luckycanuck

The market is horrific today. It's the worst I've ever seen. Plenty of stocks that I hold are down over 10%. ARX, JRL, ASZ, NBS, PVE, SSM, BOW, ERA, CCV, all of them are plunging, often despite having strong fundamentals. All in all, at the moment it looks like I am down about $17,000 in less than an hour. I don't generally like to talk about money too much here, but that is the scale of things.

I'm not planning on selling anything today, but I wish I had earlier in the week or over the past few months. The market has really gone sideways recently and there are stocks like ASZ and VMG that I had thought about selling because I though they were fully valued and I could put the money from them elsewhere. Had I done so, I would have cash on hand with which to scoop up some bargains today.

As it is I have a bit of room on the margin loan that I could throw into the ring. I still have a fair amount of room before I would face a margin call, but this panic may not wear off overnight and if I got in deeper I risk being forced to sell at the worst possible time. So it looks like today I will not be buying or selling. I just wish I hadn't gone into BOW and ERA in the past week because I would have had a lot more flexibility to get into things today.

I know I don't do panic selling. I know I have the stomach for this and that is important. I know, however, that I have to get better at selling in general. I don't like to let my stocks go. This morning I was looking at my portfolio and wondering what I would sell if I had to, and pretty much everything I had some compelling reason to hold. I am confident things will recover, but I worry I get to personally attached to things I buy. It strikes me that this chaos may be the catalyst that makes me take a more critical eye to my holdings. Over the next few weeks, I may be selling to rebalance things, but certainly not today.

There are two bits of wisdom that are especially useful today, both of which I came across on HotCopper this morning.

The best thing to do today is not look.
Do not sell.
This is insanity.
Let the other people sell.
The market is basically factoring in the end of the world.

Also...

For the market to fall, someone has to be buying.

And on that note, I won't be looking at the market again today, though I will check the margin loan before the end of the day to make sure it's still in balance.

I have decided I won't be going to Sydney this weekend. It would have meant driving up and back in one day, and six hours in a car plus rugby (and the prospect of injuries) and then going to a party Saturday evening was just going to be too much to pack in. Additionally, yesterday there was smoke coming from my exhaust. It wasn't there this morning, but I didn't feel comfortable going all the way up to Sydney and back like that. Perhaps I should have it looked at.

I hope the Convicts do well and I will be wearing my Convicts gear tomorrow in support. If we win we are into the Grand Final. Not bad for a team in their first year in the competition who joined a few weeks into the season. It has at least given us plenty of opportunities to get