"The Naz went from what, 5,500 to 1,100 by 2003? " how is a DOWN market any LESS of an opportunity than a bull market?
Im wondering if we put a bunch of stock names in a hat and picked out 5-10, could we have constructed a winning portfolio that would have yielded superior returns. The chance will come again and now I will tell you when. The long term capital gains tax is set to expire in 2011. The Democrats will just let it expire. They will logic that taxes need to be raised. By 2011, the stock market will have had a good run while real estate prices will have festered. The Russell 3000 index is right now at a P/E of 15-16. I believe that P/E will grow to the mid-20s to low-30s within the next few years. In 2010, the market will start its trend downward due to high P/Es and the expiration of the capital gains tax. Their might even be a crash or panic as a direct result. The time to buy real estate will probably be in 2009-2010. When people become frustrated with the stock market, then all these traders will take their cash to real estate. I think there are more then a few guys on here that were first trading in the 90s, then went over to real estate and then came back here to the stock market. They will eventually go back to real estate when its right and then make a comeback in stocks. You have to monitor the charts of Russell, S&P, Nasdaq and DOW on a weekly basis and ask yourself where is this going. Its also key to compare the P/Es of the indexes versus the historical values. CNBC ran an interesting segment how one person thought there would "rolling recessions" like the 80s where one segment of American society would experience a recession while the other would thrive. http://www.dallasfed.org/research/swe/1997/swe9705a.pdf This time around, we are going to sharpen our technical analysis skills to predict the next big downturn. I think we are going to have a nice bullrun until april and then there will be a pullback. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=VTI&p=W&b=1&g=0&id=p87657971701
No, I was saying that it was a better opportunity, obviously, in 1999, the year that you pointed to. A down market, especially an irrationally depressed one, is the best opportunity of all.
i didn't point to any year u are confusing me with the OP i pointed out that there are always opportunities in various markets at various time - gold, corn, copper, oil stocks, etc. etc. something is always undervalued, something always overvalued, some stuff trending (if u like to trade trends), some stuff rotating (if u like to fade extremes) etc. generally speakimg, everybody loves something at its highs, and hates it at its lows. that's what MAKES a high or a low
isn't it amazing how clear things look in hindsite. all of you guys speculating about naz 5000 sound just like it did in 1999. i have another prediction. sometime in the next few years there will be a worldwide debt crisis that will cause a market dislocation that will create another opportunity. i dont know when or what will set it off yet. the problem is having cash when it happens. in 1999-2000 when the crash happened investors were already long and wrong. if you were already long what do you buy the bargains with?
Some people are now making the same mistakes with real estate investments. My buddy just bought a 2nd house believing that we have hit the bottom of the market. My belief is that real estate prices react in the same way as a stock chart. It will go down, followed by a dead cat bounce, then down again some more. I wish someone could document all of our mistakes and throw them into a book or a time capsule for future investors to absorb. Unfortunately, we never hear the stories about Trader X who lost a million bucks. We only hear about those who made a million bucks because he overmargined his account with Hansens or some other momo stock. The lessons of 1999-2000 will soon be forgotten and the stocks will be flipped like the houses and tech stocks of yesteryear. Eventually there will be another pullback, the question is when. There will be those who choose to ride them back down and lose it all.
hey, i RESEMBLE that remark! Hansens was my best investment (note: not TRADE, investment) ever. almost solely on fundamentals (despite the fact that i am an intraday futures scalper for my primary income) I bought that puppy in the 30's and sold for a nice 400% gain. Nothing to do with MOMO. everything to do with fundamentals (at least for me). When I heard Hank Greenberg bash it, I was doubly happy I owned it. His reasoning went thusly... COTT was a soda company they went up, then crashed thus, HANS will crash lol i gotta gloat about HANS cause I was SCREAMING for people to buy it, and only one listened to me. He loves me now sorry. i just love my HANS experience. whenever somebody mentions that stock, I get giddy
whitster, What fundamentals numbers do you find the most important? Do you mind if a company with good ROE, ROI, cash flow, earnings etc has a lot of debt? let's say debt is twice the market cap? I'm just starting to include fundamentals for long term investments, and I find that chart reading combined with FA is a great combination. I am trying to determine if good fundamentals are good early on, before the stock price starts to advance. When you bought HANS in 30's, were all the fundamental numbers as good then as they are now? Do you know of any website that provides historical fundamental data going back many years? Yahoo is good but it gives data only for 3 prior years. I want to go further back and, in a way, backtest fundamentals. Do you read information, like back annual reports on company's website? All your insights are very appreciated. Thanks.
Don't you love it when you're right. You were probably pounding on the table but most were busy stalking their next loss. This business is full of contradictions, isn't it? Thank God.