What We're Reading

While there's been so much 'worrying' over the slowdown in China, the Fed possibly raising rates and energy defaults with the weight on banks, it's still a good idea to remember a stock markets structure; or the steps it takes before a bear market takes place.  The basic strategy is to pay close attention during the accumulation and distribution phases as the market shifts from buyers to sellers, or vice versa. Then, by recognizing the markup and decline phases, an investor can be appropriately long or short to make solid returns.  Click image to enlarge.

Courtesy of the good folks at VisualCapitalist

Hat tip to Stockchartist for lumping these all together in one handy place. The link to his blog at the bottom of the post. While he does leave out Presidential and mid-term election year theories as well as a few others, these are the basics you'll hear about as you learn to navigate the market.

For years I thought the key to investment success was good stock picking; find the right stocks and you're going to see your portfolio grow. Doesn't "you-know-who" continually say there's always a "bull market somewhere" and all you need to do is find it?

Actually, I, along many others, stopped drinking that cool-aide in 2003 after seeing retirement and savings investments shrink by about 40%. That's when I embraced another belief system. One based on the belief that the key to outstanding financial performance is successfully timing the market. "If you worry about the downturns, the uptrends will take care of themselves."

But there are all sorts of market timing techniques. Right now we're

Given the price action in the market lately, there's been much discussion here on what constitutes a pullback and what constitutes a change in direction or trend. The suggestions have ranged from three weekly or monthly lower closes, a close below a certain moving average, various moving average crosses and more but in all honesty I don't think there's *one* holy grail. One indicator that satisfies all investors across all asset classes and we all have different loss tolerances and for that matter, different viewpoints or perspectives on the world economy and it's ongoing recovery.

This discussion however, brought to mind the following [somewhat lengthy] excerpt from the novel on Jesse Livermore, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, written in 1923 by Edwin Lefevre [available in PDF format in our Books Forum] This excerpt helps reinforce in my mind the importance trading in the direction of the primary move, and to avoid the noise of short-term fluctuations which quite honestly,