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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Cloudsweeper99, post: 1084612, member: 3011&quot;]First of all, reread what I wrote.&nbsp; I said a &quot;traders mentality.&quot;&nbsp; This has nothing to do with long term investing, value investing, and illiquid investments such as real estate.&nbsp; It&#039;s a different game with a different mindset.&nbsp; A trader who owned dot-coms in 1998 did <b><i><u>exactly</u></i></b> the right thing and made a significant amount of money afterward.&nbsp; Since good trading always implies the use of loss controls, most got out with most of their gains.&nbsp; It was the investors, especially those buying the dips, who took a beating.&nbsp; But you missed the most important point.&nbsp; Contrarians often miss the point that it is the moves of the majority that drive prices.&nbsp; I saw CNBC parade a host of professionals on air after the DJIA fell from 14,000 to 12,000.&nbsp; All of them were bullish because the majority were bearish.&nbsp; Well, the majority turned out to be correct all the way down.&nbsp; The point is that contrarians are only correct at the EXTREME of market moves, up or down, and are wrong the rest of the way.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was a diehard value investor for most of my life.&nbsp; After the 2000 tech stock crash, I reveiwed what had just happened.&nbsp; While you are correct that most people learned that it doesn&#039;t pay to invest in a bubble, I learned just the opposite -- that tremendous amounts of money can be made in bull markets even if the underlying asset is overpriced.&nbsp; But this technique also requires strict loss-control rules.&nbsp; Since then I&#039;ve added some simple trend following methods to my other investing techniques [although not usually for the same investments] and I&#039;ve been happy with the results.&nbsp; I&#039;ve even modified my former value investment methods to make them more &quot;mechanical,&quot; which seems better suited to 21st century markets.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, that&#039;s my story.&nbsp; It might not work in theory, so you can&#039;t teach it to your students, but it works in practice.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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