Its just weird how funds try to bid the markets up every morning only to lose that game in the afternoon. We'd be much better off if they just let this market gap down every day and let everyone that wants to sell aggressively sell then bid late afternoon to close higher than the open - that looks bullish - and its all about looks isn't it (chart patterns).
By the way, the housing market isn't bursting, it's stalling in most areas. Meaning it's more sideways than downturn. In most of the country pre-owned housing is losing sales volume and many houses are sitting on the market untouched. Eventually prices will fall slightly and pick up the sales volume, but they won't be falling by any amount near what they've risen in the last few years. However, when you look at new home construction in many areas of the country it's hard to say this is a burst of any kind. New homes are selling, pre-owned homes aren't. When the housing market went nuts, it shot home values through the roof in some areas (LVN!!!) but a major reason the pre-owned homes markets have stalled is because in many cases the costs of having a new home CUSTOM built, or buying a pre-built new home, is nearly the same as buying a 10 year old home that needs minor improvements. Which would you rather drive? A 1997 Mercedes-Benz CLK320 for $40,000? Or a 2007 Mercedes-Benz CLK350 for $45,000? As far as lower interest rates but higher housing prices, the only people who're losing big are renters who are going to be first time home buyers. If you already owned a home, chances are it increase in value by the same percentage as most of the other homes in your community. So while a home that was $300,000 a few years ago is now $450,000; your home may have been $200,000 but even it's now worth around $300,000. Still not much farther from your reach as it was. It's the first time home buyers that got screwed. Raising minimum wage would put a lot of first time home buyers back on the market, and housing markets would find new fuel to build on. Not to mention consumer products sales would find a big bounce. That is a whole other forum though... The crash in '87 was based on a "perfect storm" of things that happened in the economy, while it may look like there is another storm brewing, it won't be from the same causes as it was in '87 if it does happen. Was the burst in 2000 like 1987? Not really. The next one won't be either (whenever it does come) And again, like every other bust or crash, very few will have successfully predicted it.
In '87 you had selling begat selling begat selling. Now there are "curbs" in place that will stop program selling once markets drop a certain per centage for the day. Lots of different rules in place that were not there in "87. Much more controlled environment. More experienced traders can speak better about those rules than I can. SteveD
Back then there was no internet. Traders couldn't comunicate like we do. Imagine how difficult it was back then if you add the incredible high costs of trading and lack of information. We are very lucky...
To go back to the title of this thread. I think this decline/crash is more reminiscent of 1998 than 1987, especially in terms of liquidity and risk tolerance.
Emerging markets are crashing/crashed like it's 87 - not the US markets. Much like 87 proved to be a terrific buying opp here, this might too prove to be the case in places like India, etc...