ACTION IN THE ADVANCED OR MIDDLE STAGE OF A BEAR MARKET
If such a secondary reaction is already under way, you have several choices:
1. Sell in stages what you hold long, using your technical tools to gauge the top of the up-move. This you must do if you rate capital preservation high. The top of a secondary reaction (up) in most bear markets offers the highest prices that will be seen for probably 1 to 5 years. This is because the bear market ‘‘assumedly’’ has time left to run, after which it will normally remain dormant awhile, then slowly build up to a new bull market, all of which takes time. The prices on this reaction will be the best you can hope for, even though they may look pitifully low to you, since they had been so much higher 6–12 months before. Even the long-term investor must get out here. We are not dealing with certainties in the stock market (or in any other phase of life) but with probabilities, and you can’t afford the risk of going against the probabilities here. The odds favor lower prices are long. And for a long time.This ‘‘choice’’ sounds easy on paper, but in practice it’s agonizingly difficult.Why? Because, as the rally mounts, the talk will be that the bear market is over, or that we are starting a new bull market, or that maybe it wasn’t really a bearmarket anyway. Some will say the DJIA is going 500 points higher in the next92 Bear Market Investing Strategies30 days. Volume will probably mount. Some good business news will beavailable. Most brokers will be bullish and urge customers to buy. You willbe torn between the stage scenery (those 500 points especially) and what youare pretty sure is backstage.But experience teaches that those extra 500 points are a mirage most of thetime. If you like only short odds in your favor, then stick around. Maybe you’llbe lucky.‘‘Each man must kill his own snakes,’’ as Robert Rhea once said of stockmarket decisions. This book can tell you where the snakes are, but you have totake the action yourself, and it’s never, never easy. Only on paper is it easy.Partly, that’s because we live only 1 day at a time, whereas on paper we canspan 6 months in a paragraph.In this situation, we again face what we discussed in the chapter on humanpsychology in the stock market. Winning in the market is largely a matter offighting a battle within yourself. Intellectual domination of your emotions willwin the day, if it is indeed won. The majority will fail to win the day, for themajority cannot, or will not, try to control their emotions. So, this simplechoice of ‘‘selling on the rally’’ will prove a massive barrier to you unlessyou develop nerves of steel and act against what some of your emotions arecoaxing you to do.You must ignore both profits and losses, and forsake what appear to beprobable profits ahead, and sell when the signs say so.The most difficult part of all is not to let your bullish emotions, in a rally,cause you to make rose-colored interpretations of an indicator. For example, ifthe number of daily ‘‘new highs’’ fails to exceed the ‘‘new lows’’ (or does soonly moderately) during a rally, you will be tempted to discount it (becausesubconsciously you want to hide such evidence under the rug). You may say,‘‘Well, you’ve got to expect the highs to be fewer because the market is welldown from its peak.’’ So much for this ‘‘simple’’ choice number one.
2. Buy a few stocks that look bullish on their charts (see Chapter 11 oncharts), as perhaps 10 to 25% of total stocks may, if it is not too faralong in the intermediate term, up-move (i.e., the secondary reaction ina bear market). Thus, you’ll get a nice play for several points profit,assuming you have done your chart reading properly. You should pickstocks that have little apparent downside risk and good support levels:stocks that are in a new uptrend and enjoy increased volume, andperhaps have something fundamentally bright.Sometimes, the blue chips are best on secondary rallies; sometimes, the lowprice stocks; sometimes, the cyclicals or the utilities. No two situations can bethe same, and that’s why I advocate making your selection on the basis of chartaction. The charts tell you which group is strongest and/or which are makingreversal patterns. It will usually be a ‘‘logical’’ group to advance, based onPreservation of Capital during a Bear Market 93TEAMFLYconditions at that stage of the economy or market. Watch the volume leadersfor candidates.That may not seem appropriate for preservation of capital, but in truth it is,provided you do not invest too heavily in this stage. It’s like Napoleon’s advicethat to attack is the best defense. One must go with the trend, even the short ormedium-term trend at times. Probably 25 to 30% should be your maximumcommitment in this period. There is always the risk that you have not madecorrect interpretations of the signs of the times and the technical tools, andwhat you calculate to be an intermediate-term rally may in fact be a primaryreversal; thus, some investment in it will be welcome.If, for the ‘‘buy and hold’’ crowd, this sounds like peculiar advice, let mequote part of friend John Templeton’s strategy that created his huge fortune.Even at the height of the 1990s’ bull market, he never mentally, or emotionally,put all his money in stocks. His ‘‘buy and hold’’ portion of his portfolio wasonly ever 50%. The other 50% was sometimes in bonds or defensive issues, ifhe felt doubtful about the trend. That’s a good strategy to adopt.But, because Templeton is a multi-millionaire, he could afford to risk ahigher percentage of his assets than most people.However, in good conscience, the best advice for ultra-conservative preservation of capital is to participate in these contra-trend moves in closed-endmutual funds.Holding this type of share lets you sleep better, doesn’t make you quite sucha devotee to your charts, and doesn’t subject you to the whims of news and thehype that most TV newscasters use to keep you watching and their sponsorshappy. You don’t make nearly as much profit this way, but, on a normalintermediate secondary reaction (up), you should make enough points tomake it worthwhile. If you are also short, this hedges your position nicely.Even this method, however, is not perfect. At times, some closed-end mutualfunds tend to specialize in specific industries and would be the equivalent ofbuying into just one industry group. So, if you like this fund idea, make sureyou know exactly what they are invested in and how diversified they are.To hold something both long and short is a common practice with manysophisticated investors. If you feel you know charts well enough to pick thestrong stocks to hold long and the weak ones to hold short, this is a reasonableapproach as you are balanced and invested with individual stock trends.Whether you buy a mutual fund or a stock is obviously an individual choice,based on how much risk you want to absorb and how far you have progressedin your study of market trends and chart analysis. You pay your money andyou take your chance.