While it is impossible to pick the exact market and stock bottoms, you can pick out stocks that appear undervalued and sell them when they reach my target prices. This is what I attempt to do and do it with some success, though I tend to be a bit early getting in and early getting out. I measure success relative to the S&P 500, which I am beating by a very large margin YTD.

Of course, all of this means that some of my picks may be underwater at times. Also, in the words of John Cramer, "I am not perfect," which means that I can make mistakes. I consider Citigroup purchased at $50 a huge mistake. I had no idea that their balance sheet did not properly reflect their exposure to the mortgage business. When I looked at their financials, it looked like only 5% of their profits came from mortgages. Had I known that this was not the case, I would have never touched this stock with a 10 foot pole at $50! Looks like all of the professional investors where blindsided by this as well. Of course at $32 C looks a lot more attractive, even with all the mortgage problems that we have all heard about and may still hear more about. The question to ask at this price level is "what about credit cards?" I do not have an answer to this question and therefore have neither dumped C, nor added to this position.

My other stock picks should recover and reward rather nicely with the market over the next 6 months - 1 year.