Overlong response to dakhun

Thanks for reading!  And how typically Furry to express one’s interest as a series of complaints!

➢I don't think anyone over there [in Egypt] even listened to [Obama].

That was the impression they were trying to create.  But at every step they did what the USA wanted, such as when the Muslim Brotherhood pronounced that they would stay on the sidelines.  Egyptians know very well that they are dependent on American aid.  Whatever Obama did, it wasn’t meddlesome enough to ruin things, which makes him better at this than most recent presidents.

➢you could have bought the Sector SPDRs

That would require that I have some faith in those sectors.  I like swing trading because it doesn't require any faith in companies or sectors, just in the stock-trading system as a whole.

➢when you think the next bear market *might* be starting soon...

That would be “trend trading” which is beyond my pay grade.  I don't claim to have any idea when the next bear market *might* start, only that the current market *has* now returned to raging-bull status.  Because of QE2, I expect that this will continue until June, but Schwab thinks it will run for three years.

➢Your decision to exclude Energy and US Financials

No, I have been excluding *Healthcare* and Financials.  SE and CVX are both energy stocks, as are KOL and OKE.  Schwab recently downgraded the Healthcare industry to “underperform”, the same category where they had already placed Financials.

➢the number 1 and number 3 performing US sectors YTD

My problem with Healthcare and US Financials is regulatory capture.  This is the same thing that would cause me to avoid Telecommunications stocks when/if I open a Canadian trading account.  These industries are permitted to lie their heads off in their financial reports, which means there is no way to know how close they are to some cliff or other.  When doing swing trading, you don’t want any sudden moves—the stock should just keep going the way it’s been going.

➢What you are doing is trying to outperform an index, selecting from a universe of stocks that collectively are under-performing that index.

Over the long term, SPY is unbeatable.  What I’m trying to do is invest over a series of very short terms, picking stocks that are temporarily beating the average.  Many people make gobs of money at this, but it takes several years of experience to get good at it and I’ve had only two months.

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