Press To The Little Guy: Why Quit Now?

When markets are rising everybody has an opinion about what to buy. When they fall, however, the advice columnists invariably tell their readers not to sell. As the people in the luxe cabins on the upper decks are climbing into the lifeboats, the word goes out down below: sit tight, ocean liners float. The New York Times tells you that if you missed the top 10 days of gains over the last decade or whatever, you'd have missed out on a huge part of the rising tide.

But what would have happened if you'd missed the days with the 10 biggest losses? I don't pretend to know, but it's hard not to wonder about this advice when Dealbreaker tells you that Steven Cohen is roaring at his trading room that he's going to cash. Yeah, yeah, maybe it's one of those Steve Cohen throw chaff in the air and mess with the mind of the market rumors. Hey, he's actually buying up all the hot bargains. Uh, huh.. As per usual the hedge funds (and I mean the ones that aren't already going under) are selling everything and the little guys are there grabbing oars and offering to help row. It is totally true that most investors are miserable market timers, but maybe that's partly because they spend months listening to advice to hang in there and only throw up their hands in disgust long after the professionals have gone home.