When the Bear strikes 2020 (Part 1) - Damage Report 2020-03-15

Wow, what a week! The market got hammered left, right, center by not just the escalating Covid-19 situation, but also the crash in oil prices. Circuit breaker in the US market even got triggered - historically it has been triggered only 4 times, and even the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) back in 2008 did not cause their market circuit breaker to be tripped.

Folks, the bears has finally started their assault - and perhaps it's time to take up arms towards a better personal financial future.

Take a look at the chart for Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Standard & Poors 500 (S&P500) and Straits Times Index (STI).

DJIA Chart (Source: Yahoo! Finance)

S&P500 Chart (Source: Yahoo! Finance)

Both DJIA and S&P500 got hit hard, taking them to a low of 21,154.46 and 2478.86 respectively, before spiking back up by 9+% to close at 23,185.62 and 2,711.02 respectively following the spike in Dow Futures.

STI Chart (Source: Yahoo! Finance)

STI also got spooked, and we saw it crash to a low 2510.88 in the morning of 13 March (Friday) before recovering to close at 2634.00, following a spike in Dow Futures. The last time we came anywhere close this low was in 2016.

Naturally, my current portfolio is not spared from this either (you can visit the StocksCafe portion on my main Portfolio page to see my current positions at last closing price).

• Down-Month on-Month (MoM) by 18.46% (In comparison, STI is down MoM by 12.52%)
• Down Year-to-Date (YTD) by 15.63%. (In comparison, STI is down YTD by 18.67%)

I see a number of investors have taken this opportunity to load up on their targets as well, deploying their "troops" (cash) in waves to "attack" positions , anticipating possibility of further hits.

This is the first bear market I am experiencing as an investor and I am looking forward to accumulate although so far I had not added any new positions yet.

Also beating myself up for my loss in Alita Resources for not having much "troops" to deploy, and buying in Fu Yu Corp too early - so many "objectives" (targets) I want to "attack", but not enough to make the most of the opportunity. But what to do, just gonna make the most out of what I have on hand instead.

Anyway folks, what do you think of the rally on 13 March (Friday)? Dead cat bounce? Or recovery?