Bulls To Bears: Surviving Choppy Markets

Investors are always searching for robust returns as well as consistent gains on their investments. When the market is weak, dealing with heavy sell offs and a declining stock portfolio isn't anyone's idea of a good time.

They are called selloffs because investors react to these big declines by panicking, liquidating and selling off  stock positions. We see this happening over and over again despite investors having  held top quality companies with good fundamentals within their group of holdings.

Professional seasoned investors will tend to do the very opposite. Through experience they have learned to see a big correction or huge downturn as a chance to review their risks within their portfolio and take that opportunity to add to good positions creating a cheaper entry price rather then selling into that weakness. 

When confronted with adverse market conditions like big sell offs, whether or not it's a one-day decline or longer, an investor must take the time to review their portfolio and access the collateral damage occurring. Having to deal with your portfolio during market volatility may be burdensome, but an important necessary task. We comprised the paragraphs below into a few suggestions that will help you and your trading account survive big market declines like the one we just witnessed that wiped away 2000 points on the Dow, all of 2018 gains, in about 20 trading sessions.

Have long-term goals etched in the back of your mind. The one thing for certain we can GUARANTEE our followers is that regardless of what your stock holdings consist of, the stock market will forever experience volatile moves ups and volatile moves down. That is the main reason why it is important to keep emotions in check and stay focused on your long term trading goals. Having a buy and hold strategy and holding that course steady - despite short term choppy market moves, will most likely determine the difference between profits and losses. While the very opposite of  this strategy is to Day Trade stocks and try and figure out what the market will do today with in the next few hours. Bulls To Bears as well as most investment professionals will tell you it is very risky trading, not to mention if your predictions are wrong, it could cost you a lot of your money and you can miss out on a particular company's best days that are ahead.

 

Keep on top of your trading accounts and individual holdings. With all the wild events happening in the world today, almost on a daily basis, it should call attention to the importance of knowing where your assets are and keeping diligent observations. You must keep in mind that periods of falling prices are an integrated part of investing in the stock market. We guide our followers and help them to use a multitude of trading tools, to hedge against market declines like stock options, to assist their portfolios against sharp and unexpected drops in the stock market. Also, by making better stock trades one can constantly reevaluate what is happening while at the same time limiting overall risk to positions.

 

The Stock Market is a difficult ocean to navigate. We recommend talking with an expert. A professional trader will assist you and help separate you from emotion driven decisions and will prohibit you from making bad trades, that will deter you from your overall goals. Researchers within the investment field of behavioral finance have found that emotions typically lead investors to make very bad trades when those erratic unexpected daily events occur - even though those averse market events in the end didn't have negative long-term adverse consequences. With the aid of a financial professional, you can sort through these short term distractions, and you'll likely find out that if your investment strategy made sense to you before a particular event occurred and shifted the market, it will make sense afterwards when the dust settles as well. Panicking is not a very smart trading strategy!

 

At Bulls To Bears, we scan the market weekly for the emergence of meaningful discounts. We love when stocks sell off and turn pricey quality stocks into less expensive ones. Stock corrections help to keep valuations in line. These corrections do not mean the Market is going to zero. In rough times, if possible, get some cash and boost up your buying power. Or when the market is topped out and your stocks continue to hit record highs, take some profits off the table and build some cash reserves. You might also want to sell some underperformers for cash and when the market finally takes a big hit, use it to pounce on better bargains.

 

As a wise BullsToBears.com member, you will learn to actually welcome market sell-offs, because they provide an opportunity to pick up good stocks when their share price is lowered and on sale before they eventually begin to move in the right direction again, higher! By utilizing the market by buying stocks and selling others our program will help you keep a bit cash on hand, so you'll be ready to buy when other stocks go on sale. Thus turning a market drop into a good trading opportunity. So when the markets get slammed, great stocks usually get caught in the downturn and that is the time to swoop in a buy them.

We agree with Warren Buffett's overall investment strategy when he says: "Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful."

By and large, stop getting bent out of shape by stock market sell offs. Instead put together a diversified stock portfolio of quality stocks and options. Try and avoid purchasing to many speculative stocks, or investments with an uncertain future and low volumes. When you do that you will be less likely to panic during market routs with better stock portfolio holdings. Because of our 16 year track record, we are confident our members will survive, no matter what the economy or market throws at them. By continuing to place better trades - when sell offs occurred our existing clients thrived in good times and survived in bad.

 

To conclude, whether you are a day trader, swing trader, long term or short term trader, we encourage you to join Our Free Newsletter. As a stock trader you'll benefit from our wealth building information that could help you profit and protect your investments from the next stock market surge or sell off.

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Till Next Time.... Happy Trading!!!

Bulls To Bears: Investing and Cost Averaging

Cost averaging or "averaging down" is an investment strategy used by investors to accumulate shares of a stock strategically based on per share price. A investor purchases more shares to add to a position of existing shares when prices are cheaper or when prices are higher, whenever they add to their position either as prices are more attractive or if the stock price increases. 

Dollar Cost Averaging is highly successful stock trading strategy that allows an investor to put additional money into a particular company to build a larger position over time. The purpose for this method might be to lower the total average cost per share of an investment, giving the investor a cheaper overall cost per share on the investment  by adding more money to previous purchased shares.

 

This strategy is actually a very smart one and can be a great method to earn big profits, but requires some discipline on the part of the investor. The “cost averaging” part of the equation is mostly a byproduct of market volatility: investors are able purchase less stock as prices go higher, and more as they go lower, therefore averaging down on the cost per share at the correct times when it occasionally dips could be extremely beneficial when the investment rises and having owned those addition shares.

 

Another positive aspect of DCA is that it allows investors to avoid investing too much into a stock when it is priced too high and helps traders add to a position when the stocks price is lower, thus reducing overall price per share. However, this method of trading ignores simple logic, common sense would suggest it's better to invest it all at once. Fortunately, smart investors and advisors do not always base their decisions on logic or evidence. However, when it comes to trading the stock market investors emotions usually plays a far greater role in decision making than logic.

 

Dollar cost averaging is an important trading strategy, but it should never be viewed as the only way of maximizing profits, nor does it suggest that you never invest a lump sum as part of your investment game plan. Relatively, it should be regarded as a solid risk reduction strategy suited for investors who are normally cautious in regards to a long term investment approach, because of the fear of market instability.

 

When markets are weak and sinking it can be difficult to foresee a clear path to take. Sensibly, people get worried when experiencing a big decline in the value of their holdings, but by staying focused and maintaining your trading strategy and averaging into your current investment can be intelligent valuable decision.

 

The main reason we tell our subscribers to average down is when they can bring down their average cost of a stock they are holding quite substantially. Assuming of coarse we believe the stock will turn around, this decision will ensure a lower break even point for the stocks position and could result in much higher gains in dollar terms, than would be the case if the position was not averaged down, in the event that stock surges in price.

 

When averaging down works, it's because the investor is willing to hold that stock long enough for it to bounce back. And therein lies the secret to Dollar Cost Averaging. You must have the backbone to hold on long enough for that stock to recover without losing your patience or your shirt first.

 

Below is an example of how dollar cost averaging could be successful when used correctly. Let us use XYZ Inc. and a purchase of 1000 of XYZ at $20 then in 2 weeks the stock falls to $10 by averaging down on XYZ by purchasing an additional 1000 shares at $10 and adding to the other 1000 shares at $20, you can bring down the breakeven point (or average price) of XYZ's position to $15 dollars:

 

•1000 shares xyz $(20) =    $20,000
•1000 shares xyz $(10) =    $10,000
•$2000 shares xyz $(15 avg) =  $30,000

 

No let us pretend that now XYZ stock starts to trend higher and a few weeks later it trades at $18 per share, the investor now has a potential gain of $6000 with an average price per share of $15 on 2000 shares (despite the fact that the stock is still trading below the initial entry price of $20):

 

Had the investor not brought the average cost down when the stock dipped to $10, the potential loss on the position (when the stock is at 18 would be -$2000). So if you’re a novice investor new to the stock market, go ahead and try dollar cost averaging. You might have success with it!

 

Remember, before averaging down on any stock position, it is very important that the company as a whole and its statistics be fully assessed. A trader should make sure whether a significant decline in a stocks price is a short term miscorrelation or a symptoms of a deeper issue at hand. At the very least, many factors need to be assessed - like the company's competitive standings, future earnings outlook, financial stability, and corporate structure.

Bear in mind, at any time you can tilt the odds of success in your favor by adding BullsToBears.com to you trading arsenal. With our trading program you can achieve the best possible results with the least amount of effort by following our stock alerts and proven trading methods. Benefit from our low-risk approach that will leave you no reason to worry. Have more time to yourself to live a more meaningful life.

 

If you a day trader, swing trader, or long-term investor you’ll benefit from subscribing to our FREE NEWSLETTER. Our articles, Trading Tips, are there for all traders and investors to explore our tools and techniques we are show our paid subscribers. We also offer a 14 DAY FREE TRIAL so you too can learn knowledge for yourself about market structure, trend identification, cycle analysis, volatility, volume, when and when to trade, position management, and how we put it all together so that you now have a winning edge.

 

The time is NOW to invest in your future success! We look forward to seeing you soon.

 

Till Next Time... Happy Trading!

Bulls To Bears: Trading and Stop Losses

A stop-loss is a commonly placed market order that's entered to help protect investors by triggering a sale on a stocks position once it reaches a certain price. Today we are going to let you in on a little trading secret. We are going against the grain here and try to explain to you why stop losses are the single biggest factor why most novice and inexperienced traders lose money in the stock market.

The reason behind why most stock losses probably occur, is before a stock trends higher, it typically takes a dip and trends  lower and nervous people sell. It is important for you to grasp that market makers, specialists, and experienced traders are out to make money for themselves or their firms. They are out searching to make money from your inexperience and they all have access to resources, tools and information that you don't.

Now listen, these sharks see your open positions sitting out there and they know that you are willing to sell to them at your stop price (the order is in) and they are searching for these easy pickings, to stop you out and make money from your mistakes. More often than not if they are planning on taking a security higher - they will drop the bid first scooping up your stock taking you out at that stop price. They want to buy it cheap and they know where to get it. Then they will proceed to move the stock much higher and are happy to own your shares that you were offering up for sale. And guess what? Now your out of that trade, with a realized loss!

So, the lesson here is, If your frightened about a trade or scared to lose your money or just uncomfortable with that trade then "sit it out" don't do it. We see this scenario take place time and time again. So, it is better that if you feel the need to have a stop-loss in place, put a looser stop-loss of maybe 30% to 35%, as to not make it too tight so your easily stopped out. There are people out there who are looking for people with tight stop losses. These professionals know the stock market very well and are scouring it looking for tight stops and looking to capitalize off of it. We tell our subscribers to generally try and keep stop losses on the looser side when possible.

Using a stop loss is like going into a casino sitting at the poker table and showing everyone at that table your cards, including the dealer. So don't use a tight stop loss. It is the easiest way to ensure that a wall street professional trader will pick your pocket. We see this scenario time and time again. It is paramount that you understand that a majority of your losses are coming from stop losses that you have in place right before the stocks begins to go higher and you are the loser. I'm sure this has never happened to you?

In our opinion the best stop loss that you can make for yourself are mental stop losses. But you must be diligent and stick to your trading parameters. We will go on the record here and tell you that tight stop losses are the single biggest mistake novice traders make when they start trading stocks.

I will stress it again, market makers have a lot more data and tools at their disposal than retail traders do. They are able see your order entries and they have the power to move the markets against you. Not to mention stop losses can’t guarantee you complete protection against even market losses. But they do increase the odds you will miss out on the upside all together, plus they increase trade costs. Also, there is no evidence to support claims that they produce better results, but there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. It is better to start to think of stop losses by their contrarian name that describes them better " stop-gains." 

In addition, because stock prices tend to fall so rapidly, most stop losses entered can't be filled quickly enough and many investor's stocks are sold out at prices well below their triggered stop price. We see it often enough, that most stocks will then rebounded quickly, making the situation even more painful for the traders who are stopped out at the bottom.

Another major worry in regards to stop loss orders is once your stop order is triggered, it turns into a market order. In a volatile quick moving market, the stop price could be acquired and the next offer price could be executed substantially well beneath that stop price and it will result in larger losses than initially expected, which is exactly what you were trying to avoid in the first place by using the stop order.

To recap, try to avoid getting stopped out prematurely, you always want to give yourself some wiggle room in regards to your stop loss entries. Otherwise you risk getting stopped out and missing the move entirely, even worse, handing yourself a realized loss costing you money.

That's all for today! Remember you can subscribe to our FREE investment newsletter here that is geared to help traders of all types, both large and small. If your a day trader, swing trader, or short  term investor you'll benefit from the opinions and advice we provide, as well as free tips, offers and up coming promotions.

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Till next time... Happy Trading!