Identify and Anticipate Difficult Bear Markets!

“Be Fearful When others are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful.”  Warren Buffett.

Some of the best timing indicators I’ve ever had were from my mother.  I remember very vividly after the financial housing correction a telephone conversation with her.  She was telling me she was thinking about selling the stocks she had in the market.  She was scared.  Her retirement was in jeopardy. The main problem was that this was a conversation we had in March of 2009.  As a reminder, by March of 2009 the Dow had already fallen from its highs in the 14,000 and was trading as low as 6,500.  Ironically, it was one of the worst times she could be selling her stocks and I tried my best to convince her that the damage had been done and that she should stay in the market at minimum and buy more if possible.  At the same time, I started to rotate back into the market. 

I am not sure if she took my advice.   I do know that I had a few similar conversations with her and I always knew that when she was asking, it was a good time to buy.  She was in many ways one of the best market indicators I had that the end of bear market was near. 

Whether it’s housing, dot coms, or tulip bulbs – all markets move in cycles—Some markets are just more pronounced than others.   One (not too secret) secret is that pullbacks in the market create some of the best opportunities in the market as it goes down and as it recovers.

Before the Bear Strikes is a blueprint.  It is designed to help you anticipate market collapses.  In it Bryan Johnson has specifically formulated strategies that he has used to anticipate many times to anticipate a market collapse.  The calculations he uses are straightforward and extremely well defined.  In a way, this is a recipe for anticipating and preparing for collapses, before the fact and then identifying the end of the storm.