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after a 65% rise in the stock market in 6 months we are now at the bottom??? lol.... ok.
The bottom of the economic decline, and the bottom of the housing market.
Stocks are a leading indicator. The fact that equities are up 65% is an indication that the financial crisis is over and that the economy has bottomed.
after a 65% rise in the stock market in 6 months we are now at the bottom??? lol.... ok.
The bottom of the economic decline, and the bottom of the housing market.
Stocks are a leading indicator. The fact that equities are up 65% is an indication that the financial crisis is over and that the economy has bottomed.
lol....you are a hoot! Why not just admit the truth? You (and everyone else) don't have a clue what the economy, housing, or the stock market is going to do.
Congratulations. I hope your gambling continues to pay off.The bottom of the economic decline, and the bottom of the housing market.
Stocks are a leading indicator. The fact that equities are up 65% is an indication that the financial crisis is over and that the economy has bottomed.
lol....you are a hoot! Why not just admit the truth? You (and everyone else) don't have a clue what the economy, housing, or the stock market is going to do.
Oh, and my gold position is up 170% in three months.
Congratulations. I hope your gambling continues to pay off.
Stocks up 67 percent from their lows? No worries.
Junk bonds up 52 percent this year — the biggest increase in the history of the high-yield debt market, even as default rates are hitting their highest levels since the Great Depression? That's cool, too. Nothing to worry about!
Gold at all-time highs of over $1,170 an ounce? Fine with me. It has nowhere to go but UP!!! Buy GOLD!!! Get in at the top!!
Crude at $80 and climbing? Agriculture commodities ramping? Surging prices for sugar ... cotton ... wheat ... platinum ... silver ... copper ... aluminum ... lead ... ZINC? Pu-shaw! Nothing to worry about.
There is no asset bubble. There is no asset bubble. There is no asset bubble. There is no asset bubble.
The economy is recovering. The economy is recovering. The economy is recovering. The economy is recovering. This is the bottom. This is the bottom. This is the bottom. This is the bottom.
Keep repeating until you believe it.
We are dealing with a very difficult environment. It's not going to change. It's going to get a little bit better. But we are still dealing with a very weak global manufacturing industrial environment, though not as bad as it was two or three months ago as you'll see.
So as I look at that this right now, we're looking at a very challenging year again; not as bad as last year. I mean, down 12% is the worst we have ever seen but it's definitely getting better and you'll start seeing this trend line coming. You will see that our orders will follow that very quickly….
Congratulations. I hope your gambling continues to pay off.
My grandmother always thought that any investing in stocks was gambling. You sound like her.
I sold all my gold call options on Friday for a 140% gain in three months. I am hoping that gold consolidates and resumes its upward move but I will let the market talk to me before doing anything.
Stocks up 67 percent from their lows? No worries.
There are certainly worries. By my estimation, stocks are expensive now. Stocks are not expensive if there is a strong recovery, but I don't think there will be a strong recovery. I had been selling weak positions that past few weeks and I hedged all the rest of my positions out on Friday. I am now slightly net short and may get aggressively short soon.
As for being up 67%, at the bottom in March, the median trailing price/earnings ratio of stocks in the Russell 2000 was 5.7x. That was comparable to lows you saw in 1982 and 1973. The median PE in the S&P 500 was less than 8x. That's generational cheap. Stocks have rebounded hard because they were priced for Armageddon. Armageddon didn't happen and unsurprisingly, stocks have soared.
Junk bonds were priced at levels as low or lower than they were priced for worse than the Depression. Spreads in the high-yield structured market were 16% above Treasuries and 19% in the physical market, highest ever, implying a greater level of default (outside of banks) than the Great Depression. So, like stocks, when the world didn't end, junk bonds were generational cheap and have soared.
Spreads in the CMBS market implied levels of default in the commercial real estate market multiple times higher than the Great Depression. The fixed income market was beyond stupid.
Sold it. Hope to buy it back. Maybe I'll short it if it becomes apparent it is rolling over.
If you are going to trade it, you have to know what you are doing. Since you think this is gambling, you probably don't know what you are doing and should stay on the sidelines.
Crude at $80 and climbing? Agriculture commodities ramping? Surging prices for sugar ... cotton ... wheat ... platinum ... silver ... copper ... aluminum ... lead ... ZINC? Pu-shaw! Nothing to worry about.
There is no asset bubble. There is no asset bubble. There is no asset bubble. There is no asset bubble.
Can you please tell me who in this thread has said there is no asset bubble?
In fact, the creation of asset bubbles is central to my own investing theme.
The governments are doing the exact same thing to save the economy now as they did in the earlier part of the decade. The differences are that the scale of government intervention is massively bigger now but the transmission mechanisms that existed have been destroyed as the shadow banking system has basically collapsed. Nonetheless, the excess liquidity in the system has to flow somewhere, and it has been flowing into gold and commodities.
All real assets will benefit from this policy as the government is systemically devaluing the dollar. But contrary to what guys like Peter Schiff say, the dollar cannot collapse against other fiat currencies because it is the anchor of the global economic system. If the dollar fell to, say, 3 euros, it would gut the European manufacturing sector, which would relocate to the United States. Thus, if the dollar falls, all currencies fall, and everything that cannot be created ad infinitum, like gold, rises. The best deal in the world right now IMHO is American physical land. I closed on a small but beautiful piece of land this week a minute's walk from one of the most spectacular beaches in the world that I bought down 92%. I don't know anything else in the world that is down 92% that will benefit from the re-liquification of the global financial system. I hope it keeps going down so I can buy some more.
The economy is recovering. The economy is recovering. The economy is recovering. The economy is recovering. This is the bottom. This is the bottom. This is the bottom. This is the bottom.
Keep repeating until you believe it.
I was short the market going into 2008, primarily through shorting REITs. I was up 20% in the fall of 2008 and covered shortly after Lehman collapsed. I started buying but that was too early and wiped out all my gains for the year and then some. I wound up being down 5% in 2008, my worst year ever, but still better than 99% of the other professional money managers in this country. And despite 2008, I've done pretty well since the crisis began.
I do this for a living. I am measured by my bottom line. I've seen too many people get emotionally entangled in their positions. They don't last. Apart from wanting to see people stop hurting and instead do better, from a trading and investing perspective, it makes no difference to me if the economy is getting better or worse. I will find a way to make money on the long or the short side. Doesn't mean I'm always right, far from it, but I have zero invested emotionally or mentally on the economy getting better or worse. Makes little difference to me.
You probably won't enjoy the rest of this post. I apologize if you find it offensive. It is not personal, just the facts as I see them based upon 25 years of investment experience as a high net worth individual.
Thanks for taking the time to post that reply, I appreciate it.
I too am completely unemotional about investing. As a formerly licensed commodities broker I feel that I am more than qualified to tell you the truth about your profession. You, along with most every other "professional" money manager, do more harm than good. You add nothing to the investor except cost. You are little more than a croupier at a gambling house where the house edge is already huge.
You say you out-performed 99% of managers? Hulbert Financial digest tracks newsletters and guru's - are you listed there?
You'll have to forgive me if I don't hold professional money managers in high esteem, especially when they charge 1% of assets or more, sell loaded mutual funds with outrageous expense ratios, push annuities with massive surrender fees and hidden costs, and pretend that they can add "alpha" to your portfolio. IMAO, Adding "alpha" is a wet dream fantasy for the greedy and the ignorant. The average monkey with a dart board and a list of Vanguard Funds could do better than most "professionals". Yes that is a bit harsh, but the truth is seldom as romantic as the sales brochures!
You may be the exception, who knows? Best of luck with your strategies. I am sure you have the best of intentions.
We have much to agree on.I'm not listed at Hulbert's as my services are not for hire and I do not advertise, but I have been listed with major consulting firms. I can't list my returns, but I'm up ~350% in my PA since 1999 compared to a flat market, and have been positive every year for the past seven years for accounts I manage pro bono (though not my own, where I have had a few down years of -1% to -5%).
Actually, I don't disagree with much of what you say. The financial services industry exists essentially to separate you from your money and to make insiders rich. I am appalled at what some people make in this industry. I used to make fun of lawyers until I entered the financial services business when I realized I had no right to make fun of anyone else! Say what you want about lawyers but at least they didn't bring the world to the brink of collapse, unlike us.
I think most people in the public markets should be in index funds. But having spent many years on the inside, professionals generally fail to beat their benchmarks often for reasons that have to do with the industry rather than their own skill.
But IMHO, most people do not understand investing and markets (and I would include many money managers in that), and that even after the fees, for most people it still pays to put their money with over-paid, under-performing money managers. I started in this business as a stock broker. People are clueless about investing. Most people usually should have some exposure to the market, but most people on their own won't. So they'll stick their money in the bank earning 1%-2%. Those people have to be sold to put their money in the market. The broker will put them in load-bearing funds, and thus instead of getting the long-term average of 10% that the market generates, they will get 6%-8%. If they have some sophistication, they should fire their broker and put it in index funds earning 10%. But most people don't have that level of sophistication, and their opportunity set does not include 10% in an index fund or 8% in a load-bearing fund. It is 1%-2% in a bank account or 6%-8% with the broker because they don't know enough to put it in the index fund. So even though brokers offer a subset of inferior options relative to the overall market, they do offer a superior set of opportunities for the average person.
The thing that I don't like especially about the business is the idea pushed that one should always be in the market. That's nonsense, IMHO. There are times when you want to be far, far away from stocks. The industry has done their clientele an enormous amount of damage over the past decade believing this.
For the record, I don't invest in mutual funds, outside of my self-directed pension where I have no choice. And then, I invest in index funds (and am 100% in cash right now). There are many problems with mutual funds, as I stated above.
There are increasingly strong signals that the world economy is in recovery, with leading developed and developing economies clearly on the mend.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's composite leading indicator of economic activity in its 30 member states rose to 101.4 in October from 100.4 in September.
The Paris-based think tank said the indicators for Canada, France, Italy, Germany and the U.K. point "more strongly to recovery."
Most major economies emerged from recession in the second and third quarters of this year, and the OECD's leading indicators suggest that recovery will continue. ...
The OECD's leading indicators are designed to provide early signals of turning points between the expansion and slowdown of economic activity, and are based on a wide variety of data series that have a history of indicating swings in future economic activity. Two hundred and twenty four series are used in total, or between five and 10 for each country.
The leading indicator for the U.S. rose to 99.8 from 98.8 in September, while the leading indicator for the euro zone rose to 103.7 from 102.4 and the leading indicator for Japan rose to 100.0 from 98.8.
All of the Group of Seven leading developed economies now have leading indicators that are higher than they were in the same month last year, a firm signal that they are in recovery.
Sales at U.S. retailers rose more than forecast in November, a sign consumer spending is gathering speed heading into 2010.
The 1.3 percent increase followed a 1.1 percent gain the prior month that was smaller than previously estimated, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Purchases excluding autos climbed 1.2 percent, also more than anticipated and the biggest gain since January.
The U.S. economy has reached a "turning point," FedEx Corp.'s chief executive said, as the company reported a bump in holiday shipping. The optimism was tempered as the package-delivery giant issued a subdued outlook for the current quarter.
The Memphis, Tenn., company shipped 14.1 million packages Monday, considered the peak day for mailing holiday goods. The figure was a million higher than expected and up 17% from the busiest day last year.
December volume growth indicates that "global economic conditions are improving," Chairman and Chief Executive Frederick W. Smith said in a conference call Thursday after the company reported a 30% drop in quarterly profit.
Chief Financial Officer Alan B. Graf Jr. said the company is starting to emerge from "the worst economic downturn in FedEx history."
FedEx and rival United Parcel Service Inc. carry a daily average of more than 21 million packages globally and serve as indicators for the broader economy. FedEx's comments indicate that the peak holiday shipping season won't be as lackluster as widely expected.
Expecting "modestly improving economic conditions," FedEx said it will resume merit salary increases next year and reinstate half its 401(k) contribution for employees. Both programs were suspended a year ago.
FedEx reported some good news last week.
The U.S. economy has reached a "turning point," FedEx Corp.'s chief executive said,
Retail sales rose more than expected.
Sales at U.S. retailers rose more than forecast in November, a sign consumer spending is gathering speed heading into 2010.
The 1.3 percent increase followed a 1.1 percent gain the prior month that was smaller than previously estimated, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Purchases excluding autos climbed 1.2 percent, also more than anticipated and the biggest gain since January.
Retail Sales in U.S Exceeded Forecasts in November (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
Other investors are looking at rail traffic in North America, which showed a 4.6% rise in December, the first year-on-year growth after slumping for more than a year, according to Dahlman Rose & Company. Rail carloads reached 714,015 units, up from a year ago, but still 14% lower than the same week in 2007.
It is likely that the bottom in the economy was either in the second or third quarter. This thread is for evidence that the economy is recovering.
I believe that the economy is going to rebound, albeit it is going to be choppy, and there is a high probability of a double dip.
Having said that, there is evidence that the economy will soon start growing if it is not already.
First piece of evidence presented: Yesterday on their conference call, the CEO of Google said that the worst of the recession is behind us and that the businesses they serve - which is a wide swath of the economy - appear to be picking up.
Second piece of evidence: Many semiconductor companies in their quarterly earnings releases have said they are seeing an increase in shipments, and that end demand for computers and electronics appears to be rising.
Idiot. How can a "Consumer Economy" even exist? It has taken over 50 years for the chickens of Progressivism to come home to roost, massive government spending, THE FED, welfare, crap for education (such as prodused your dumb ass), the list goes on and on of drags on the productive and giveaways to the lazy and corrupt.
Please explain how an economy based on CONSUMING can last after squandering the wealth built by past generations and indebting our great grandchildren?
What an idiot! CEO of google? That is your 'evidence'? Who gives a F what he thinks.
One industry shows temporary uptick? That is it?
God, what hapened to critical thinking in this country? Oh! The NEA!
