Buffett's article.
- The weak economy pummeled energy prices along with bellwethers like ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM).
That's scary news, but I'd imagine Mr. Buffett is aware of all of the above. Yet the world's smartest investor is probably still buying. What the heck is he thinking? Isn't he concerned about the ongoing banking crisis, trillion-dollar bailouts, and skyrocketing unemployment? How could he see opportunity in a time like this?
Looking into the future
Buffett is buying because he can see the future. He can see the future not because he secretly spent a billion dollars to construct H. G. Wells' time machine in his basement. Nor did he hire Google to build an algorithm that can predict the future. His smarts are based on a simple way of viewing the markets and valuing businesses that anyone can grasp.
Buffett realizes that you buy stocks for the future, not the present. When you buy a share, you should do so with thoughts of owning that business for decades, not just the next few years. He also knows that the driving impulse of a capitalist society is to grow. Armed with this knowledge, he bought stocks like PetroChina (NYSE: PTR), Coca Cola (NYSE: KO), and The Washington Post when no one wanted them, and made quite a killing at it -- with his Berkshire Hathaway-fueled personal fortune worth $62 billion dollars at last count.
Buffett really does see the future.
And the future he sees now is drastically different from what the pundits would have you believe. Buffett sees a future in which banks function on their own, in which the U.S. innovates, in which the economy grows, and in which stocks are valued based on normal growth prospects.
Fear is your friend
When you take this sort of long-term view, the horrific market indicators above are actually your friends because they lower prices of the stocks you are interested in. Fear is your buddy. Doom and gloom are close pals. Economic devastation is your friend. In fact, you should want the market to freak out because there is no other easy way to get a fantastic price for a business. Of course, I'm speaking in an investing sense -- obviously a recession is no fun on a day-to-day basis. But fortunes are built in times like these.
Why should you care about a few years of poor results if someone is willing to sell you that business for a song? In two or three years, you could be sitting pretty while the seller will be left with only remorse.
But of course, we want to be choosy with our investments in these turbulent times, so we suggest you focus on:
- Companies with good track records (earnings per share growth, return on equity)
- Companies with strong balance sheets (low debt-to-equity ratios)
- Companies highly rated by the Motley Fool CAPS community (four stars or better, out of five)
- I fired up the handy CAPS screening tool and found 86 companies with at least a $5 billion market cap, long-term debt-to-equity under 50%, an EPS growth rate of 10%, and return on equity above 20%.
Here are three results I find interesting:
Company Name
CAPS Rating (out of 5)
Market Capitalization ($B)
LT Debt-to-Equity Ratio
EPS Growth Rate (last 3 Yrs)
Return on Equity (TTM)
Becton, Dickinson & Company (NYSE: BDX)
*****
16.3
16%
16%
25%
ITT (NYSE: ITT)
*****
7.6
15%
31%
26%
Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT)
****
67.6
50%
20%
28%
At our Motley Fool Inside Value service, we spend every day ignoring the market panic and searching for the stocks that nobody wants, but that offer significant upside potential. We constantly evaluate businesses based on their future prospects in a normal world rather than in the scary present.
Andrew Sullivan has no financial interest in any of the stocks mentioned in this article. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Coca-Cola is a Motley Fool Inside Value and a Motley Fool Income Investor selection. ITT is a Motley Fool Inside Value pick.
http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2009/04/17/fear-is-your-friend.aspx
Sunday 14 December 2008
It's All in Our Heads - the Negative Wealth Effect
DECEMBER 2, 2008, 12:01 P.M. ET
Essay
It's All in Our Heads
We spend how we feel -- even when our reality hasn't changed much at all
By DAVE KANSAS
My workaday financial life hasn't changed much in the past year. So why am I acting as if it has?
I don't splurge on expensive dinners anymore, and I walk rather than drive places. I compare grocery prices for the first time in years.
In fact, as I look around, I find my friends and I are making all kinds of thrifty decisions that would never have crossed our minds just a few months ago. And it's a stark reminder that the way we think about money can often be detached from our immediate, personal situation.
It doesn't make any difference that most of us continue to hold down the same jobs we had before unemployment rates started to rise. It doesn't matter that our personal circumstances are the same as they've been for the past few years. What matters, instead, is the vague uncertainty that has descended on us. What matters is our unknown future.
So even if our own lives have changed little, we cite a friend's lost job as a reason to worry afresh about our own financial situation. We forget -- or ignore -- that our friends also lost jobs during periods of robust economic health. But our fiscal lens shifts when we see dark headlines barking about dire problems at General Motors or the government coughing up hundreds of billions to try to save former titans like AIG.
Reversing the Wealth Effect
All of this, of course, is well known to economists. They call it the wealth effect, and it maintains that when people feel wealthier, because of rising home values or a climbing stock market, they tend to spend more freely. Many people don't extract money from their home or their investment accounts during such periods, but the simple sense of having more money opens up the wallet. More trips are taken, more meals are eaten at nice restaurants. The economy has benefited greatly from this wealth effect in recent years.
Until now, though, many of us have never lived through the wealth effect's evil cousin: the negative wealth effect that is roiling the economy as the consumer retrenches. Everything -- homes, portfolios, blue-chip companies, the local bank -- seems to be losing value. We still aren't extracting money from our homes or our investment accounts. But the simple sense of having less money closes the wallet. And the future -- always unknown -- seems a whole lot scarier.
That fear has certainly permeated my life. It first hit me this summer when shopping for produce at the grocery store. Though I had once worked as a dairy manager at a grocery store, I had seldom checked prices on everyday items. I just kind of assumed that prices were what they were and you got what you got.
Strolling through the produce department, I found myself comparing prices of fresh cherries, and deciding they were too expensive to buy. I also realized that I had stopped buying nice bottles of wine for dinner; it seemed silly to spend that much money when a cheaper wine would be just fine.
This same scenario played out in countless other small ways -- in what I no longer did or bought.
Home for the Holidays
Many other people I know, regardless of financial circumstance, are going through a similar process. My family in Minnesota has a big Thanksgiving event every two years. In the past, people have come from all over the U.S. and from Europe. We once had to use the kitchen of a local school to include everyone. This year, the confab had fewer attendees. Despite everyone doing well, and in some cases actually doing far better financially than in the past, they balked at the high cost of air travel.
My friends are also finding their spending and saving psychology changing. Most of them still have the same jobs and same basic costs as before, but their mind-set has changed. A friend of mine in finance talked about how he and his office have set up sandwich-making contests for lunch. They order in the basics from a supermarket and have at them. In better times, he'd talk about treating colleagues to lunch at a nice restaurant. He also recently said he's thinking about leaving New York. He figures taxes are headed sharply higher and the financial crisis will bite hard. And thinking about raising his family in New York causes too much economic "brain damage," he says.
A friend who works on a sports Web site in New York, recently married, has started questioning whether to close on a recently purchased apartment. Even though she and her husband have good jobs and can't get the deposit back, she's wondering if putting so much of her family money into real estate is the right move in the current climate. A colleague of mine at work is going through the identical math in almost the identical situation.
Everyone seems to have caught the same bug, with minds switching off the spend gene almost in unison. Walking past a posh French restaurant (prix fixe lunch: $45) near a fund manager friend's office, I asked if he'd ever gone there for lunch. He hadn't and added that it seemed like a "pre-crisis" kind of place.
Thrift and Fear
Thrift, of course, can be a good notion. Americans have for some time spent more than they've made, leading to the first so-called negative savings rates since the 1930s. This overspending, largely driven by borrowed money, occurred in the corporate and financial sector as well. It got us into the mess we're in.
Now, as individuals rediscover thrift, companies are going through their own process of "deleveraging," or reducing their credit-bingeing ways. And this is what has sent the economy into its downward spiral.
Upon taking office in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt declared that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He was talking directly to people's psychology about money. If everyone put their money under a mattress and banks feared to lend, growth would not return.
It's hard to envision things getting to that level today, but fear, once it takes hold, can be difficult to turn around. And there's little question that fear about the future is having a negative impact on our financial psychology.
How to reverse things? For me, an increase in my savings will give me more confidence and less fear (although it certainly isn't going to do much to help the economy in the short run). I suspect that's true for a great many other people as well. The headlines will also play a role. Until the news moves from "crisis" to "confidence," it's hard to erase fear and concern about what's around the next bend.
Ultimately, things will get better, as they always have. Then we will once again be optimists and less afraid of risks. Until then, though, I think I'll just pass on the cherries.—Mr. Kansas is the president of FiLife.com, a personal-finance Web site owned by Dow Jones & Co. and IAC Corp.
Write to Dave Kansas at dave.kansas@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122765006147657695.html
Essay
It's All in Our Heads
We spend how we feel -- even when our reality hasn't changed much at all
By DAVE KANSAS
My workaday financial life hasn't changed much in the past year. So why am I acting as if it has?
I don't splurge on expensive dinners anymore, and I walk rather than drive places. I compare grocery prices for the first time in years.
In fact, as I look around, I find my friends and I are making all kinds of thrifty decisions that would never have crossed our minds just a few months ago. And it's a stark reminder that the way we think about money can often be detached from our immediate, personal situation.
It doesn't make any difference that most of us continue to hold down the same jobs we had before unemployment rates started to rise. It doesn't matter that our personal circumstances are the same as they've been for the past few years. What matters, instead, is the vague uncertainty that has descended on us. What matters is our unknown future.
So even if our own lives have changed little, we cite a friend's lost job as a reason to worry afresh about our own financial situation. We forget -- or ignore -- that our friends also lost jobs during periods of robust economic health. But our fiscal lens shifts when we see dark headlines barking about dire problems at General Motors or the government coughing up hundreds of billions to try to save former titans like AIG.
Reversing the Wealth Effect
All of this, of course, is well known to economists. They call it the wealth effect, and it maintains that when people feel wealthier, because of rising home values or a climbing stock market, they tend to spend more freely. Many people don't extract money from their home or their investment accounts during such periods, but the simple sense of having more money opens up the wallet. More trips are taken, more meals are eaten at nice restaurants. The economy has benefited greatly from this wealth effect in recent years.
Until now, though, many of us have never lived through the wealth effect's evil cousin: the negative wealth effect that is roiling the economy as the consumer retrenches. Everything -- homes, portfolios, blue-chip companies, the local bank -- seems to be losing value. We still aren't extracting money from our homes or our investment accounts. But the simple sense of having less money closes the wallet. And the future -- always unknown -- seems a whole lot scarier.
That fear has certainly permeated my life. It first hit me this summer when shopping for produce at the grocery store. Though I had once worked as a dairy manager at a grocery store, I had seldom checked prices on everyday items. I just kind of assumed that prices were what they were and you got what you got.
Strolling through the produce department, I found myself comparing prices of fresh cherries, and deciding they were too expensive to buy. I also realized that I had stopped buying nice bottles of wine for dinner; it seemed silly to spend that much money when a cheaper wine would be just fine.
This same scenario played out in countless other small ways -- in what I no longer did or bought.
Home for the Holidays
Many other people I know, regardless of financial circumstance, are going through a similar process. My family in Minnesota has a big Thanksgiving event every two years. In the past, people have come from all over the U.S. and from Europe. We once had to use the kitchen of a local school to include everyone. This year, the confab had fewer attendees. Despite everyone doing well, and in some cases actually doing far better financially than in the past, they balked at the high cost of air travel.
My friends are also finding their spending and saving psychology changing. Most of them still have the same jobs and same basic costs as before, but their mind-set has changed. A friend of mine in finance talked about how he and his office have set up sandwich-making contests for lunch. They order in the basics from a supermarket and have at them. In better times, he'd talk about treating colleagues to lunch at a nice restaurant. He also recently said he's thinking about leaving New York. He figures taxes are headed sharply higher and the financial crisis will bite hard. And thinking about raising his family in New York causes too much economic "brain damage," he says.
A friend who works on a sports Web site in New York, recently married, has started questioning whether to close on a recently purchased apartment. Even though she and her husband have good jobs and can't get the deposit back, she's wondering if putting so much of her family money into real estate is the right move in the current climate. A colleague of mine at work is going through the identical math in almost the identical situation.
Everyone seems to have caught the same bug, with minds switching off the spend gene almost in unison. Walking past a posh French restaurant (prix fixe lunch: $45) near a fund manager friend's office, I asked if he'd ever gone there for lunch. He hadn't and added that it seemed like a "pre-crisis" kind of place.
Thrift and Fear
Thrift, of course, can be a good notion. Americans have for some time spent more than they've made, leading to the first so-called negative savings rates since the 1930s. This overspending, largely driven by borrowed money, occurred in the corporate and financial sector as well. It got us into the mess we're in.
Now, as individuals rediscover thrift, companies are going through their own process of "deleveraging," or reducing their credit-bingeing ways. And this is what has sent the economy into its downward spiral.
Upon taking office in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt declared that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He was talking directly to people's psychology about money. If everyone put their money under a mattress and banks feared to lend, growth would not return.
It's hard to envision things getting to that level today, but fear, once it takes hold, can be difficult to turn around. And there's little question that fear about the future is having a negative impact on our financial psychology.
How to reverse things? For me, an increase in my savings will give me more confidence and less fear (although it certainly isn't going to do much to help the economy in the short run). I suspect that's true for a great many other people as well. The headlines will also play a role. Until the news moves from "crisis" to "confidence," it's hard to erase fear and concern about what's around the next bend.
Ultimately, things will get better, as they always have. Then we will once again be optimists and less afraid of risks. Until then, though, I think I'll just pass on the cherries.—Mr. Kansas is the president of FiLife.com, a personal-finance Web site owned by Dow Jones & Co. and IAC Corp.
Write to Dave Kansas at dave.kansas@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122765006147657695.html
Friday 17 October 2008
Why do investors lose money in the stock market?
Basically, investors tend to lose money because of the twin evils - "greed' and "fear".
Therefore, a wise investor needs to control himself against greed. Perhaps by cultivating a sense of contentment, an investor would be able to overcome greed. After all, a contented person is able to tell himself, "Well, I have made some profits. Thus, I have made my money work for me. Now is the time for me to sell my shares and put my money in the bank."
Similarly, he also needs to be cool and not lose his nerves when the stock market tumbles. In such a situation, an investor must learn to tell himself, "At least, the buying opportunity has arrived. I have the money and I will buy some undervalued shares and lock them up until the next bull run."
With the aforesaid frame of mind, an investor would be on his way to emerging as a winner in the game of shares investment.
GREED
$2? I'll wait for $3
GREED
$3? I'll wait for $4
FEAR
Market may collapse. $1.50 now? Sell!
Ref:
Making Mistakes in the Stock Market by Wong Yee
http://tradingbursamalaysia.blogspot.com/2008/10/still-falling.html Where is the bottom? Ans: I don't know now but I will tell you when I see signs of bottoming.
Therefore, a wise investor needs to control himself against greed. Perhaps by cultivating a sense of contentment, an investor would be able to overcome greed. After all, a contented person is able to tell himself, "Well, I have made some profits. Thus, I have made my money work for me. Now is the time for me to sell my shares and put my money in the bank."
Similarly, he also needs to be cool and not lose his nerves when the stock market tumbles. In such a situation, an investor must learn to tell himself, "At least, the buying opportunity has arrived. I have the money and I will buy some undervalued shares and lock them up until the next bull run."
With the aforesaid frame of mind, an investor would be on his way to emerging as a winner in the game of shares investment.
GREED
$2? I'll wait for $3
GREED
$3? I'll wait for $4
FEAR
Market may collapse. $1.50 now? Sell!
Ref:
Making Mistakes in the Stock Market by Wong Yee
http://tradingbursamalaysia.blogspot.com/2008/10/still-falling.html Where is the bottom? Ans: I don't know now but I will tell you when I see signs of bottoming.
Thursday 9 October 2008
Understanding FEAR and PANIC
October 8, 2008
Forget Logic; Fear Appears to Have Edge
By VIKAS BAJAJ
The technical term for it is “negative feedback loop.” The rest of us just call it a panic.
How else to explain yet another plunge in the stock market Tuesday that sent the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index to its lowest level in five years — particularly in the absence of another nasty surprise?
If anything, the markets should have been buoyed by the Federal Reserve saying it would shore up another troubled corner of finance by lending money directly to companies. Stocks did open higher, but then quickly tumbled as rumors swirled about the viability of big financial firms like Morgan Stanley and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Anybody searching for cause-and-effect logic in the daily gyrations of the market will be disappointed — even if the overarching problem of a crisis of confidence in the global economy is now becoming clear.
Instead, the market has become a case study in the psychology of crowds, many experts say. In normal times, it runs on a healthy mix of fear and greed. But fear now seems to rule, with investors often exhibiting a Wall Street version of the fight-or-flight mechanism — they are selling first, and asking questions later.
“What’s happening is people are crawling into a bunker and pulling an iron sheet over their heads because they think the sky is falling,” said William Ackman, a prominent hedge fund manager in New York.
And that bunker is getting very crowded, so much so that some analysts are starting to suggest the markets are showing signs of “capitulation” — another term of art to describe what happens when even the bullish holdouts, the unflagging optimists, throw up their hands and join the stampede out of the market.
Fear can be seen at every turn — in headlines raising questions about another Great Depression, and in the crowds gathered around office televisions to track stocks or to parse the latest pronouncements from the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, or the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr.
Even James Cramer, the voluble and long-bullish host of an investing show on CNBC, advised investors to sell some stock during appearances on the “Today” show Monday and Tuesday mornings.
To some, signs of capitulation can be read as an indicator that the bottom may be near. Indeed, Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at Standard & Poor’s Equity Research, is among those who say the market may be close to a bottom.
In addition to his analysis of the market, he was swayed by the numerous telephone calls he has received in recent days from professional acquaintances and his sister-in-law, all saying they are getting out of stocks.
“More and more people are doing that and selling out,” Mr. Stovall said.
The opposite of capitulation, of course, is investing at the height of a bubble. One oft-cited sign of the housing market’s top: when dinner parties are dominated by stories about fast profits on flipped condominiums.
During the dot-com boom in the late 1990s, it seemed everybody and their grandmothers were piling into stocks. Now they are bailing out. Tuesday was the fourth consecutive day that the S.& P. 500-stock index registered a decline of 1 percent or more. The last time that happened was October 2002, when the index reached its lowest point during the bear market that started in 2000. The S.& P. is now down 36 percent from its peak a year ago, almost to the day, on Oct. 9, 2007.
Another barometer of panic: volatility, reflected in the so-called Fear Index (or the VIX), which tracks options trades that investors use to protect against future losses. On Tuesday, it climbed to its highest level since the 1987 stock market crash.
Fear is an immensely powerful force, perhaps more so than greed, said Andrew W. Lo, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied investor behavior.
Scientists who have studied the brain function have found that the amygdala, the part of the brain that controls fear, responds faster than the parts of the brain that handle cognitive functions, he said.
“Fear is a much stronger motivational force,” Mr. Lo added. “The loss of $1,000 has a much bigger impact than the gain of a $1,000.”
He cites a series of groundbreaking experiments in the 1970s by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. In one test, they asked students to choose between a sure bet of $3,000, or an 80 percent chance of winning $4,000 (meaning there was a 20 percent chance of winning nothing). Most students said they would take the $3,000.
The same question, framed differently, asked them if they would rather lose $3,000 or accept an 80 percent chance of losing $4,000 (with a 20 percent chance of losing nothing). In this case, they said they would take the riskier bet.
In other words, they were willing to take a bigger risk to avoid losing money than they were when they stood to make more money.
Those instincts seem to be taking over.
At this point, any spreadsheet analysis of underlying and intrinsic values of stocks becomes meaningless, and concern for preserving wealth overrides the desire to grow it — what some may call greed.
“With negative emotions we tend to have a desire to change the situation,” said Ellen Peters, a senior scientist at Decision Research in Eugene, Ore. But “when things are good there is not much desire to change.”
That perhaps explains why investors are willing to earn virtually no return in Treasury bills just to be assured that they will get their money back, rather than investing in short-term corporate debt that offers a better return but carries some risk. Investors were reminded of that risk after Lehman Brothers sought bankruptcy protection last month.
Even banks, which make money by lending to businesses, consumers and each other, are hoarding cash. That is why the Federal Reserve said on Tuesday that it would buy commercial paper, the short-term loans issued by companies and banks.
If the market is indeed close to the bottom, history suggests any rally in the next few weeks will probably be big. Since World War II, Mr. Stovall estimates stocks have recouped about a third of their bear market losses in the first 40 days after the market hits bottom.
But enough investors have to first be persuaded that the economy and housing market will begin recovering soon. Another major test will be third-quarter corporate earnings announcements that will trickle out in the next three weeks.
Perhaps the most important indicator will be the credit markets: Investors will regain confidence when they believe financial firms are adequately capitalized and money is flowing more freely through the financial system.
Mr. Ackman, the hedge fund manager who has been vocal about his bearish views of some financial companies in recent years, said it is hard to precisely time the market. But, he added, “I do think that stocks are getting extremely cheap.”
David Bertocchi, a portfolio manager for Baring Asset Management in London, echoed that sentiment, saying he was beginning to increase his stake in certain companies.
He is taking advantage, he said, of panicked selling by hedge funds that have to pay back loans to their brokers. “That’s what drives markets to attractive levels,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/business/08fear.html?em
__________
A Day (Gasp) Like Any Other
This panic is taking place in such a compressed time frame that it is just astonishing. Mr. Chernow pointed out that while the stock market crash of 1929 took place over three brutal trading days in October 1929, it took nearly three years to reach bottom. By then, stocks had lost a shocking 89 percent of their value.
This crisis, by contrast, seems to be moving at hyper-speed — one day it is Lehman Brothers, the next A.I.G., the day after that Washington Mutual. This crisis doesn’t wear you down over time. It hits you over the head with a two-by-four. On a daily basis.
A third problem, though, is that confidence keeps eroding. The latest wrinkle is that many hedge fund investors, fearing big losses, no longer have confidence in their hedge fund managers. Thus, hedge fund managers are preparing for huge withdrawals at the end of the year, and so they are selling billions of dollars worth of stock preparing to pay redemptions. That is one reason the stock market is under pressure.
“It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said one hedge fund manager. Firms fearing redemptions sell off stocks, which hurts their performance. Which undermines their investors’ confidence. Which means there are likely to be even more redemptions. Around and around it goes.
Twelve years ago, Alan Greenspan invented the term “irrational exuberance.” That era seems tame compared with this one. What is going on in the markets is anything but exuberant — at this point, though, it is undeniably irrational.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/07nocera.html?em
Forget Logic; Fear Appears to Have Edge
By VIKAS BAJAJ
The technical term for it is “negative feedback loop.” The rest of us just call it a panic.
How else to explain yet another plunge in the stock market Tuesday that sent the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index to its lowest level in five years — particularly in the absence of another nasty surprise?
If anything, the markets should have been buoyed by the Federal Reserve saying it would shore up another troubled corner of finance by lending money directly to companies. Stocks did open higher, but then quickly tumbled as rumors swirled about the viability of big financial firms like Morgan Stanley and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Anybody searching for cause-and-effect logic in the daily gyrations of the market will be disappointed — even if the overarching problem of a crisis of confidence in the global economy is now becoming clear.
Instead, the market has become a case study in the psychology of crowds, many experts say. In normal times, it runs on a healthy mix of fear and greed. But fear now seems to rule, with investors often exhibiting a Wall Street version of the fight-or-flight mechanism — they are selling first, and asking questions later.
“What’s happening is people are crawling into a bunker and pulling an iron sheet over their heads because they think the sky is falling,” said William Ackman, a prominent hedge fund manager in New York.
And that bunker is getting very crowded, so much so that some analysts are starting to suggest the markets are showing signs of “capitulation” — another term of art to describe what happens when even the bullish holdouts, the unflagging optimists, throw up their hands and join the stampede out of the market.
Fear can be seen at every turn — in headlines raising questions about another Great Depression, and in the crowds gathered around office televisions to track stocks or to parse the latest pronouncements from the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, or the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr.
Even James Cramer, the voluble and long-bullish host of an investing show on CNBC, advised investors to sell some stock during appearances on the “Today” show Monday and Tuesday mornings.
To some, signs of capitulation can be read as an indicator that the bottom may be near. Indeed, Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at Standard & Poor’s Equity Research, is among those who say the market may be close to a bottom.
In addition to his analysis of the market, he was swayed by the numerous telephone calls he has received in recent days from professional acquaintances and his sister-in-law, all saying they are getting out of stocks.
“More and more people are doing that and selling out,” Mr. Stovall said.
The opposite of capitulation, of course, is investing at the height of a bubble. One oft-cited sign of the housing market’s top: when dinner parties are dominated by stories about fast profits on flipped condominiums.
During the dot-com boom in the late 1990s, it seemed everybody and their grandmothers were piling into stocks. Now they are bailing out. Tuesday was the fourth consecutive day that the S.& P. 500-stock index registered a decline of 1 percent or more. The last time that happened was October 2002, when the index reached its lowest point during the bear market that started in 2000. The S.& P. is now down 36 percent from its peak a year ago, almost to the day, on Oct. 9, 2007.
Another barometer of panic: volatility, reflected in the so-called Fear Index (or the VIX), which tracks options trades that investors use to protect against future losses. On Tuesday, it climbed to its highest level since the 1987 stock market crash.
Fear is an immensely powerful force, perhaps more so than greed, said Andrew W. Lo, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied investor behavior.
Scientists who have studied the brain function have found that the amygdala, the part of the brain that controls fear, responds faster than the parts of the brain that handle cognitive functions, he said.
“Fear is a much stronger motivational force,” Mr. Lo added. “The loss of $1,000 has a much bigger impact than the gain of a $1,000.”
He cites a series of groundbreaking experiments in the 1970s by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. In one test, they asked students to choose between a sure bet of $3,000, or an 80 percent chance of winning $4,000 (meaning there was a 20 percent chance of winning nothing). Most students said they would take the $3,000.
The same question, framed differently, asked them if they would rather lose $3,000 or accept an 80 percent chance of losing $4,000 (with a 20 percent chance of losing nothing). In this case, they said they would take the riskier bet.
In other words, they were willing to take a bigger risk to avoid losing money than they were when they stood to make more money.
Those instincts seem to be taking over.
At this point, any spreadsheet analysis of underlying and intrinsic values of stocks becomes meaningless, and concern for preserving wealth overrides the desire to grow it — what some may call greed.
“With negative emotions we tend to have a desire to change the situation,” said Ellen Peters, a senior scientist at Decision Research in Eugene, Ore. But “when things are good there is not much desire to change.”
That perhaps explains why investors are willing to earn virtually no return in Treasury bills just to be assured that they will get their money back, rather than investing in short-term corporate debt that offers a better return but carries some risk. Investors were reminded of that risk after Lehman Brothers sought bankruptcy protection last month.
Even banks, which make money by lending to businesses, consumers and each other, are hoarding cash. That is why the Federal Reserve said on Tuesday that it would buy commercial paper, the short-term loans issued by companies and banks.
If the market is indeed close to the bottom, history suggests any rally in the next few weeks will probably be big. Since World War II, Mr. Stovall estimates stocks have recouped about a third of their bear market losses in the first 40 days after the market hits bottom.
But enough investors have to first be persuaded that the economy and housing market will begin recovering soon. Another major test will be third-quarter corporate earnings announcements that will trickle out in the next three weeks.
Perhaps the most important indicator will be the credit markets: Investors will regain confidence when they believe financial firms are adequately capitalized and money is flowing more freely through the financial system.
Mr. Ackman, the hedge fund manager who has been vocal about his bearish views of some financial companies in recent years, said it is hard to precisely time the market. But, he added, “I do think that stocks are getting extremely cheap.”
David Bertocchi, a portfolio manager for Baring Asset Management in London, echoed that sentiment, saying he was beginning to increase his stake in certain companies.
He is taking advantage, he said, of panicked selling by hedge funds that have to pay back loans to their brokers. “That’s what drives markets to attractive levels,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/business/08fear.html?em
__________
A Day (Gasp) Like Any Other
This panic is taking place in such a compressed time frame that it is just astonishing. Mr. Chernow pointed out that while the stock market crash of 1929 took place over three brutal trading days in October 1929, it took nearly three years to reach bottom. By then, stocks had lost a shocking 89 percent of their value.
This crisis, by contrast, seems to be moving at hyper-speed — one day it is Lehman Brothers, the next A.I.G., the day after that Washington Mutual. This crisis doesn’t wear you down over time. It hits you over the head with a two-by-four. On a daily basis.
A third problem, though, is that confidence keeps eroding. The latest wrinkle is that many hedge fund investors, fearing big losses, no longer have confidence in their hedge fund managers. Thus, hedge fund managers are preparing for huge withdrawals at the end of the year, and so they are selling billions of dollars worth of stock preparing to pay redemptions. That is one reason the stock market is under pressure.
“It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said one hedge fund manager. Firms fearing redemptions sell off stocks, which hurts their performance. Which undermines their investors’ confidence. Which means there are likely to be even more redemptions. Around and around it goes.
Twelve years ago, Alan Greenspan invented the term “irrational exuberance.” That era seems tame compared with this one. What is going on in the markets is anything but exuberant — at this point, though, it is undeniably irrational.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/07nocera.html?em
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)