I do not see a final market bottom on the horizon. A short term bottom/rally can happen anytime ,soon as some catalyst in the form of "good news" occurs to trigger it. Then we will have a nice rally. It will be a bear market rally and suckers rally luring in the knife catching long term investor (individual or institution/fund manager etc) that still has some greed left to be washed out. A FINAL Bottom may be many months even years away due to the global financial crisis and the global recession which it is creating. People that think the final bottom is going to come any time soon any day now and think it will be a one day bell ringing event are delusional and have little understanding of our financial markets. As much as we are down right now I have no doubts we can go down a lot further. Bottoms in this type of market and economic conditions will likely take a lengthy period of time to form with retesting of the lows. I don't see the FINAL bottom in sight as we have deteriorating market and economic conditions. This financial banking crisis is monumental and a historic unprecedented event and it will likely result in a market drop of comparable epic proportions. The recession is building and many economists are projecting unemployment greater than 8%. That would not surprise me. We have a variety of parts of the economy that are effectively dead, shut down for the most part as credit is non existent. Housing and auto are a huge chunk of the economy and have far reaching ripple effects throughout the economy. Think for a moment of all the supporting business to auto and home sales. The myriad of products and business associated with auto and home. It is very far reaching and they all feel the economic impact. The plumber, electrician, roofer, painter, cabinet maker, carpet manufacturer, furniture manufacturer, car stereo manufacturer, wheel tire manufacturer etc etc etc.....massive amounts of supporting business and industry and the people working in them are feeling the economic impact. Earnings declines will be escalating. The markets will have to deal with all this for quite some time to come. It hasn't been pretty but it can get even worse. Much worse when you have the sort of things going on that we have going on out there. I do not see a market bottom. Eventually a final market bottom will come but I don't see it on the horizon, I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Until I do I can not be an investor in stocks. I will continue to trade this market on both the short and long side as opportunities present themselves but I have no need to rush in and buy stocks as i believe there will be plenty of time to do that as the stock market grinds away and retests lows over months putting in a final bottom. There's just no light at the end of this tunnel that I can see so I will patiently watch and wait and keep my powder dry.
For the benefit of '"Joe Blow" I hope you are right. To interfere with private enterprise and markets as the government has been doing is very troubling to me.As markets had found their own "tops" they,then, must be allowed to find their own "bottoms". I understand what Paulson is trying to, but we simply cannot allow government to attempt to control the ebb and flow of day to day markets with ad hoc policies based upon the "flavor of the day". In fairness to Paulson, he recognized what was coming,but simply did not have enough time to formulate plans. Bear Sterns essentially blew up in his face and then found he could not stem the flow. Personally, I feel that a lot of these corporate heads and their senior minions, should be pushed off the top of the buildings for doing what they did. It was fraud and they have crippled a nation for personal benefit. It is sick. My question is how do we discount bad news when we can hardly identify what bad news is these days.? There are no historical precedents to this debacle to make an intelligent assumption as to estimate what the '"bottom" would look like . In my opinion, housing will take a generation before it turns positive and social unrest (globally) will escalate as unemployment sets in . The euro may be dismantled completely as we will find that countries, such as Italy and Spain to start with, will become technically insolvent, because of existing social policies. We are in for one hell of a ride for the next few years and I sincerely wish I am wrong. NiN
The real question is did the G7 actually accomplish anything this weekend? What is the market open looking like? I didn't hear anything specific, so I'm concerned we're just going to continue the tank as markets were asking for a specific, joint plan. All we got was more political nonsense. What's it look like Asia is going to open at?
even with the government and world interference it hasnt stopped or slowed down the cascade....that's really worrisome to me. They have thrown more quick fixes at the market/economy in the last several months than ive seen in a lifetime.....that makes me wonder how ugly "UGLY" is going to be......we might have a 15% bounce any second now......but i doubt we are anywhere near the bottom.....
Thats it. Colleges incubating MBAs and the rest of the world engineers. Everyone is a paper pushing middleman esp. traders.
I don't believe we are anywhere near a "bottom", but I have absolutely NO idea what it could possibly be...to ease my fretting I am sticking to a good bottle of Courvoisier and listen to the ramblings of my good wife and the constant arguments of my kids for the time being.. In the meantime..... I feel that Bernanke should have held back the joker card(depression) from the government although Paulson had already smelt it out. As the unprecedented events unfolded rapidly they in effect tried to hog tie the immediate problems and reactions with what appeared to be quick fixes, recognizing that Europe and SE Asia will not/cannot adjust as easily ,because their financial infrastructure and policies are not similar to the U.S. Europe is going to be a basket case, in time, compared to the U.S.. In my opinion ,the S.E Asia and Australia will not be as "affected" as elsewhere. By that I mean that they will be in a position to take some some severe knocks but have sufficient "cash''/ reasonable balance of payments to get through this tumultuos period . U.S, on the other hand, is going to have its arse delivered to it for some time for reasons stated in other comments in this thread; specifically, it is a debtor nation of enormous proportions.. I feel that Paulson and those clowns in Congress have unintentionally set their own trap that will limit potential growth of the economy. Quasi socialistic economic policies simply cannot work. In summary, it appears we all are optimists at heart , but we are also realists and we simply don't have answers for the near future,let alone longterm, that we yearn have available. All these problems pales in comparison to one of my best friend ,who has been inflicted with pancreatic cancer that has mestasised (cyst) in his liver at a young age and I don't think he is going to make Thankgiving....all this in 6 weeks.( UNBELIEVABLE) Leaving behind 2 kids, 16 and 14. It is a helpless feeling when you cannot help.
Ha ha ha markets up huge as I said they woud; this is nothign but a fake financial crisis and a mental recession. The economy hasn't changed AT ALL since June 2007. No negative gdp, no slowdown in consumer spending, wages keep rising, web 2.0 not a bubble. I havn't sold anything and the dow will revist 14,000 next year because I know how economics works. I know the difference between a real economic crisis versus a media generated one. I know how things work. I know that TOOOONS of peopel blew out their accounts today. 3-1 margin shorts are down 33%..ROFL 2-1 folks down 22% And i'm wrote last friday before the recovery will be v shaped: -A huge bounce to 11,500 on the dow withi na few weeks -and then a steady rally to 14,000 by next year on better than anticipated economic numbers, strong earnings, and consumer spending. There will be no negative GDP at all. I still never sold and won't because there is no need to. Nothing fundamentally changed between 2007 and now. chumps