just21 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3,423 Quote: Originally Posted by jsp326 View Post The Nikkei in the 80s is another one, though you can't find its historical chart at stockcharts.com. At its peak it was around 40,000 in 1990. Today it's hovering around 15,000. That should give the buy-n-holders something to think about. Not all markets recover within 20 years. Nikkei in the 1980's was 592% http://www.finfacts.com/Private/curency/nikkei225performance.htm
I try to keep things simple for my pea size brain. I never understood how raising rates is a good thing for the mkt.
If inflation was not a concern feds would stand pat on bond purchases. I know the $ does not go as far as it did 10+ years ago for me personally. Education and housing is just stupid expensive. Not sure where the cpi data comes from but it is far from accurate just like the employment % number. Things are skewed to justify policy. Remember the game of musical chairs; world central bankers are in the late rounds. We are in year 5 of the bull market. Last time mkt ran 7 straight years was in the 80's I believe so ar best we have another 2 left. Won't be any diff this time around in my opinion. At this point when buying I just pinch my nose
South Africa raises rates. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...erging-markets-in-raising-benchmark-rate.html
In healthy economies it is ok to raise rates...what is happening now is for diff reasons. This is happening way too late in my opinion. US will have to follow suit.
If an importer of most the country's energy consumption then preserving your currency value is key. Japan after Fukushima shutdown it's nuclear energy production and now imports it's energy needs. They learned the hard way what happens if you don't have strong domestic currency. Your budget blows up from offshore energy costs.