It's Not A Bargain, Yet.

It's a Bear Market. Understand It, Embrace It.

The first thing all investors must understand and accept is that the market is in a longer term downtrend. It will end at some point, and along the way there will be strong countertrend moves, but ultimately the wind is blowing south. Accepting it is half the battle.


Fire The Optimistic Advisor.

I have always considered myself to be an optimist, but, at the end of the day, I fall firmly into the realist camp when it comes to trading and investing. This is your future, not a lottery ticket. Maybe the tough decision is in taking action to can not just a few lagging stocks, but your lagging advisor as well.

This Will End In Hindsight.

Seasoned investors have no desire to catch bottoms; most will choose to miss the beginning of a new trend higher. They chose this path for its safety and certainty. It's much better to be late than wrong, and opportunity costs are made up much easier than losses. Stop being concerned with catching a turn, averaging in, or buying low. That's a fool's game, and should be avoided at all costs. Rather than trying to pick a bottom, take the time to study what bottoms look like. Formulate a game plan based on historical data, so that you know how to proceed when the rough times are over.

No, It's Not a Bargain.

Investors are learning, and will continue to learn, that trends can last much longer than seems reasonable and stocks can fall much farther than one would expect. Many may be tempted to pick up Maybank at lows or a Lion Diversified under 3xPE, but in reality, these stocks are trading at these levels for a reason. Rarely, if ever, will you outsmart the market. Just when you think a stock can't fall any further, you wake up to see a solid blue chip like Tenaga dropping another Ringgit. Avoid the siren call of bargain stocks. When the market regains its health, there will be ample opportunity.