The Dow was down 1.0% today and Toronto was down 0.5%
Many or most of our stocks picks were down
Fedex was up 5.1% after announcing some cost cutting moves. Coincidently I intend to update the report on Fedex within the next few days.
Alimentation Couche-Tard rose 6.2% late on Friday as I mention below, Tuesday when the market opened again after holiday Monday it was down a bit but today was up 3.0%. Basically it appears something positive was said at their annual meeting on Friday or some analysts have upgraded the stock. I find it odd and have emailed the company asking for some explanation. I don’t expect them to give me one however. It’s an excellent company a real Canadian success story. But it looks about fully valued to me.
With the markets having been down for several days in a row now, and with talk of lower world growth and a poor Q3 earnings season it is natural to be worried about where the markets are headed.
I have always explained that I cannot predict market direction. I doubt anyone can. What I have had some success at is trying to recognize when the market and especially individual stocks appear to be good value. Also I have had success in keeping calm during market dips and trying to buy on dips rather than sell.
At the same time I try to be positioned with some cash on hand to take advantage of dips.
It’s interesting that the U.S. markets in particular have done very well in 2012 and that is despite all the things there are to worry about. At the start of September many were predicting a down month. Yet is was a very strong up month.
At this point, yes, of course, markets may fall. That is always the case. If you are overly nervous and not prepared to hold on come what may then consider reducing your equity exposure. Personally I have already reduced but I still have a high equity exposure. I also find it hard to reduce further at this point because it is I suppose an admission that I should have reduced more in the last several weeks. So I may or may not reduce anything at this point. But if markets were to fall more significantly (and no one can predict that accurately) I will be holding come what may and buying on dips as I have done for the past 13 years or more since starting this web site and even prior to that.
Well perhaps the next few days will bring glad tidings of earnings and the outlook will brighten. As always time will tell. I look forward in particular to Wells Fargo’s earnings report on Friday. They are expected to be about 20% higher than last year. If more than 20% or so the stock may rise. If less, well, you know.