Sunday, December 4, 2011

Most notably, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 700 points in the last three days of November to give the index an overall gain of 0.8 percent for the month. Much of the market's returns are determined by surprises, not simply by good or bad news. A company can experience its greatest quarter ever and still see its stock price hammered simply because the outstanding news still wasn't as good as the market expected. The same is true of bad news: A stock can soar if its company reports overall poor results that were much better than expected. The market as a whole responds similarly. In this case, we see the IMF action to provide liquidity to banks on a major scale, addressing the liquidity problem threatening the markets. Also, many economic indicators -- such as consumer confidence numbers, employment numbers and retail sales figures from the past weekend -- were all positive surprises. The market reacted accordingly.
Therefore : always keep in mind these two issues. Your plan should realize that surprises will occur and that just because things are bad (or good, for that matter) doesn't mean it will continue that way.

No comments: