tactical trader

Are the current market jitters justified or is it more doom and gloom from the bears who have been consistently proved wrong over the last year? Personally I am a bit more nervous than I was at the end of the year, the trouble is I cannot really put my finger on the reason. I had expected the rate rise today (thanks to all those idiots borrowing far beyond their means over Christmas) but even taking this into account I had expected more stability by now.

After the major correction last May I thought it would be at least October before we saw a return and in particular a buying opportunity, true enough there were some of these but not as many as I had hoped.

India is a case in point, after the huge collapse last year it was recovering nicely and in an orderly fashion then all of a sudden it dropped for no apparent reason, so much for technical analysis!

As usual, everyone was very knowledgeable after the event and they all saw it coming. What a pity none of these experts were able to point out the likely fall when I had my finger on the buy trigger. The amount of the fall is not my concern because I have bought India for the longer term, what bugs me is that the research I carried out and the examination of the fundamentals all supported a buy and yet here I am almost immediately out of pocket. This is not the first time this has happened over the last year and it really has to call into question the value of trying to time entry and exit points where longer term trading is concerned.

This raises an even more interesting point, should I even be looking? I bought India as a longer term hold and there is no doubt that barring a major world event or global correction, the growth of the market in India is set to continue. I should just leave it alone and keep a monthly check on progress against my own objectives rather than listening to so called experts who always seem to let me down when I need them most .

The trouble is that in this information age there is so much attacking us from all sides that you cannot help but listen to it and make judgements accordingly and as much as we are told to make our own decisions we are only human. So my challenge for the next few weeks is not to listen, only to watch the price action, measure against my own growth objectives and interpret accordingly. We shall see how well I can stick to it and how I feel about my Indian holding then.