SanFrancisco said:
Honestly i think Army Vet had the best advice, that just because the market has always gone up in the past, doesn't mean it will continue to do so. With America facing competition from China and India, our market which is basically right where it was 8 years ago may stay static for another 8.
I disagree, I believe ArmyVet offered the 2nd best advice in this thread only to 75th.
Yes, naturally I've read the stories about subprime losses, about overstretched consumers, about oil prices. Of course we know all about this. Here's the thing: I don't think that the market does a very good job in *predicting* macroeconomic factors. After all, we've been hearing about these things since 2002. The amount of opportunities that we would ahve passed up in the meantime waiting for consumer armageddon would have been phenomenal.
With that in mind, individual companies each have a value. They have current earnings, forecasted earnings for the next year, and the next 5 years justified by certain real factors, and all those cash flows can be discounted and assigned a reasonable terminable value, and sometimes you can do all that and cut it in HALF and still come out OK on the price of the stock currently... that's what is going to be available in the coming months and some of what is already available. That is how you outperform.
But the stock market batters all stocks without favoritism. It doesn't care whether a company is good or bad. It just sells, or buys, in bulk, for tax reasons, to close out funds, to reopen funds, to do any number of a things that have nothing to do with the value of a company, and the stock will float with it. I hate to use the term "Mr. Market" because it's just a silly way to characterize the obvious market INefficiency that Warren has spoken about for the past 40 years.
One of the stock market "gurus" I most respect offered this:
"I certainly don't possess skill in predicting macroeconomic factors and their impact. I don't think there are many people who do. They certainly aren't the ones yapping in the media. If I focus on company-specific and stock-specific factors (is it cheap? are they good managers?) I feel like I'm working in an environment where I can add value."
If you are looking at a fund and trying to predict macro factors and whether or not the stock market is going to go up or down as a whole, god help you seriously man.
Can't help ya! But individual stock can offer superior returns.