Today's Market
by Dr Invest

Many of you have wondered what was the final outcome of my Christmas trades. I started the trades in the first week of November, selling the last stock just before the New Year.

The tone of the market over the two month period was very volatile with broad swings up and down. Many traders LOST MONEY. At one time, ALL my stocks neared the 6% STOP-SELL. Had the market continued downward only ONE MORE DAY, I would have experienced a 6% loss across all my investments.

STOCKS

FDO - Family Dollar was SOLD with a 1.72% gain
DLTR - Dollar Tree was SOLD with a 4.93% gain
CATM - Cardtronics ATM was SOLD with a 12.98% gain
TRADING IN 2012

Here is my suggestion. STAY AWAY FROM THE MARKET. If the market shows some upward trend over the next two months, it could be a good time to re-enter the market. It is hard for some people to understand that there are just good times to be out of the market. By the end of February, there will be some good buying opportunities because of SEASONAL TRENDS. For instance, farmers plant... they use seed and fertilize. That means that seed companies and fertilizer companies will be a positive buy.

Over the next few weeks, I will be writing about some trading ideas. ETFs, when properly entered and properly sold can provide some very reasonable returns. Last year, a portfolio of TIP, BND, VNQ, and VTI, would have returned 10%. (try this on ETFreplay.com) And yes, I was invested TIP, BND, and VNQ throughout 2011. Use the backtesting on ETFreplay.com to test the return.

There is another trick, don't enter the ETF until it rises above its 200 day Simple Moving Average SMA. If the price of the EFT moves below the 200 day SMA, sell it. Earlier in the year VNQ sold, but TIP and BND never sold. (Remember, I ALWAYS USE A STOP-SELL when buying a stock.)

So over the next few weeks, we will cover this ETF investment play in detail. When I last looked at VTI, the price had not risen above the 200 day SMA. Be careful to not blindly buy a EFT, you need to understand what you are doing. Please feel free to ask me questions.

(note: For entertainment purposes only, not to be used as financial advice.)