Well what if I told you that foreclosures was on the rise (which is an understatement) and unemployment numbers came in today which also shows unemployment is steeply on the rise. Would you invest your money in the stock market today?? How the hell did it go up 260 points today on such depressing news?

Sean let me know what you think since you are closest to Wallstreet on here.

Re: A very Scary Day today Stock Market

um, there are incredible deals out there? people tend to buy low, and this is pretty damn low for things. the anticipation is that this will be resolved over the long run--which it will.

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[QUOTE=runningman;684367]Well what if I told you that foreclosures was on the rise (which is an understatement) and unemployment numbers came in today which also shows unemployment is steeply on the rise. Would you invest your money in the stock market today?? How the hell did it go up 260 points today on such depressing news? [/QUOTE]

Just a guess, but I'd say the market has already worked the shitty economic climate into the equation. We already knew things were shitty yesterday, and we knew yesterday that the jobs report to come out today was going to be extremely shitty, so it didn't really change anyone's mind about anything when it was, in fact, shitty.

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I'm not Sean, but I'll let you know what I think:

1. Every day on the market these days is scary.

2. You're trying to draw conclusions based on one day's worth of data, which is hopeless. Don't do that. Any statistician will tell you that one data point does not constitute a trend.

There are a ton of possible reasons as to why the market rebounded today, such as timing of news releases, bargain hunting after recent declines, timing of hedge fund asset sales to deleverage and cover margin, etc. You have 0% chance of accurately predicting and interpreting these events at the daily level. This is in essence of why it is very hard for most investors to consistently outperform the market.

In general, the markets are pricing in the poor economic outlook. All indiced have drastically fallen this year, and they will probably continue their downward trend in the coming months. It's already stacking up as one of the worst years in history.

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I just thought it was weird that people would invest knowing they are throwing their money away.

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[quote=runningman;684380]I just thought it was weird that people would invest knowing they are throwing their money away.[/quote]

go back to your home

[IMG]http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/0/0c/Igloo.jpg[/IMG]

Re: A very Scary Day today Stock Market

[quote=runningman;684380]I just thought it was weird that people would invest knowing they are throwing their money away.[/quote] It depends on your time horizon for expected return. Many investors are not day traders; they may be hoping to get in at a cheap valuation today and recognize that there will be no payoff until maybe 5, 10, 15 years from now.

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[quote=runningman;684380]I just thought it was weird that people would invest knowing they are throwing their money away.[/quote]

For someone who likes to be a nostradamus, you sure as hell didn't account for the day/swing traders. People aren't throwing their money away; most are stategically buying and selling. And despite your doom and gloom, there has been good news, which is why dry bulk carriers had such a huge boost today -- China is in talks with Rio and BHP Billiton about purchasing more iron ore.

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amazing. utterly amazing how people can honesty fathom a return quickly. the snow ball effect is only beginning. in the last month half a million jobs were lost, what happens when thier savings dries up and they begin to default? and buy less?

if any of you think things are gonna get better soon, please, for the sake of my migraines, go the fuck back to college and this time, study one of the following three cores : accounting, economics, and finance.

simply put, there are people talking about the markets that know DICK about anything pertaining to modern day economic models, captialism, taxation, funding, trade, revenue streams, etc.

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[quote=thesightless;685365]amazing. utterly amazing how people can honesty fathom a return quickly. the snow ball effect is only beginning. in the last month half a million jobs were lost, what happens when thier savings dries up and they begin to default? and buy less?

if any of you think things are gonna get better soon, please, for the sake of my migraines, go the fuck back to college and this time, study one of the following three cores : accounting, economics, and finance.

simply put, there are people talking about the markets that know DICK about anything pertaining to modern day economic models, captialism, taxation, funding, trade, revenue streams, etc.[/quote]

No one is 'fathoming a return quickly'. There are people that are dam good at options trading and at technical analysis, shit let alone trading. Many people are making good money right now through the markets. To sit here and speculate and wonder why the markets went up is stupid, and honestly, doesn't take rocket science, or even a college degree to figure out why - there are just good buys with undervalued companies. It's going to go back down, as it has in the past because it's just a volatile situation.

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[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]I have been a Financial Advisor for over 9 years now. So you know my background, I have my series 7, 66, 24, 4, 51, LAH, CRPC® and I sat for my CFP® in November. I do not write here to say I have the solution for this market, nor do I say I have all of the answers. Anyone that says that is full of BS. What I can say is that if you are under the age of 35 and your main goal for your future and investments is to retire at some point and time in the future, then you all should be licking your chops right now. When the market was at its low this year, everyone thought the US Markets were done. I though what a great buying opportunity for me and my retirement accounts. I would urge all of you that have short term needs for your savings (i.e. less than 2-3 years, new home purchase, school, etc.) keep your money in cash and cash equivalents. It is the best bet for you. If you need money in 5-7 years, buy quality companies, stock and bonds. If you are in a state with State Income Tax, look a high quality Muni Bonds. They are paying 180 basis points over treasury securities yields right now and you get a tax-exempt yield with only a little more risk.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]If you are worried about your 401(k) / 403(b) / IRA, don’t be if you are under 35… [/SIZE][/FONT] [SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]My advice to all of you is BUY EQUITIES!!! Look at the major indexes, S&P, Dow, MSCI EAFE and find some companies, or mutual funds with a good track record, tenured managers and start buying through dollar cost averaging. It is a technique intended to reduce exposure to [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk"][COLOR=windowtext]risk[/COLOR][/URL] associated with making a single large purchase. In this way, more shares are purchased when prices are low and fewer shares are bought when prices are high. The premise of dollar cost averaging is that the investor wants to guard against the market losing value shortly after making his investment.[/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]If you believe in efficient market hypothesis start saving now, do it monthly through a systematic approach and every year when you get raises, apply those dollars towards your savings plan.[/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]Those that start saving early can stop saving in the future and have more money that someone that starts late and saves more late. It is compounding interest / Time Value of Money that will pay off huge in the long run.[/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]Be strong my MS crew and be dedicated to saving now… You will tank me in the future.[/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]My $.02[/FONT][/SIZE] [FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]JR 8)[/SIZE][/FONT]

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are you an analyst or sales?

i know financial advisors that are simply sales guys.

i.e. front or back of house?

personally im a back house person. i evaluate a variety of investments, focused on equity buys and stock evaluations. i stay away from the risk based commodities and things like pension investments... too annoying and more for the actuaries.

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[quote=Johnnyboy;685399][FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]I have been a Financial Advisor for over 9 years now. So you know my background, I have my series 7, 66, 24, 4, 51, LAH, CRPC® and I sat for my CFP® in November. I do not write here to say I have the solution for this market, nor do I say I have all of the answers. Anyone that says that is full of BS. What I can say is that if you are under the age of 35 and your main goal for your future and investments is to retire at some point and time in the future, then you all should be licking your chops right now. When the market was at its low this year, everyone thought the US Markets were done. I though what a great buying opportunity for me and my retirement accounts. I would urge all of you that have short term needs for your savings (i.e. less than 2-3 years, new home purchase, school, etc.) keep your money in cash and cash equivalents. It is the best bet for you. If you need money in 5-7 years, buy quality companies, stock and bonds. If you are in a state with State Income Tax, look a high quality Muni Bonds. They are paying 180 basis points over treasury securities yields right now and you get a tax-exempt yield with only a little more risk.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]If you are worried about your 401(k) / 403(b) / IRA, don’t be if you are under 35… [/SIZE][/FONT] [SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]My advice to all of you is BUY EQUITIES!!! Look at the major indexes, S&P, Dow, MSCI EAFE and find some companies, or mutual funds with a good track record, tenured managers and start buying through dollar cost averaging. It is a technique intended to reduce exposure to [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk"][COLOR=windowtext]risk[/COLOR][/URL] associated with making a single large purchase. In this way, more shares are purchased when prices are low and fewer shares are bought when prices are high. The premise of dollar cost averaging is that the investor wants to guard against the market losing value shortly after making his investment.[/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]If you believe in efficient market hypothesis start saving now, do it monthly through a systematic approach and every year when you get raises, apply those dollars towards your savings plan.[/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]Those that start saving early can stop saving in the future and have more money that someone that starts late and saves more late. It is compounding interest / Time Value of Money that will pay off huge in the long run.[/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]Be strong my MS crew and be dedicated to saving now… You will tank me in the future.[/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]My $.02[/FONT][/SIZE] [FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]JR 8)[/SIZE][/FONT][/quote]

Sounds good to me, appreciate the insight. Everyone has a different financial IQ and tolerance for risk. No risk, no reward, especially in the stock market or in my case the commercial real estate investment market.

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ahh yes I'm happy as a monkey in the marketplace. Beautiful gains today. Gonna sell soon.

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AMD stock for 2$ Got 50 shares for around 100 bucks before flotation costs. This is awesome IMO. Nvidia is going for around 7$. Fing amazing!!!

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i bought nvidia the day they were granted the SONY PS3 contracts.. ;)

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[COLOR=white][quote=thesightless;685427]are you an analyst or sales?[/quote][quote=thesightless;685427][/COLOR] [COLOR=white] [/COLOR] [COLOR=white]i know financial advisors that are simply sales guys.[/COLOR] [COLOR=white] [/COLOR] [COLOR=white]i.e. front or back of house?[/COLOR] [COLOR=white] [/COLOR] [COLOR=white]personally im a back house person. i evaluate a variety of investments, focused on equity buys and stock evaluations. i stay away from the risk based commodities and things like pension investments... too annoying and more for the actuaries.[/quote][/COLOR] [COLOR=white] [/COLOR] [COLOR=white] [/COLOR] [FONT=Helvetica][COLOR=white]I run a branch with 20 people in it... I gave my book up about 2 1/2 years ago... I miss working with clients, now my advisors are my clients... I know what you mean about just sales guys... I see the shit that so called "FAs" put their clients in each day... When cases come to my desk to review and I see the mess that other firms (and sometimes my firm) puts people in is horrifying... [/COLOR][/FONT] [COLOR=white] [/COLOR] [FONT=Helvetica][COLOR=white]I love this field and I would never give it up… However, some days you just want to toss in the towel with all of this market volatility…[/COLOR][/FONT]

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Jesus the stock market has been getting the shit kicked out of it the last couple days,eh??

Looks like Wallstreet isn't to excited for the Obama Inauguration

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nope. been saying that for a long time. all historical data shows market declines when the dems take over. and considering the volatility nowadays, they are gonna be cautious, expecting the big brother hand to be put in. best thing barak can do is to forgo the captial gains tax and encourage a massive public reinvestment into the markets, notably the equity stocks and the purchase of well graded debt lines.

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.........

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[quote=runningman;697804]Jesus the stock market has been getting the shit kicked out of it the last couple days,eh??

Looks like Wallstreet isn't to excited for the Obama Inauguration[/quote] This has nothing to do with Obama or the Democrats. It has to do with the fact that we're in a brutal economic downturn; specifically, with horrible economic data coming out on Dec 08 retail sales and with disappointing Q4 results from a variety of companies.

And get used to it - most every day is a scary day for the markets now, and we probably won't bottom out until second half of this year - and that's an optimistic scenario.

[quote=thesightless;697811] best thing barak can do is to forgo the captial gains tax and encourage a massive public reinvestment into the markets, notably the equity stocks and the purchase of well graded debt lines.[/quote] Maybe he can forego the capital gains tax as well as most of his other tax gain plans. But who in his/her right mind would invest big into equities right now, when companies' profits and cash flows are dropping like a rock? What I suspect Obama needs to do - and probably will do - is: (1) Push government spending and support for public infrastructure in order to keep people in jobs and in homes.
(2) Take additional actions [I]if necessary[/I] to inject liquidity into the financial system to ensure that it does not collapse.

Both will up the deficit in the near term, but unfortunately that's what has to happen in a heavy, broad recession to keep it from turning into a heavy, broad depression.

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the reason i suggest a massive public push to reinvest in balance sheets is to open up cash flow to ensure that jobs are retained and created thereby increasing cash flow into the worldwide market.

then again, he can just tax the heck out of imports effectivly forcing us to buy american. its worked before in our history.

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[quote=thesightless;697844]the reason i suggest a massive public push to reinvest in balance sheets is to open up cash flow to ensure that jobs are retained and created thereby increasing cash flow into the worldwide market.[/quote] So it sounds to me like you're asking for the general public (which is already in financial trouble) to basically foot the bill for the losses incurred by corporations? This is already being done today! It's called a bailout...

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no, not that. and that in that sense.

a reinvestment of the public money like it was invested a few years ago could aid everyone. everyone's companies essentially rely on each other as it is in the scale of the national market. in the sense of even the small business benifits when things are going well and people can spend money. if the balance sheets are healthy andwe avoid greed then people can spend money on affordable goods and keep the markets turning.

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[quote=thesightless;697980]no, not that. and that in that sense.

a reinvestment of the public money like it was invested a few years ago could aid everyone. everyone's companies essentially rely on each other as it is in the scale of the national market. in the sense of even the small business benifits when things are going well and people can spend money. if the balance sheets are healthy andwe avoid greed then people can spend money on affordable goods and keep the markets turning.[/quote] I know. was baiting you a bit to see how you'd respond. ;)

But seriously... The drastic fall in the equities markets is ultimately a reflection of economic fundamentals. The economy right now is a runaway train, where the losses from the mortgage/credit bubble have spread throughout the economy. Now consumers aren't spending because they're in debt and getting laid off; corporations aren't making money because people aren't spending and credit isn't available; potential lenders aren't giving credit because corporations aren't making money and consumers aren't spending. It's a vicious, self-reinforcing cycle, and you won't break that runaway train by having everyone put a big chunk of money into equities. For one, that money won't even directly shore up corporate balance sheets; corporations don't get cash inflow from secondary market transactions. From that standpoint, it actually would be better if we just directly gave our money to corporations so that they could increase their capital to better survive further future write-downs of their assets. For another, the potential benefits of wealth increase in some pockets of the financial services sector, which profit from market-making fees and transactions, will be offset by the immediate wealth loss of those who just invested their money. And finally, everyone who invested their money would quickly watch their investment turn into half or less because the economic fundamentals haven't changed and the markets are still in heavy decline almost every day.

So how do we get out of this? We get out of this when economic fundamentals start to improve. When does that happen? When we reach an new supply-demand equilibrium in which people feel that most outstanding losses have been realized on personal and corporate balance sheets. Put another way, consumers and companies simply must deleverage and write down their asset values; once they do, trust in asset valuations will return and the foundation will be set for growth. That's when you'll see people coming back into the markets to partake in the next bull run. It'll happen, but it takes time.

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what really kills me is that if the major news media didnt act like .003% of a credit default was doomsday, this shit would have never happened.

they could have opened the news that day like this.

" lehman had a minor default of a credit line in thier equity portfolio and otherwise than that, everyone still making a ton and the time to invest is even better than ever.

and that night, the news would have been about the bump the market took after the report.

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[quote=thesightless;698028]what really kills me is that if the major news media didnt act like .003% of a credit default was doomsday, this shit would have never happened.

they could have opened the news that day like this.

" lehman had a minor default of a credit line in thier equity portfolio and otherwise than that, everyone still making a ton and the time to invest is even better than ever.

and that night, the news would have been about the bump the market took after the report.[/quote] Ok I was going to stop, but now I just have to ask: do you [I]seriously[/I] believe that this entire economic downturn is just due to overblown media reporting? I find it very hard to believe that, and here is why:

Even if the media can affect equity values in the short term, they do not really have the power to fundamentally affect the [B][I]actual cash flows of banks' assets[/I][/B] over the long run. Think of a securitized pool of mortgages on a bank's balance sheet: cash flows are ultimately driven by the mortgage holders' solvency and ability to repay their debt, not by what the media decides to write tomorrow.

So again, what happens if the media did somehow caused banks' equity values to fall? Well, over the longer run those equity values are actually determined by the present value of the future stream of cash flows that the bank gets from its assets. That stream of future cash flows is unaffected by the news story. In semi-strong form efficient markets (which, I'd argue, is a good assumption for the most part), some smart money will end up recognizing that the equity is underpriced (i.e., it's basically like an arbitrage opportunity). That individual will buy it up and make an outsized profit on it, and in the process the equity price will be brought back in line with its fundamental value. So the point is: cash is ultimately king, and the truth about cash flows comes out sooner or later. The short-term impact that the media may have will just be statistical noise that won't really affect the fundamental trend over the longer term.

Consider how drastically banks' [I]asset values[/I] have fallen over the past 6-9 months. They've fallen by record amounts across many asset classes and even across most geographies around the world. It seems very implausible to me that the media could singlehandedly have cause this, along with the 30%+ decline in the markets in 2008. It seems much more plausible to me that the cash flows from those assets are simply not there, because banks made risky loans and investments that they ultimately didn't understand. And I think investors broadly recognize that. So now all that can be done is to write those asset values down to the reality of the future cash flows...and that's a process that will still be ongoing for the near future.

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i agree there, but the media has most of the blame for inciting panic. and CONGRESS has the second part, because if they passed the bush proposals 6 years ago like he wanted, they would have had a grasp on this and been able to prepare and initiate laws to correct clintons "give a poor minority a house" laws. also, BARNEY FUCKING FRANK, the idiot who was in charge with this from government's POV let it go and now points blame everywhere but on him. he sat on the finance committee that oversees the fannie freddie GCEs, and he still is clueless. its like the NOLA levee board keeping thier jobs and blaming everyone else but themselves for what happened. so much more, busy now. miro, be on tonight. i have a hankering for some discussions.

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^^ I agree with you on the government's blame... Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with the whole manifesto of sticking everyone in a house (whether they could afford it or not) helped set the stage for the bubble...and the Greenspan's "zero money down" care dealer philosophy on interest rates certainly didn't help, either.

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[quote=runningman;697804]Jesus the stock market has been getting the shit kicked out of it the last couple days,eh??

Looks like Wallstreet isn't to excited for the Obama Inauguration[/quote]

no not really. this is a pre-inaug runup. the solar sector snapped this week and posted gains, especially amid China's news to have one the largest solar fields in the world. I'm presuming a larger runup on Monday based on the age old market adage 'buy on rumor, sell on news.'

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