Doubts immediately crowd the mind when the market starts down, especially when your idea appears not to work immediately. We second-guess. We get nervous. Human beings are an impatient lot by nature, I’ve come to believe. Patience is an acquired habit.

So the market has its first significant down day in what seems like months with the Dow down about 160 points. In fact, just take a look at the Dow Jones industrial average over the last year:

Patient investors knew the break would come sometime. No market goes up in such a neat line for very long, as this one has from July to November. Maybe today is the day we start that break. Or maybe it is only a way station before a march to new highs.

I take the position that markets go up and markets go down. Market tops exist, as do market bottoms. The difference is that I readily admit such tops and bottoms are elusive prey -- so much so that I believe they are not worth the timing work to pursue. Tops and bottoms are decisively determined only in hindsight. I spend a lot more time looking forward and trying to figure out individual opportunities than I do worrying about where the market will go.
Once you put a game plan together hop onto the train and if it goes the wrong way hop off and find another train to hop on that could be going the right way.
On these corrections wait patiently to pick up bargains later on. Time to tighten up your stops and go to cash for the next round of dollar weakness and inflation run of commodities.