OK - it’s time for me to come clean. I was too embarrassed to admit it earlier, but now, with things apparently on the mend, I’ve decided to tell the truth. Here’s the real story behind the recent market melt-down. First off, the Chinese had absolutely nothing to do with it. I did it. It was my fault. And . . .
I’m sorry.
Here are the specifics. It was Tuesday, August 18. I finally decided to confront a problem I had never before faced. One investment of mine (Skechers) had grown to about 25% of my portfolio. This was a problem I had never before faced. Previously (last year) I held over 30 positions. Because I never sold anything (buy and hold) no position had ever grown to become such a large percentage of my overall investment profile. And also, in that I didn’t keep track of my individual investments as a percentage of the whole, I wouldn’t have known it if it had.
But since I’ve started following this board and put some of the wisdom into practice with my own investments I realized I had this problem and I had to deal with it.
So, Tuesday, August 18 was the day I decided to take decisive action. Early in the morning, before the market opened I placed a sell order to reduce my SKX holdings. I also placed buy orders in order to redeploy the cash.
A bit later while taking our daily walk I explained to my wife what I had done. Mt wife, ever the optimist about my investing decisions immediately asserted that things will go up and our portfolio will show the positive effects of my actions. I had to correct her. I told her that I am endowed with the worst timing possible. Every time I buy, without fail the market goes down. It’s as predictable as the sun coming up in the morning.
So, it was my fault. The innocent action of re-balancing my portfolio was met with the inevitable down-turn in the market. I’ve resolved from now on to give the readers of this board fair warning. Henceforth, I will inform the readers of this board when I intend to trade. This will give you the opportunity to go all cash before I place any buy orders. You can then re-invest after the market sell-off that will be my responsibility. It’s the least I can do for the faithful followers of this board.
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I have given up looking for that perfect guy., the one that is always right about the stock market, the one I can just tag along with.
Though I am sure you are not The One, I have not quite given hope on finding somebody who is always wrong.
I did have one once but he went bust and left the stock market for real estate speculation. Just in time for the Florida condo bubble.
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mauser, I too have been on the search for that one person who has never made a mistake. I had a good lead a few days ago when I got out of sequence at a four way stop and went out of turn. A fellow there gave me a one finger salute as I went through the intersection, so I am pretty sure he has never made a mistake, but there was too much traffic to try and turn around and get his thoughts on investment strategy.
Mike
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brittlerock,
I don’t think you can take all the blame for this one. I, too, placed some buy orders (SEDG, ANET, SKX, AMBA) last week just in time to trigger the market turn. It almost always happens when I deploy significant cash into smaller-cap growth firms (the ones which suffer the greatest in a downturn). My other buys in stodgy growth companies almost never trigger a response.
Let’s just call it a collective ‘fail’, and smile as we watch our positions slide past our buy points back into forever-green territory. This, too, shall pass. 
Tiptree, Fool One guide
Tiptree,
Are you sure? I was sure I caused this recent debacle. Slide after I buy is so predictable I’ve tried to outsmart myself by postponing the purchase. Doesn’t work. The stuff I was going to buy then rises, until I place an order, it then nosedives past the point it was at when I had an original intent to buy.
I was just so damn positive I was responsible for this that it feels really weird to share the blame.
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brittlerock,
If what you say is true, then SKX could never have reached 25% of your port unless all others fell drastically in comparison?
Kris
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If you are looking for the unfailable investors who have never made a mistake, I hear there are lots of them on twitter 
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Dagnabit Kris - I s’pose there might have been just a wee bit o’ sarcasm in my post.
Maybe (now I’m not actually admitting to an untruth here), just maybe there were other forces at work that compounded and contributed to the market nose-dive. Yet, I am confident that my buy orders were the trigger mechanism, if not the fundamental cause.
brittlerock,
Sorry figured you were being sarcastic when I let the analytical, engineering part of my brain sleep for a little while, keep the posts coming they are very insightfull.
Best,
Kris