This time it's different! Some remarks: In most of Europe if you loan for a house you and your assets are on the hook regardless the value of the property. You can't just send the keys back and be gone. Obviously this provides support to the housing market. Defaulting on your mortgage is very much the very last option truely. I believe in the US this was not the case (it is today?). The Ireland, Spain, US housing crash was to some extend due to stupid locations (in the desert next to some fake golf courts and often the quality was questionable (Wood, prefab, ...)... The Northern European housing market has less of that, housing is scarce, numbers growing, so that also provides some support. Also, a relative amount of Northen European baby boomers did quite well, invested less in the volatile stockmarket then their American peers and are supporting their offspring today buying a property. But ofcourse, besides those the boom in prices these last decades and years has been quite big and one would have to be a fool to think a razorsharp correction could not occur. or not. Some people thought 1K gold was excessive too.
Take the MSCI World total return, indexed in USD and adjust it for inflation for 1970-1980 and you'll weep.
Interesting stuff from Paul Graham (go to #5) re: Apple. http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html Apple's revenues may continue to rise for a long time, but as Microsoft shows, revenue is a lagging indicator in the technology business
Details on Hussman model http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704759704577265360531477348.html "⢠the Standard & Poor's 500 trading at more than 8% above its 52-week exponential moving average ⢠the S&P 500 up more than 50% from its four-year low ⢠the "Shiller P/E," based on the cyclically adjusted trailing 10-year earnings, developed by Yale economist Robert Shiller, greater than 18; it's currently 22 ⢠the 10-year Treasury yield higher than six months earlier ⢠the Investors Intelligence's bullish advisory sentiment over 47%, and bearishness under 25%; in the latest data, the numbers were 47.9% bulls and 26.6% bears" "WHEN ALL THOSE CONDITIONS OBTAIN, as they very nearly do now, look out below. In 1973, a 48% collapse ensued over 21 months, and in August 1987, there was a 34% plunge over the following three months. Since that ancient history, losses of 10% to 18% ensued in the 1998-2000 period, followed ultimately by a plunge of more than 50% in the dot-com bust of 2000-02. And in 2007, a correction of 10% culminated in the 50%-plus plunge of 2007-09 (see chart)." Hussman 2000-2009 record is actually excellent, he missed the rally and that hurt his record lately but if he is correct again(And I view that as likely) he will be ahead of the S&P500(The standard benchmarks for mutual funds, not hand picked investments that did well) by miles once again
This is not to say that playing a greater fool game right now won't work. In fact, using the Hussman model to the long side plus a good stop strategy probably makes money. But if I were to do that, the first thing I would do is to admit to myself that I'm playing greater fool not to pretend that somehow the fundamentals are ok(Then dump everything as soon as the market has a few bad days in a row and start to argue completely opposite things as reasoning, ala Gartman)
Amazon ... things starting to get ugly. Growth is slowing (and mostly uneconomic) in physical stuff, so it needs to shift to digital media. Trouble is, Apple is the gorilla there (followed by Google, now Microsoft). As anyone who has used a Kindle Fire (and I experimented with one as soon as it was available) the thing is downright unpleasant to use (the key reason I bought puts on AMZN early last winter). Maybe it will get better. For now I may no longer be short, but I'm happy not to be an owner of AMZN anymore. http://www.firstadopter.com/2012/03/amazon-com-amzn-is-the-secular-short-of-2012/
Turns out IB doesn't offer trading on the Athens exchange, even though some of the major symbols can be pulled up through one of the German data networks. That would leave only GREK and a handful of cross-listed shares. I don't suppose there's any obvious way around this that doesn't involve opening an account at a Greek broker?
AMZN "secular short of 2012:" http://www.firstadopter.com/2012/03/amazon-com-amzn-is-the-secular-short-of-2012/
To me it seems that either Amazon is on a suicide mission with their pricing strategy(Not likely) or they plan to raise prices down the line. Seems like they are trying a play on economies of scale and loyalty