It's OK to be late! Early really IS the new wrong!!

Gosh, those Merrill ("BAS-ML") analysts are being productive, these days. Wonder why?

Nigel SuperQuant Tupper has an interesting piece out... you know how everybody's saying "Early is the New Wrong" (along with "Down 10% is the new Up")?

Well, Nigel now proves that it's OK to be late... Globally, it's better to be late than early. If you invest 4 mos too early, you lose 22%, while those who invest 4 mos late miss only 8% on avg (since 1988).

(For Asia ex-Japan, he writes: "the bounce in performance after a trough (+27%) is about as dramatic as the fall in performance before the trough (-23%), on average. Invest $100, lose 23% ($77), gain 27% ($97.79), and you’re slightly worse off than having waited.")


Well, that'll be a relief for the long only managers out there. (As for the remaining "fast money" guys desperately trying to justify 2/20... )

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Now, the shape of that global chart looks a bit familiar, doesn't it? HSCEI (China H-share index, traded in HK) with an 8 day moving average) below. So we have maybe a month to decide if that end-October trough really was the trough. Looks startlingly like Nigel's above, but about twice the fall to the trough, and, so far, twice (roughly) the rise since then...:
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