Of bears, bulls, and brokers

It had been awhile since I made any transaction on my trading account; but last two trading days ago, I started buying again. I am not sure if that was a good move, especially when most analysts think and believe that we are now in a bear market.

What I realized though was that it doesn’t really matter much to me whether we are in a bull or a bear market because I am here for the long-term, and I always tend to look at the fundamentals. Recently, more often than not, I am a buy and hold investor. (Lately, I have restricted myself from day trading because (1) I don’t have time to track the market anymore and (2) the entire buy/sell transaction can be costly.)

Of course, I also refer to certain technical indicators; it is necessary to catch that perfect timing we are all aiming for, i.e.  so that I’d know when’s a good time (range of values) to enter. With this perspective in mind, I was not worried about the plummeting index (and my bloody red portfolio). In fact, I wanted it to go down some more so I can buy some of my favorite stocks at cheaper prices. I am sure that quite a handful of you would disagree with this strategy; IMHO though, there is not one best strategy, especially if we are talking about stock trading and investing.

Another reason why I am not so anxious about the bloodbath is because I  believe that I’m well-diversified. I don’t believe in putting ones hard earned money in one basket — especially stock trading — when the risk is really, really high.

When I finally thought that the stocks I’m following were cheap enough, I looked at the historical broker transactions of some of the biggest players in the PSE for confirmation. When I saw that they have started accumulating again (some of my favorite stocks), I just followed their lead. So far, so good.