The biggest individual investment I personally made in the last six months was buying an India-based hedge fund. Why did I buy?
Because of the situation at that moment...
I bought because "there's nobody left to sell." It wasn't about buying "value." Indian stocks appeared to be unbelievably good values when I bought... but that wasn't it. My Indian fund manager friend said it well: "We have crisis prices, with no crisis."
Buyers had disappeared... and there was nobody left to sell.
It was like the entire country was in a foreclosure sale on the courthouse steps... There had been so many sellers for so long and no buyers, the market was way below any rational level.
I couldn't be sure when Indian stocks would go up again. But I was confident they would... The situation they were in would change at some point, and I figured it would happen soon.
The problem was "liquidity" - trading had dried up. Buying into an illiquid situation is dangerous. You simply don't know when the selling will end. And without liquidity, it's hard to cut your losses if you need to - there are no buyers.
But the problem is also your opportunity... When trading activity returns, shares can jump like you can't imagine. On Monday, for example, the entire Indian stock market rose 17%!
To capture gains like you see here, you have to be positioned in advance.
Of course, sometimes markets go into a "zombie" state, and it takes years for them to get back to normal trading. So, honestly, I don't recommend this technique for most people. You'll get burned more than you hit the jackpot.
But back in January, the "foreclosure sale" in Indian stocks was so outrageous, I felt compelled to buy. Now the liquidity has returned. And we've seen the huge gains.
Earlier this year, I couldn't have been more optimistic about India... I said you have "the potential of triple-digit returns in as soon as a year." I hope you took me up on it.
If you didn't... Well, it's not too late. As I wrote in January, "If 2003 repeats, you'll see 750% in less than five years... or better."
Good investing,
Steve
Dr. Steve Sjuggerud is the founder and editor of one of the largest financial newsletters in the world, True Wealth. This article was first published in The Daily Wealth
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