Who is buying s&p now??

[Tangler]

I don't think you'll have a problem keeping this thread going...how else would we know that you keep buying without the weekly update?

Congratulations on your recently expanded "old fart" tax-protected space!

Best part about turning 50?

[WorkforFIRE]

I’m buying. Just finished my Backdoor ROTH accounts. Will actually move the funds into S&P tomorrow.

[artemis]

Best part about turning 50?

No, that would be the free small coffee you can get at many fast food places once you're 55.

I remember how offended I used to feel as a young'un getting carded. I turn 60 next month; yesterday I was a the grocery store picking up a few things and the cashier was telling the lady in front of me that she qualified for the Senior Discount as she was older than 55. When it was my turn, as the cashier finished ringing me up she told me (without looking at my ID) that I obviously didn't qualify for the Senior Discount because I was too young. I could have hugged her! (And no, I didn't correct her.) Talk about a reversal in attitude with age!

Now with Secure 2.0 being passed, I am looking forward to the "super old fart" additional catch-up contributions in my mid-60s. I guess getting older does have a few good things associated for it which almost make up for the creaky joints and midnight bathroom trips.

[artemis]

And back on topic; I put $300 into the S&P 500 this month. Not much, but the lion's share of this month's investment went into the Vanguard REIT fund I hold in my Roth IRA. Fingers crossed I'll be putting in a much larger contribution next month!

[WorkforFIRE]

Timing the market is pretty close to 0 as well.

[TheDangerZone]

Do you guys ever try to time the market? H the chance we don’t see a lower SPX this year is pretty close to 0, why buy here?

So at what threshold will you buy? If it falls to that level, do you think you would 100% pull the trigger and not wait for it to fall further?

And what will you do if it doesn’t get there?

Seems stressful.

[Tim]

Do you guys ever try to time the market? H the chance we don’t see a lower SPX this year is pretty close to 0, why buy here?

Yes.
Timing withdrawals can be more complicated than buying.
Replenishing cash equivalent reserves if they are used,

“Far more money has been lost by investors trying to anticipate corrections, than lost in the corrections themselves.”
Buying is probably luck, not skill.

[Tangler]

Do you guys ever try to time the market? H the chance we don’t see a lower SPX this year is pretty close to 0, why buy here?

The old adage: “Time in the market, beats timing’s the market “.

My philosophy:
Two phases of life: wealth accumulation & wealth preservation

Phase one: accumulation phase: constantly buy during working years. slow accumulation with new income.

Phase two: wealth preservation phase:
Constantly withdraw after retirement: slowly pull $ out with needs, and tax consequences considered.

Flexibility, agility, adaptability during all phases.

I am buying every month. slow and steady wins the race.

[blippi]

maybe thinking about market predictive factors so much results in too much and inappropriate familiarity with something more than one smart person has described as random. when millions of people are investing and the talking heads disagree, how do you know what the pseudoperson mr. market has priced in? people get divorces after realizing they didn’t know their spouse like they thought they did, and that involves an actual person.

[Random1]

But in a paper published two decades ago, David Leinweber and Dave Krider found that butter production in Bangladesh had the tightest correlation to the S&P 500 of any data series they could find. It wasn’t GDP growth…it wasn’t earnings…it was Bangladeshi butter, which “explained” 99% of the S&P 500’s movements. The authors weren’t quacks.

[bovie]

Very good questions. It's all about having a market thesis and acting on it. Once the thesis is invalidated, I change my position. I'm currently short SPX. Thesis is that market is trying to front run a fed pivot which is unlikely to happen this year.

The market is currently pricing in the following:
-only 50 bps left of rate hikes with a terminal rate below 5%
-rate cuts by next year
-no recession

If any of those turn out to be wrong, we have further to fall

Based on technicals, I would close shorts at 3750 and re-enter long 50% at that position. Re-enter 25% at 3600 and final 25% at 3500.

If we do not drop further from here and close above 4200 on a weekly candle, i re-enter at a loss

If we drop to 3750, I'm 50% in and then we go up again, I re-enter at 4000 for breakeven on the remaining 50%.

If Jerome starts speaking dovish at the next FOMC, I close all shorts and re-enter (at a likely loss)

Just have to be disciplined, don't get attached to a position. Also not for everyone, I just love researching the markets. I would definitely come out ahead using this time to work clinical medicine instead of market research but that sounds like an absolutely miserable road to burnout, at least for me

Underperforming the market due to misplaced confidence in a market-timing strategy bound to fail, and thus having to work longer than you otherwise would, is also a miserable road to burnout.

[blippi]

But in a paper published two decades ago, David Leinweber and Dave Krider found that butter production in Bangladesh had the tightest correlation to the S&P 500 of any data series they could find. It wasn’t GDP growth…it wasn’t earnings…it was Bangladeshi butter, which “explained” 99% of the S&P 500’s movements. The authors weren’t quacks.

eureka! egads, man! get this off the internet post haste and open an investment firm!

[Tim]

[QUOTE=blippi;n375

eureka! egads, man! get this off the internet post haste and open an investment firm![/QUOTE]

Not yet.
Once one of the triggers are hit, I really want to know the next targets. Really need to know the technical math that generates the targets. The secret sauce is the algorithm. Entry and exit followed by entry and exit.

Every trading plan works until it doesn’t ! love trading plans with indicators then confirmations for position sizing.
I really want to back test this.

[ScubaV]

I tried doing some market timing. It didn't work out.

Because I have VTSAX in my taxable and 403b/457b/Roth accounts (and it's not clear if this matters for a wash sale) there's only a few windows per year I can try doing some tax loss harvesting. This fall, 30 days had elapsed since my final non-taxable contribution and I had about ~$3k ish losses I could potentially harvest. All the financial news was bad, so I figured why not wait for some more losses and really make it worth my time to figure out how to do it and which funds to switch to. Except the S&P flatlined and then went up and then wavered despite everyone talking about how bad things were going to be. So I figured "screw it, not gonna bother with TLH" and just did my backlogged and regular taxable contributions. The S&P promptly dropped back down...

[Panscan]

I tried doing some market timing. It didn't work out.

Because I have VTSAX in my taxable and 403b/457b/Roth accounts (and it's not clear if this matters for a wash sale) there's only a few windows per year I can try doing some tax loss harvesting. This fall, 30 days had elapsed since my final non-taxable contribution and I had about ~$3k ish losses I could potentially harvest. All the financial news was bad, so I figured why not wait for some more losses and really make it worth my time to figure out how to do it and which funds to switch to. Except the S&P flatlined and then went up and then wavered despite everyone talking about how bad things were going to be. So I figured "screw it, not gonna bother with TLH" and just did my backlogged and regular taxable contributions. The S&P promptly dropped back down...

extremely insignificant in long term