It's just a matter of time. The Fed can continue to lower rates only for so long. Each time they do, the market rallies, then returns to lows. Why? Because rate cuts are not going to solve what's wrong. Taking the medicine of higher rates and a cleansing will help solve what's wrong. So we'll continue to trade like this as the Fed pumps more and more money into the system. But eventually the Fed will hit the wall and won't be able to do anything more. What will happen then, I wonder? Will the Fed be able to prolong this enough until the crisis has passed? I don't think so. I think Bernanke knows that we're truly fucked.
ty info. yes, i think it is a matter of mucking about, of testing the waters to arrive at the correct conclusion. gone back into cash here.
yeah, this is kind of ominous...a couple of months ago these FF predictions would have had the markets up 500 points. now the dow can't even hold a 100 point move.
Yes. And the "5 Day January Barometer" is much better at predicting bull markets than bear markets. When stocks are up during the first 5 days, odds of an up year are very good (80%+). When they're down the first 5 days, there's still a bullish bias, but only about 55-60-%. It's also interesting that permabears keep bringing this up, but throw out anything seasonal/historical that doesn't fit their doomsday scenario. Last year, I kept saying we haven't had a pre-election down year since 1942. I was told that it didn't matter, we were going to see double-digit losses, etc. While 2007 wasn't much to write home about, it was still an up year. Even 1987 (another pre-election year) saw a fractional gain for stocks.
It is, but I was too lazy to do it. Nevertheless even in %, this year was worse than 2005, at least in the first 5-6 days. The rest, we will see....