It always amuses me to read these threads. Half the people are talking about the economy, the other half the markets. Then, people cherry pick time frames on which to base their arguments on. There are three things that people should use as a metric: 1) How well are you doing in your own trading. This has nothing to do with the health of the economy or lack thereof. To speak in these terms is to choose a small time frame (less than five years) and say, see? 2) How well do you do in any given decade as an investor. This is closer to what the economy is doing, but still cannot be used to measure whether the strategies and tactics being used by governments are correct or not. 3) Is the average child as he grows up better or worse off in any rolling twenty year period ? On these time frames is how we should measure the strategies and tactics of governments. It is usually measured in lifetimes. For example, unless you go back to before and after the gold standard, you can't see trends here because if all you use is the price of the SPX, you will be fooled by inflation and the natural trend in markets higher and other things like survival bias. I claim that on this time frame, this country is worse off since about 1990, where the disparity between the poor and rich is horrendous, and markets adjusted for inflation are much much lower than the absolute price represents. Things have improved markedly, but only if you can afford them. Hence the polarization of the USA into reps/dems, classes, etc. Even people that have jobs may be worse off. They have to work harder just to stay in the same place than even a decade ago, and they are asked to save and spend more at the same time!!. Quality of life is hard to measure... Seriously, state your time frames when debating. Otherwise you are all wasting your time talking about completely different things.
I thought the time frame was since the market took off at the end of August. Anyway, this reminds me of the running line Tom Robbins had in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - the international situation is desperate, as usual. So, we'll just say the economic situation is desperate, as usual. I ain't sittin' around waitin' for it to become un-desperate. That's a game for fools and know-it-alls. As for nitro: when unions come back, those things will get better. How many posters on this board would correlate the prosperity of the fifties and sixties with the power the unions had back then? Probably less than you could count on the fingers of my hand. But for ordinary people selling their labor, the only way to overcome the iron law of wages is collective bargaining. I can't remember the last time I heard that on the network news. Might be because big corporations own all the media outlets. I'm certainly not going to sit around waiting for that to change.
Please. The economy is cyclical, like everything else. What was down will come back up again. As for the nineties, I had a fine time right up until I got out in the spring of 1999, so for me the tech bubble never really happened. When I came back in 2000, it was to buy gold and only gold. I didn't start diversifying until a few years later. I did get murdered in the fall of '08, though. Can't always get it right.
Here's the problem. You're reading too much bs from people who know very little about stock markets. I have to catch myself sometimes not to get suckered in myself at times. Most of the permabears on here suffering from a negative bias after losing money their whole life on investments. Or, in some cases, they are looking for home runs ( another kind of greed ). I suspect many of them got hit by the 2008/2009 crash, which is rather ironic. Fact is that strong earnings are very real. Increased M&A money suggests that there is interest in companies at their current valuations. There are countries ( eg China ) and companies ( eg a ton in technology ) sitting on a lot of cash and that cash is devalueing. So the fundamentals said stocks had to go up. I've been posting this for months. That being said, recently I expected a short term pullback simply because this is what a normal market does on the way up. But there is no catalyst yet for this to happen, and we may temporarily be an abnormally bouyant market until we get a catalyst.
Technology was undervalued most of 2009 and 2010, the Nasdaq had to go up eventually. I have to laugh when someone thinks a 20% rise is outrageous, the speed of the thing was extraordinary but that is what happens when gaps between value and market price are way off. Then we get these guys talking bubbles. Ya, MSFT and INTC are in a bubble. Please. I noticed WDC was a P/E of 5 and RIMM was a P/E of 8 a while ago. Surprise, they both rallied.
i totally killed it in 2008 but have been murdered ever since actually i was still doing great through Apr 2009. oh, the fond memories of "my market"
Shortie, you can break the cycle of the eternal short bias. Set an alert in your system to let you know when AAPL hits 319.50, then place a buy stop @ 320.20. You can do it, Shortie! You can!
I don't think [the lack of] unions is the problem this time. It is two very simple forces that is causing poverty imo: 1) The industrial revolution made finding and paying for low skilled worker a necessity. Think about the worker before Ford and his assembly line. Even people that worked on steel mills were skilled craftsman. Now, with the assembly line, all you are required to know is some niche of that assembly. If that business goes under, you are toast, unless you are willing to constantly gamble by going into debt to update your education at night, all the while working during the day, in which case try to have a semblance of a family life when all you do is sleep eat and work and study. Try doing that in your fifties, and all the while having your life expectancy go higher, and the retirement age getting older. 2) Competition from global markets that have unending masses of these low skilled workers that can easily be interchanged into the cog that is a corporation for making things. How does a corporatin survive its competitors if they are paying someone $30 a day, and somewhere else they can get similar labor for $3 a day? These two forces are the main drivers of poverty. Now, the attack on the middle class is a little more complex, and I would love to hear theories on that. Imo, you are insane to give your financial life over to a corporation in modern times. Society is telling you over and over again, be creative, learn to make a living on your own. Otherwise, be prepared to be in never-ending-limbo, being forced to learn new technologies constantly just to keep up with younger workers that can easily replace you at lower cost. This is made worse in information systems where there is no cost to shipping and not affected by the cost of fuel. You are in "Services", you are in grave grave danger. So, the plan for a graduating student should be, go and get experience with a corporation, but always be planning with the other foot to go out on your own, else risk being unemployed because corporations are constantly trying to outsource you. If you are 40 and you still work for someone else, you are in grave danger when the economy eventually turns sour, which happens with frightening frequency in modern times. Interestingly, Google has a plan where they allow up to 20% of your time to research your own ideas and be an entrepreneur within a company, and then they will back you if they like it. This way, they don't get competitors. It is win-win. But this is radical and doesn't happen anywhere else.