The conventional wisdom in bond investing is that, as interest-rates rise, you shorten maturities. As rates fall, you lengthen them. But what to do about holding-periods for equities? Might not the same thinking apply as markets rotate between their bull and bear phases? When faced with intermediate to longer term trends whose directions are flat to downwards, might it not be a good idea to tighten trailing stops and/or be prepared to get in/out quickly when technicals are overwhelming fundamentals, maybe even to the extent that technicals become fundamentals, as Soros argued in one of his books when he was still a shrewd trader rather than yet another political meddler?

To that end, I'm going to abandon this thread for a while and set up a campaign to trade the stocks in the SP1500 and the same number of ETFs, using some scanning software I have that can slam though 100 stocks/ETFs per second looking for breakouts that might be worth buying or breakdowns that might be worth shorting. I have no idea what the outcome of the campaign will be. But it's the project that interests me most right now, and it's a project I've often collaborated on with Quillnpenn, the best swing trader I know whose work ethic can't be matched. He's east coast. I'm west coast. But often enough, it'll be 10 o'clock at night, and he's still up, setting up his trades for the next day's market opening. That's dedication. (Obsession?) But he's a fun guy to interact with, just because he takes the trading game so seriously.

If I do post on the project, it'll be on TMF's 'Technical Traders' board, where it's easy to post charts and to edit one's own posts. Meanwhile, be careful out there. The bears are getting hungry.

Charlie