Showing posts with label post-crash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label post-crash. Show all posts

Friday 16 December 2011

Sharemarket crash survival guide



Shares are being trashed, again. The temptation is to sell everything and run for the hills. Instead, take a chill pill and consider The Motley Fool’s patented sharemarket survival guide.
Down down, shares are going down.
After weeks of worrying about European sovereign debt woes, focus has again turned back to the U.S. and its own debt crisis.
In the U.S, the S&P 500 has posted its worst losing streak in 2 months.
Over the last 3 weeks, our own S&P/ASX 200 index has fallen almost 7 per cent in the last 3 weeks. Some shares have fared even worse…
Company% Share Price Fall Oct 28 2011 to Nov 21 2011
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group(ASX:ANZ)(10.6)
National Australia Bank (ASX:NAB)(10.7)
Iluka Resources Ltd. (ASX:ILU)(11.3)
Incitec Pivot Limited (ASX:IPL)(12.5)
Lend Lease Group (ASX:LLC)(11.2)
Mesoblast Limited (ASX:MSB)(14.1)
David Jones Ltd. (ASX:DJS)(13.1)
BlueScope Steel (ASX:BSL)(29.5)
White Energy (ASX:WEC)(72.4)
With the exception of White Energy, these are all big companies. It has been a tough time for investors.
So what are the keys to surviving market downturns? Here are some suggestions:
1. Don’t get absorbed in despair and panic. Ignore the violent emotional swings, and instead simply maintain a degree of detachment with regard to the whole business.
2. Be a regular saver and investor. That way, a market downturn becomes nothing more than a buying opportunity.
3. Reflect that Anne Scheiber, the U.S. lawyer who invested $5,000 in 1944 and died in the mid-1990s worth over $20 million, never sold a share and invested only in common, easily understandable companies. To her, we must presume, market fluctuations were an irrelevancy.
4. Finally, stop buying the newspapers, don’t watch the TV and go away on holiday. In short, switch off the market. Life’s too short for all that hullabaloo.
(As an aside, if you are worried about the market crash, you might want to first check out our new free report, Read This Before The Market Crashes. It could save you hours of heartache, and thousands of dollars. Click here to request your report now, whilst it’s still free and available.)
As our Investment Analyst Dean Morel said just a couple of weeks ago…
“When bearish volatility, caused by emotions and a lack of reason, leads humans to herd, sharemarkets become irrational and oversold. That irrationality allows investors who are able to control their emotions and act in a calm, balanced manner, to take advantage of the many opportunities the market throws up.
There is no need to make big decisions. You don’t  need to be fully invested in, or totally out of the market. Gradually building positions in the best companies while maintaining a cash cushion will make investing easier and less stressful.”
Stock market falls are like the seasons of the year. They are a natural part of the investment landscape, they are normal and can even be very healthy.
This latest crisis, like all crises before, will pass. And those that survive will prosper.

Thursday 6 October 2011

Connecting Crashes, Corrections And Capitulation

Connecting Crashes, Corrections And Capitulation

Posted: Jul 30, 2010

James Hyerczyk

Investors and traders face many obstacles in their quest for profits. Throughout even the longest uptrends, investors experience declines against the main trend. These are referred to as corrections. At other times, markets correct more than expected in a short period of time. Such occurrences are called crashes. Both of these can lead to a misunderstood situation called capitulation. We’ll look at these three concepts, their connections and what they mean for investors. (To learn more about market direction, read Which Direction Is The Market Heading?)

Wall Street’s White Flag
In stark terms, capitulation refers to market participants' final surrender to hard times and, consequently, the beginning of a market recovery. For most investors, capitulation means being so beaten down that they will sell at any price. True capitulation, however, doesn’t occur until the selling ends.

When panic selling stops, the remaining investors tend to be bottom fishers and traders who are holding on for a rise. This is when the price drop flattens into a bottom. One problem with calling the bottom is that it can only be accurately identified in hindsight. In fact, many traders and value investors have been caught buying into false bottoms only to watch the price continue to plunge - the so-called falling knife trap. (Traders can try to trade this phenomenon. Check out Catching A Falling Knife: Picking Intraday Turning Points for more.)

Capitulation or Correction?
When and where a market should bottom is a matter of opinion. To long-term investors, the series of retracements inside of a long-term uptrend are referred to as corrections in a bull market. A bottom is formed after each correction. Each time the market forms a bottom in an uptrend, the majority of investors do not consider it capitulation, but a corrective break to a price area where investors want to reestablish their long positions in the direction of the uptrend. Simply put, early buyers take profits, pushing the stock low enough to be a value buy again.

An investor can tell a correction from capitulation only after the trend has turned down and the downward break has exceeded the projected support levels and established a new bottom from which to trend up again. The question should not be whether capitulation is taking place, but whether the market has, in fact, bottomed.

Connecting to Crashes
A crash is a sharp, sudden decline that exceeds previous downside price action. This excessive break can be defined in real dollars as a market percentage or by volatility measures, but a crash typically involves an index losing at least 20% of its value. (To learn more, read The Crash of 1929 – Could It Happen Again?)

A crash is distinct from capitulation in two important ways. First, the crash leads to capitulation, but the time frame of the actual crash doesn’t necessarily mean capitulation will follow immediately. A market may hit capitulation – and the bottom – months after the initial crash. Second, a crash will always end in capitulation, but not all capitulations are preceded by a market crash.

In the long view, a crash occurs when there are substantially more sellers than buyers; the market falls until the there are no more sellers. For this reason, crashes are most often associated with panic selling. Sudden bearish news or margin call liquidations contribute to the severity a crash. Crashes usually occur in the midst of a downtrend after old bottoms are broken as both short sales and stop-loss orders are triggered, sending the market sharply lower. Capitulation is what comes next. (Learn more about buying on margin and margin calls in our Margin Tutorial.)

Finding the Bottom
A bottom can occur in two ways. Short selling can cease or a large buyer can emerge. Short sellers often quit shorting stocks when the market reaches historical lows or a value area they have identified as an exit point. When buyers see that the shorting has stopped, they start chasing the rising offers, thereby increasing a stock's price. As the price begins to increase, the remaining shorts start to cover. It is this short covering that essentially forms the bottom that precedes an upward rally.

As mentioned, the emergence of a large buy order can also spook shorts out of the market. It is not until the trend turns up, however, that one can truly say that buyers have emerged and capitulation has taken place. Large buyers occasionally try to move the market against the fundamental trends for a variety of reasons, but, like Sisyphus and his boulder, their efforts will fail if the timing is wrong. In timing capitulation, investors have to choose between going long on a rally started by short-covering or getting back in when actual buying – and the bottom – has been established. (For more, see Profit From Panic Selling.)

Catching the Turning of the Trend
Technical analysis can help determine capitulation because subtle changes in technical indicators such as volume are often heavily correlated with bottoms. A surge in volume is an indicator of a possible bottom in the stock market, while a drop in open interest is used in the commodity markets. Trend indicators such as moving average crossovers or swing chart breakouts are ways that chart patterns can help identify when a bottom or a change in trend has taken place.

Tricky Terminology
Crashes and capitulations are most often associated with equities, and the language is slippery. If we use percentage moves to determine whether a crash or capitulation has taken place in the stock market, then why is a downward move of over 20% in the commodities market always called a correction rather than a crash?

Moreover, one market event can also act as a crash, correction and capitulation. For example, a gradual break from 14,000 in the Dow Jones to 7,000 can be called a 50% correction of the top, but if the market drops the last 2,000 points in a short period of time, it will be called a crash. If the Dow then makes a bottom at 7,000, it will be called capitulation.

Real-World Crashes and Capitulations
Good historical examples are the Black Mondays of 1929 and 1987. In both cases, investors ran for the exits, producing big market drops. In 1929, the drop was prolonged as bad economic policies aggravated the situation and created a depression that lasted until World War II. The crash occurred in 1929, capitulation occurred in 1932, and then the actual rally occurred despite the economic conditions at the time. (For more, see What Caused The Great Depression?)

In 1987, the drop was painful, but stocks started to climb within the next few days and continued until March 2000. Surprisingly, the sudden drop in the stock market in October 1987 was called neither a capitulation nor a crash. Other euphemisms such as "correction" were used at the time. While some people realized what had occurred, it took the media years to label the event correctly. (For related reading, check out October: The Month Of Market Crashes?)

Bottom Line
After studying price movement, one can conclude that crashes and capitulation are parts of the same process. When a bottom occurs, traders can buy into the uptrend and watch the new support and resistance zones form as they navigate the rally until the next downtrend. So for them, it represents an opportunity. Long-term investors can also benefit from capitulation by getting into value stocks at extremely low prices. So, even though crashes, corrections and capitulations are bad news for investors holding the stock, there are still ways to profit. (Should you get out of a stock after a drop? Read When To Sell Stocks and To Sell Or Not To Sell for more.)

by James Hyerczyk
James A. Hyerczyk is a registered commodity trading advisor with the National Futures Association. Hyerczyk has been actively involved in the futures markets since 1982 and has worked in various capacities within the futures industry, ranging from technical analyst to commodity trading advisor. Using Gann theory as his core methodology, Hyerczyk incorporates combinations of pattern, price and time to develop his daily, weekly and monthly analysis. Hyerczyk is a member of the Markets Technicians Association and holds a master's degree in financial markets and trading from the Illinois Institute of Technology.


Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/analyst/080702.asp#ixzz1ZzbPyTOR

Tuesday 15 February 2011

If stock markets or stocks crash, WHO will benefit the most?

Those who bought during bubbles become paupers during crashes.

Those who bought during crashes become millionaires when the market reverses.

Wealth is destroyed by bubbles and created from crashes.

Your potential returns are a function of price you paid for the stocks offered by the market.

Those who will be investing for a long time will like the stock market when it is on CHEAP SALE.

Those who need to cash out significantly for various reasons during crashes will be the losers.

Tuesday 1 June 2010

Stocks that don't fare well in a post-crash environment

Stocks that tend to be sub-par performers in a post-crash environment are:
  1. OTC issues
  2. Low-priced stocks
  3. Small total-capitalization issues
  4. Thinly-traded, under- or non-covered stocks
  5. Industry laggards
  6. Recession-sensitive by industry
  7. Discredited groups
  8. Panic-trigger related groups

Because of fear, nervousness and lack of speculative appetite after a crash or panic, the first five groups (some of which overlap) lack sponsorship.  

In addition, because market panics generate immediate scare headlines in the media, there is talk of recession and parallels drawn with 1929.  So recession-sensitive stocks by industry do not bounce back much for a period of time.

There may, in fact, be no recession following the market's downmove (as in 1988), but perception and expectation drive prices near-term more than facts do.  So cyclicals like steels, chemicals, paper and capital-good producers are not solid choices for participating in the bounce.  Similarly, vacation and luxury stocks fare poorly.

The discredited groups vary from one market period to another.  Their identity depends on what was in the headlines in recent months.

  • Basic industry stocks were taboo in the early 1980s, known as the 'rust-belt' period.  
  • High-tech stocks suffered through a private, one-industry recession in the mid-1980s.  
  • Banks were whipping boys in the early era of bad third-world loans.  
  • Most recently, savings and loans have been in the doghouse due to bailout legislation and highly visible failures and scandals.

Again in a longer-term perspective, the facts may prove that the fear about leading companies in discredited groups was unfounded.  But in the short term after a crash there are few who have the courage to sponsor tarnished-image stocks with either money or written advice.  Such issues are early recovery laggards.

The final category should be off the hold list for similar reasons.  Sometimes there is an industry or category of stocks related to the news that triggers the panic selling.  

  • In 1962, it was steel stocks sensitive to pricing confrontation with the Kennedy administration.  
  • Brokerage stocks would have been poor choices to hold after the 1987 crash because of all the controversy surrounding program trading.  
  • The 1989 crash was triggered by the collapse of the propose buyout of UAL, Inc., so airlines and other proposed leveraged buyout candidates were identifiable as the trigger-related group at that time.

Sunday 24 January 2010

Crashes, corrections and bear markets cannot be predicted exactly

Nobody can predict exactly when a bear market will arrive (although there's no shortage of Wall Stree types who claim to be skilled fortune tellers in this regard).  But when one does arrive, and the prices of 9 out of 10 stocks drop in unison, many investors naturally get scared.

They hear the TV newscasters using words like "disaster" and "calamity" to describe the situation, and they begin to worry that stock prices will hurtle toward zero and their investment will be wiped out.  They decide to rescue what's left of their money by putting their stocks up for sale, even at a loss.  They tell themselves that getting something back is better than getting nothing back.

It is at this point that large crowds of people suddenly become short-term investors, in spite of their claims about being long-term investors.  
  • They let their emotions get the better of them, and they forget the reason they bought stocks in the first place - to own shares in good companies. 
  • They go into a panic because stock prices are low, and instead of waiting for the prices to come back, they sell at these low prices. 
  • Nobody forces them to do this, but they volunteer to lose money.

Without realising it, they've fallen into the trap of trying to time the market.  If you told them they were "market timers" they'd deny it, but anybody who sells stocks because the market is up or down is a market timer for sure.

A market timer tries to predict the short-term zigs and zags in stock prices, hoping to get out with a quick profit.  Few people can make money at this, and nobody has come up with a foolproof method. 

Saturday 17 October 2009

Pro-active action in a panic or crash

When appropriate selling has left an investor with only a few, high-quality stocks, he can and should hold onto those gems and play through the difficult experience of a panic or crash. He will be holding only a relatively small portfolio, so his level of pain will be no worse than moderate.

Friday 31 October 2008

Sub-par performers in a post-crash environment

Stocks that tend to be sub-par performers in a post-crash environment are the following:

  1. low-priced stocks
  2. lower NASDAQ issues
  3. small total capitalization issues
  4. thinly traded, analyst under-covered or non-covered stocks.
  5. fundamental in industry laggards
  6. stocks in recession-sensitive industries
  7. brokerage firms' own stocks (the public will be slow to return to active investing)
  8. discredited groups
  9. stocks in panic-trigger related groups

Because of fear, nervousness and absence speculative appetite after a crash or panic, the first 6 groups (some of which will overlap for individual stocks) lack sponsorship. In addition, because market panics generate immediate scare headlines in the media, predictably there will be talk of recession (or depression) and parallels drawn with 1929. Recall the October 1987 and October 1989 bashings and the smaller one-day drubbings during the early and middle 1990s; depression talk was rampant in post 9/11 months until mid-2002.

The final 2 categories should be off your hold list for similar reasons. Sometimes there is an industry or category of stocks related to the news that triggers the panic. Even immediately after any panic itself has passed, investors and traders will have keen memories of what started the debacle, and will avoid such stocks for an extended time. The present mid-2007 trouble with sub-prime mortgage losses drives a major drop and banks will be on the defensive thereafter, even if they look cheap.

[Cyclicals such as autos, steels, chemicals, papers and capital goods producerss are not prime early choices for participating in the bounce. Similarly, vacation-related (airline, hotel and casino) and luxury stocks fare poorly early on.]