ninelives, page-5

Very good post Martis,

I am still very cautious by the events of the 16th August this year when we had that terrible day. After 5 years as a trader it showed me I knew very little about the markets, but thought I knew a lot. That day I lost several months salary mainly on MRX and ADY and my trading has not been the same since.

I watched the 87 crash show on CNBC today and the main message was that you need to recognise the signs of these downturns and have a strategy to minimise loss/take profits prior to the event (if possible) and then seek out quality stocks that represent true bargains.

Although, I have traded many times since August 16th this year, I have been very cautious with the size of my trades and the length of holding a stock considerably reduced.

This bull recovery in the last 2 months has not been convincing to me and just does not feel right.

I expect a significant decline in the market this week and at some stage MRX may become a better buy than it already appears to be. I sold my holdings last week for a small profit as the signs were there for a correction. I currently hold no stock and after watching wall street on Friday night, I am just grateful. Would have ruined my weekend.Something told me to sell on Friday when I saw the US futures looking so sick so early.

Human physcology, which drives behaviour, is a huge factor in the snowball effect in the case of a market selldown or the irrational buying as seen recently in stocks such as INP,ELK and WGP as there are always loosers left holding at the top wondering what happened.

The upside is that history shows that markets always recover from downturns and then go on to bigger bull runs. It is all about the timings of our purchases.

MRX is one stock I have huge confidence in and hope to take a position again soon. It may in fact be one of the stock tomorrow that don't suffer more than a cent or so as volumes have been low over the last few days.

Good luck to holders.