An article just came out today about the price of gas, and it has me worried. The article states that gas has risen over the past three weeks.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/19/news/economy/gas-prices/index.htm
I’ve noticed there seems to be a creepy relationship between the price of gas and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. When gas prices go down, stocks go up. But, now, I’m worried. Not because I’m afraid all of my long positions will go sour, but because I also hold a few speculative stocks, and I enjoy trading these speculative stocks from time to time. Trading and investing are different, and it’s important to avoid trading (short term buy/sells) unless you have a lot of time and can keep a close watch on the stocks you buy. Also, an investing approach with dividend stocks is always the way to go if you’re putting some of your savings into the stock market and don’t need the money for awhile. But, then again, what do I know?
Really though, there’s no way to time the market, and no matter how much the “experts” try to convince you how smart they are, NOBODY can time the market.
But with the price of gas going up now, I’ll be watching stocks very closely. I’d love to buy a second property… Or to put more money into REITs. The catalyst for making any new moves will be freeing up some of the money I have in stocks. And for anyone who’s considering buying into the market right now, even though it’s impossible to time the market, I think it’s safe to say that some general predictions can be made, and my conservative prediction is that the stock market will go DOWN from now, so I would seriously AVOID buying into the market for a little while. The reason is because everything is at an all-time high right now…. at least it is for me… and I don’t think it will go much higher from here. This is also an election year, and there’s also a lot of pressure from Europe. If I was a betting man, I would say…
SELL, SELL!