Poll - The Dow on E-Day - 2008-2012 - Poll

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Originally Posted by YardleyLabs

I suspect that 14k DOW needs an asterisk next to it just like Barry Bonds' record setting ball. In this case unheard of levels of debt seem to have been the real fuel driving the economy -- sort of the economic equivalent of steroids with most of the same drawbacks.

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I don't agree. There were a lot of very good companies not affected by the craziness that were showing increased earnings consistently during the runup. Those companies are still doing well. The 14K runup was not caused by any one sector, though the fall was precipitated by a lack of confidence in the regulatory machinery. Like I have said before, Treasury Secretary is important & Volcker's participation & having those recommendations adopted is crucial. If those things don't happen, bullish sentiment is out the window. It has gone from 26% to 40+% in the last month.

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Originally Posted by Marvin S

The Dow closed @ 9,525.28, the S & P @ 1,005.25 & the Nasdaq @ 1,780.36 on E Day 2008. Using your crystal ball where do you think the market will be 4 years hence. Remember that prior to the housing meltdown the market sat at 14K+, 1 Year ago.

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The Dow is at 7,820 right now a 2,000 point drop since Obama won the election! His image is antibusiness and folks are scared of investing in the market. I wouldn't be surprised if it drops below 6,000. Folks may be taking their gains now so they won't have to pay higher Capital Gains tax when Obama starts his wealth redistribution. That is enough to scare away most investors. I just hope it doesn't harm the return on Annuities! But, I fear it will as more savers invest in Annuities and not the stock market.

Down to 7,580 in the last 20 minutes.

Investor confidence is nonexistant.

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Originally Posted by Mr Booty

Down to 7,580 in the last 20 minutes.

Investor confidence is nonexistant.

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Unfortunately, since it has cost me about half of my life savings, I think the collapse of the stock market has everything to do with the economy and nothing to do with the election. The market still hasn't fully absorbed the impact of what will happen to our economy if consumers live within their means. Everyone talks about what can be done to get consumers spending again. The reality is that most consumers can't afford to keep spending and shouldn't.

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Originally Posted by Mr Booty

Down to 7,580 in the last 20 minutes.

Investor confidence is nonexistant.

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The sharp move in the last hour smacks of day trading &/or program trading. Some awfully good buys for the brave. There will be a lot of fortunes made to those willing to step up & be smart about their choice of sectors.

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Originally Posted by Marvin S

The sharp move in the last hour smacks of day trading &/or program trading. Some awfully good buys for the brave. There will be a lot of fortunes made to those willing to step up & be smart about their choice of sectors.

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So what do you think about medical devices

Some info for those still 'fighting the odds' in the markets. My friend Bill Bonner wrote this bit yesterday. It's hard to not agree with his observations eh?

UB

Yes, dear reader, we are going where no man ever went before ...into the wild.
All around us is virgin territory. No one has ever been here before. But watch out, these virgins are vicious amazons. In this wild place, you can forget living it up. Don’t even think about getting rich. Riches? If you’ve got ’em...hide ’em. Luxury? Who needs it anyway? The best you’ll be able to do is survive. And then, maybe, years from now, we can put our financial lives back together again...and get on with things...

Never before have we seen so much wealth disappear in such a short time. The latest report from MSCI shows the planet’s losses from the sell-off of equities has now reached more than $30 trillion – or more than twice the GDP of the U.S.A.!

And this is just stocks. Reported write-downs, write-offs and credit losses have reached almost a trillion. And losses of housing prices in the United States alone – the only country for which we have reliable figures – has reached about $5 trillion.

Nor have we ever seen such a rapid reaction. In the space of a few months, people have gone from believing that nothing could go wrong to thinking that there’s nothing that won’t go wrong. Where once they thought that free-market capitalism would make them rich...they now believe that the government can save them from getting poor. And where only a year ago they thought the world’s globalized economy would always give them everything they needed “just in time,” they now believe they better keep a few sheckels on hand “just in case.”

And just look at the bonds! A few months ago, investors stretched for yields. Now, it’s safety they reach for. They dump corporate bonds for fear they may be “toxic,” and grab U.S. Treasury debt with both hands. Investors now seem to have an unqualified trust in the full faith and credit of the world’s largest debtor. Yields on 91-day T-bills have fallen to 0.11% – scarcely a tenth of one percent!

Yes, dear reader, the “Great Unwind”...the “Big Bust”...the “Great De-leveraging” – call it what you want; we’ve never seen anything like it.

China’s stock market had managed an 18% rebound...following the announcement of its half-trillion dollar bailout plan. But yesterday, Chinese stocks were collapsing again.

The latest news from America tells us that housing prices are still going down in 4 out of 5 cities. Homebuilders’ wives are hiding the shotguns and pouring out the whiskey; their husbands’ confidence has never been lower, according to this morning’s news report.

Big towns...little towns...in the sophisticated cities and out in bumpkin country, the story is the same. The Wall Street Journal tells us that the “fall in crop prices” is putting an end to the boom in the boonies.
U.S. producer prices fell 2.8% in October – the most they’ve ever fallen. And the Big Three automakers say that if they don’t get some help soon, the results will be “catastrophic.”


Not only is the bust unlike anything we’ve ever seen before...so is the planet-wide effort to stop it. All over the globe, the feds are going ‘into the wild’ with extraordinary measures. They’re mobilizing troops to fight the crisis in the boardrooms. They’ll fight it in the stock markets. They’ll fight it at home – with house-to-house combat to stop foreclosures and defaults. They’ll fight it abroad – the U.S. government is even loaning money to foreign governments! They’ll fight it with loans and giveaways. They’ll fight it with fiscal policy. They’ll fight it with monetary policy. They’ll fight it with every weapon available to them – including the printing press.
And they will lose.

*** To give you an idea of the wild measures undertaken by the feds, we look at what is happening at the world’s leading bank – the U.S. Federal Reserve.

The short form of how the Fed operates is this: it holds a certain amount of securities in its vault; this is the cornerstone capital – or monetary base – of the whole banking structure. How does it get this capital? It buys it, creating the money to pay for it as necessary. Naturally, the Fed doesn’t want to create too much money or the inflation rate would get out of control and economists would point their fingers accusingly. But now, people fear dandruff more than inflation. So, the Fed has gone wild.

From the day of its founding in 1913 to September 24, 2008 the Fed’s assets – the aforementioned cornerstone capital for the US financial system – grew to $1 trillion. By November 14, 2008 the amount had grown to over $2 trillion. And in a speech in Texas, the head of the Dallas branch of the Fed said he expected the total to reach $3 trillion by year-end.
For the moment, this explosion of monetary inflation is hardly noticed. Asset deflation has the headlines. People worry about having too few dollars, not about having too many.

Comes the news this morning that U.S. business chiefs are asking the up-coming Obama administration for another $500 billion ‘stimulus’ program. They’ll get it. And much more. Trillions worth.

Trying to stimulate the economy with easier credit in the early 2000s, Alan Greenspan overdid it. He gave the world the credit it wanted, and created the biggest bubble in human history.
Now that bubble is collapsing and his successor – Ben Bernanke – is confronted with a new problem. Now it is cash that people want – income to pay their debts! Bernanke will give them what they want. And, most likely, he will overdo it too.

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Originally Posted by Hoosier

So what do you think about medical devices

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I own some - but don't let that be a recommend. It really depends.

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Originally Posted by Uncle Bill

Some info for those still 'fighting the odds' in the markets.

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Thanks, UB - Just placed a limit order today for a preferred - so I guess that makes me one of those. But I am selectively going to participate & see what happens.

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Originally Posted by Marvin S

I own some - but don't let that be a recommend. It really depends.

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Medtronic closed at 31.20 yesterday that seems like close to the bottom to me. But I have about 20,000 shares at around $46.00 and some in the low $50s. Lost on those , but I was thinking about jumping in again with it around 30. I do get a discount on some of what we buy. I am a little scared though