The Stockhouse audience, for the most part, is an audience of hard core investors. Most Members (and regular users) are not only interested in investing, they engage in self-investing – taking full responsibility for their financial future.
These investors don’t merely visit websites and read articles for their favorite companies, they generally invest significant amounts of time on the Stockhouse Bullboards. Here Stockhouse visitors hook-up with like-minded individuals and compare notes.
There are three important reasons why the Stockhouse audience spends most of its time networking on the Stockhouse Bullboards:
- Getting different perspectives on these companies from fellow investors.
- Saving time on due diligence.
- Learning about other prospective companies from other Members with whom they are networking.
As serious as the Stockhouse audience is about their investing, everybody needs some time off. For investors (not surprisingly) this occurs during the summer months.
“Sell in May, and go away.”
This investment adage may not be quite as true today as it once was. With most trading activity now computerized (via trading algorithms), trading volumes don’t drop off as significantly as in previous years during summer months. Even so, the numbers do fall substantially as we move out of spring and into summer.
The Stockhouse audience is primarily a small-cap audience, so trading statistics from the TSX Venture Exchange will help to illustrate the reduction in trading that takes place in the summer months.
The summer is still definitely the quiet season in markets – as even most corporations reduce their activity in summer months. These publicly-listed companies are composed of people, people who (like everyone else) take annual vacations. So even though the markets themselves aren’t quite as cyclical as they were prior to the era of “HFT trading”, both companies and investors alike use the summer as a time to catch their breath, and refocus for “investing season” – which officially kicks off after Labour Day.
Given this reality, and knowing that these publicly-listed companies are planning to get busy right after Labour Day, when should industrious investors roll up their sleeves and get back to work? Right now.
Now is the time to catch up on your due diligence, re-familiarize yourself with the companies on the top of your watch-list, and plan your strategy for the fall. Wait until after Labour Day to begin this process, and you allow more-attentive investors to get a competitive edge. While you are getting back up-to-speed, they are already placing their bids.
The “lazy days of summer”. As investors, we’ve had our time off – now it’s time to get back to work.