Vestal Chamberlain Lubriderm wrote:
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Second, there is absolutely no reason to have an investment that you know will lose money. Saying a well managed fund will lose less is a garbage reason, because you may as well short something and come out net positive or sandbag and pull those investments.
One should be willing to accept short term losses. Hopping funds on hunches or for emotional reasons is about as good as day trading.
Right. Short term losses are more than acceptable, but limiting your exposure to a well predicted dynamic is also the difference between investing competently and lighting your money on fire. The solution is to shift your positions in such a way that a oncoming correction will not significantly harm you, and possibly even benefit you. Normal market fluctuation doesn't hurt you over the long term, because it's often based on things other than the base worth of the stock. Sudden, large shocks can. Especially if it's a readjustment in something's real long term financial position.
What I'm saying is that there is a difference between "A guy on the street said gold will go up because he was yelling really loudly" and "Our financial models say the market, specifically in positions we hold will drop by 3-7%. Therefore we should shift to less vulnerable holding or put a short term hedge against this exposure to protect ourself and our investors" This also does not mean pulling out of high risk stocks. Some high risk stocks are in really strong positions when things based on the bond market fall, and thus have higher reward for similar risk.
Also, I didn't say day trading was bad. I said it was high risk, and more specifically very high risk for a solitary uninformed investors who don't really know why the bets they are making are good or bad. Day trading actually makes a piles of money, but only for financial institutions or say, a hedge fund, who has the resources to do their due diligence and make rational bets with a reasonable assessment of risk.