Don’t pooh-pooh this buy-the-losers-into-the-end-of-the-year trick: With many Energy and Material stocks down 20 percent or more, it makes perfect sense to be buying them now, in a seasonally strong period of the year, with tax-loss selling abating, and with traders looking for a few percentage points gain to end the year on a positive note.
I repeat: don’t laugh at this strategy. I know guys that are suddenly very long the Alcoa’s and Exxon’s of the world as a “Santa Claus rally” trade, because a 5 to 10 percent rally in the next few days could make the difference between being in the green — or in the red — for the year.
On a longer-term level, Value versus Growth for 2016 is the big investment debate on trading desks right now.
