Timing is everything

It has always been an annoying dilemma. Whenever an opportunity presents itself, it comes along with its own baggage of risks and rewards. This is part and parcel of ever-day life. The opportunity often changes its balance... some times, the risk weigh more and at other times the rewards are too tempting. The whole business is very dynamic (volatile and beyond reason as some of my friends describe it).

It is always too difficult to know the exact time to act. Too soon you may lose what you have. Too late, you may miss what you could have had. Too soon, you repent. Too late, you repent. You either have to know the future or just get lucky to not repent. Such is the nature of the opportunity.

Apart from timing, there is a problem of reversal of trend when you are evaluating the prospects of an opportunity. History tells me that reversal of trend normally happens immediately after the action. Dangerous.

There is another problem with opportunity. It has a tendency to change very very fast. One extreme of this is that it could vanish in an instant - without warning. Even if after a long deliberation, you are ready to take the risk - the opportunity (and there by the reward) simply does not exist any more. Too bad.

In the past one year, the dilemma I am fighting is taking me through ups and downs nothing short of a roller coaster... Has the time come to act? To seize the opportunity or to let go and wait for the next one? Oh wait, is it still there? Was it ever there?

Those who know me well have by now realized what exactly I am talking about...
Those who know me too well.... take that grin out of your face.
Others (who have cared to read till here) would be already speculating... reading between the lines, between words... trying anagrams may be... let me clarify.

;-) Yes, it is the stock market that I am talking about.

Its been 10 months since I did my last trade... I am simply not been able to make sense of the market. Every tanking, I am thinking "Next rally, I am booking profits"... By the time, there is short rally I am already thinking "Next plunge, I should be buying".

Have we seen the bottom yet, or is there still pounding to be taken... ??
Should I start buying now? Or should I have booked profits last week? Was the market ever worth investing in? Is India still hot?

If only I knew the answers.... (or at least the future)