Freaky Friday

Well today was interesting. I woke up early only to find that the overseas markets had plummeted again, oil dropped from $68 to $63 after OPECs decision to cut 1.5 million barrels per day -- about the expected amount (so I guess it was buy on rumour sell on news... bah!) -- and Pre-market futures had dropped so low they hit their max limit for the day (-550 points for the DOW), and of course another load of bad news was released. People were panicking and there was speculation of the DOW opening down 1000 points and how it was going to be complete anarchy. It turned out to be not so bad, considering the oversees market performance and dismal news, and the DOW ended down only (yes, "only") 300 points.

On open, Energy stocks were down the most at about -10%, meaning DIG opened about -20% in the $23-$24 range. The markets didn't open as low as everyone expected and started rising. I was a little freaked out of course (I shouldn't have woken up early to see the news) and I had my finger on the trigger to sell. As I saw the market rising a bit, I was considering just trying to get out of DIG at a small loss around $26, especially when it finally hit that. I was nervous about the market tanking mid-day.

But then I imagined I wasn't invested in anything right now and thought about what I would be doing in that scenario. And I realized I would probably be wanting to buy DIG immediately while it was low, and I wouldn't be that nervous about it. After all, oil was down to $63 now, the markets were way down and starting to rise, and it was at the same price I had previously purchased it at when everything was higher. I realized that I quite commonly tend to freak out when I've bought something that goes up and then comes back down to the price I bought it at, even if I would be happily buying it again if I had never bought it.

So I decided to hold on. DIG rose quite a bit (thanks to Exxon Mobil doing a little better than the average energy stock) and finished -8% today at 27.56, above my average purchase price.

Gold also hit a low of around $680 and then shot up to $740, ending up in the 730's. I really think $680 is the bottom for gold. I'm hoping that with it so low and people finally being spooked enough with the continued selloff of the markets and bleak outlook, they'll finally start to flock to gold again. I don't think the rise in the US dollar will last much longer, and then gold should shoot up to the $800's.