QUOTE(cherroy @ Jan 24 2008, 10:02 AM)
That's why you need fundamental come into the play to have a proper guide.
For current scenario of market condition, I have to agree it is more like gambling at the moment. That's why most experienced investors or some investment advisory service/professional tells people to stay calm and stay sidelines watching how it unfold, before decide to go into the market especially for long term investors, you don't need to rush into the market. If the market is really a start of bear then it has long way to go. If it is just a temporally event then enter the market later on when market become stablise and charging higher again, it is still not too late.
Bottom fishing sometimes is a dangerous game to play. Just like although today all up significantly but if you had entered the market earlier 3-4 days rather than on Tuesday, you still not yet making any gain even though market is already up signficantly. Only those buy on late Monday and Tuesday are gaining now, but not all stocks! See how much Commerz is gaining today, 20 cents, barely cover the commission, if bought a bit earlier still not breakeven.
Agree with you cherroy.
Bottom fishing is good if you can perform consistently.
But what I notice is most bottom fishers are making wild guesses, on when is the bottom. So in the end, there will be some correct guesses and some wrong guesses. In the end, I am not sure whether the total profit will be still zero but your emotion will be highly stressed.
From my opinion, a good investor has to have a set of consistent analysis steps.
Trading plan can be different, but the steps must be consistent and can be written out in black and white.
That means everytime before you buy a stock, you always apply these steps to come to the decision, and these steps must have a high probability of winning. If it doesn't, keep refining the steps until it matures. By the time, you are no more wild guessing but your investment strategy will be very systematic and most important, EMOTIONLESS.