Investing

Eomer_sl said:

Depending on your definition, from late December to early February, the US was very close to bear territory. Almost a 14% decline from peak to trough. There was a smaller correction August-October last year, as well.

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If a 3 month time period is long enough to classify the market.

Definitions I saw said at least a 20% decline over at least two months. So like I said, there's actually been two periods that come fairly close in the past year. There's no hard and fast definition of what a bear market is, and there's no guarantee that they'll always show up as scheduled. Predicting how big the decline will be and/or how long the bear market will last is basically no better than guess work. We live in pretty unusual times right now, so historical patterns probably aren't going to lend much useful information. One of the first tenets of Couch Potato investing is to not try to time the markets. Most research indicates that if you have a chunk of change to invest, you're best off doing it all at once, and not dollar cost averaging it over a year or something like that. For a few different reasons. Couple blog posts explain better than I:

Ask the Spud: Should I Buy In Now? | Canadian Couch Potato

Does Dollar-Cost Averaging Work? | Canadian Couch Potato

Note those are from about 3 years ago, when everyone felt that things had peaked, equities were about to go in the shitter, and bond yields would certainly start rising any day now. 3 years later and none of that has come true. Yet, anyways. The S&P500 is up 25% or more since then.

Basically, if you're going to Couch Potato or index invest, the biggest thing that will fuck your returns in the long run is going to be yourself and your behavior. If you sit around on the sidelines waiting for things to drop, you could well be waiting months or years, and sitting there could have cost you a lot in missed gains in the meantime.

Furious_sl said:

Best thing to do when you first start out is not lose money. The market is very expensive right now. I would suggest keeping 1/2 your money in short term government ladder bonds and wait for a bear market. It's long overdue.

Good books to start. Intelligent investor, Random Walk Down Wallstreet and anything by Boogle.

Also type in Couch potato portfolio. Great way to start out.

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People were saying that two years ago. And if you had sat in cash, you'd be out a ton of gains. Long term, trying to time the market is a fools gambit. Just buy in and add as you can. If the market is up, you end up getting less shares, if it's down you get more.

Metals are on a major tear lately, precious metals and base metals. FR and EDR have been an amazing trade this year. Kicking myself for not picking up more FR when it was under $5. I was able load up on Teck Resources (TSE:TCK.B) earlier this year though, watched it go from $3 to $60 in 2009-2011, wasn't going to let it slip away from me this time