You asked. :D

it's not time to buy if the market hasn't finished falling yet. of course it depends on what individual stocks you're looking at. i sure as hell wouldn't buy into any automotive companies right now for example.

good question.

[quote=Cajungator26]Because you're getting great prices on great companies ...

Not that I can compare this to the Great Depression at this point, but most of those that bought during those times came out on top after it was all said and done. QUOTE]

This is historically inaccurate. It took 25 years to get back to the same as the 1929 peak. If you compare it historically, the people who invested at a similar time during the depression lost their shirts and most likely didnt get them back.

Look back three weeks ago on these threads and people were saying that it was a "great time to invest" when the market was just under 11k. Now the market loses over 20% and its still a great time to invest. Are there buys? Sure there are but my bet is that the market goes lower before it gets better.

Unless you have inside information and/or have fuc|< you money..well it would just be retarded to invest right now. Over half of the companies on the stock exchange could be gone in the next 5 years.

I have been hearing all summer how the "market is on sale". What is "on sale" anyway? Does that mean that it is at a discount to its previously overinflated price? I remember when the tech stocks crashed in the early part of the decade and everyone spoke of how they were " on sale". Man, thats a long sale because many of those stocks never recovered. I know- you can pick out a handful that flourished as you can in any market. But if you invested in tech when it FIRST started to crash in 2000, you are sitting on a big fat stinking pile of RED right now.

You say "now is the time to buy". Okay...give me five stocks to buy RIGHT NOW. You may be right and if so you get all the credit.

Personally, I am not good enough to pick out 5 stocks right now.

campbell soup
dollar general
family dollar
big lots
brown-forman

but still wouldn't risk it

You are 1000% right. Fundamentals are out the window. Judging "value" based on graphs showing 5 years worth of market performance today is about as useful as using past beyers to guage the ability of a horse with a broken leg.

A question for the financial professional among us.....

Is there a significant amount of money that continues to "short" these indexes.
In other words are there traders who are able to find significant volume that they are buying daily or essentially betting that the market will continue to fall. Is it enough at this point to drive the Dow or Nasdaq down....?

Shorts didnt cause what happened today. This is capitulation in grand fashion. If this was merely shorts, it would be confined to certain sectors. If shorts were indeed the culprit, then there should have been some sort of recovery during the short ban over the last couple of weeks.

This is a classic case of hedge funds and mutuals selling anything and everything to pay skittish investors who want out. This is proven by typical flight to safety plays (long term treasuries and mortgage backs) also getting sold off. Most telling? When Big blue gets sold off for no apparent reason, houston we have a problem...and it aint shorts.

it's like stopping a cattle stampede. good luck. a lot of people are panicked. they don't want to lose anything, so a lot are trying to bail-which is the last thing they should do, as it only makes a bad situation worse.
i haven't moved anything, and have no intention of doing so. our 401k is taking a hit, but the further down it goes, the cheaper the mutual funds i continue to buy into get, which will (hopefully) increase the gains i make later, when everything improves.

Agreed. And I like the last sentence too ... not IF everything improves, but WHEN.

I guess I should be sorry that I have enough faith in this country to think that it's going to pick itself back up and keep going.

Agreed 100%.

So what do you think we should do? Do you think that every American should sell off everything they own in the market? What would be your advice to people calling all day long in panick mode?

No bottom in sight, for those in the market. I feel your pain.

Down huge on the opening, and made gigantic rally to the plus side. Unfortunatley I am guessing that anyone who did buy on the opening is already out. Going into the weekend (actually Monday is Columbus day, markets are open, not sure about banks) would you really want to be long? Who knows who might go out of buisness this weekend. Unfortunatley I think we will be down big again. As I type this it is down -393.16 and going lower.

You would have to be some kind of f.u.kc.ing maniac to wake up this morning, see what happened to the rest of the world and decide that today would be a good day to go long on anything.

Nothing is safe except for maybe gold and do you really want to buy into gold at 915?

Again, this is a market where even treasuries and blue chips arent safe because everyone is hoarding cash.

We need one big giant butt kicking before it is safe to call a bottom. One final cataclysmic capitulation.

I believe that companies start to announce earnings (or lack there of) next week. Hopefully there will be some positve numbers released. And people will start to buy back good names/companies. But untill then we will continue to drift lower.

I thought today might be it. probably still some puking yet to done.

about the only positive news of the day is overnight LIBOR (the rate at which banks borrow amongst themselves) dropped from 5.09% to 2.6%, indicating some of the short term funding liquidity is returning.

I have heard that once oil hits the 70 dollar proce-point, all hell will break loose on the world front. Anybody have evidence of this?

let me preface the below by saying that I am far from a market guru

The only people that should be selling now are the people that are 2-3 years from retirement. And if I were them I would still ride it out and hopefully get back some of the 50% they have lost. If anyone our age sells they should be shot in the head. If anything, people our age should be getting ready to put every penny they have into this market.

In about 30 years, there will be alot of people that made the decision to dump some cash into the market right around now, and they will be retiring pretty happy because of that very decision.

It is an amazing opportunity for 20-30's to solidify their retirement and make some real money, a year ago we were trying to play into a 15k Dow, and now, we will get to play within a 7k Dow....

I heard that. Rumor is that the Fed will start guaranteeing commercial paper.

Im no financial expert either..but this is what I was thinking too. Since I'm 35, it will be a while before I retire. For the first 8 months of this year, I was dumping 20% into my 401K. I dropped it back to 10% in August...but now I'm thinking of jacking it up back up to 20 maybe even 25%.

Why's that? Hasnt it always been lower than 70 until the past couple years?

Everyone keeps saying things will turn around. But what is going to happen if the unemployment numbers keep going higher. Banks/financial institutions going out of buisness puts alot of people out of work. Then there is the trickle down effect. These are the people that buy houses/real estate. That affects everyone in the consturction industry, which affects machinery and so on. Not to mention who will be buying the cars or going on vacation? Even going out to dinner is a stretch at this point. These industries will be affected in a big way. Many people will lose their jobs. Plus, the job market is tough now, what is going to happen when all these people who thought they were going to retire still have to work? It is a very bad situation we are in now, to say the least.
More important is where is this tax revenue that funds so many things in this country going to come from/be made up? Many programs woud be affected severly.
I know everyone wants to try to look on the bright side. Sure there is probably money to be made in the very long term. But to me everything looks extremley bleak at the moment.

I was going to buy 100 shares of Sirius XM this morning...but I decided to super size my value meal instead.

Not sure about that....understood it had to do with levels set by OPEC

http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm

Basically it wasnt till last year or '06 that it ever went above $70. Was close to 70 though for the Iran/Iraq war in the early 80's. It was $20something during the beginning of this decade.

Very thorough and interesting article! It appears as though consumers are again held hostage over gas prices....however the rest of the world pays much more(I don't think they drive as much)

Okay. I hear you. Do you realize that if you did this a week ago you would probably looking at about a 25% loss right now? And everyone was calling it a bottom THEN.

For there to be a bottom, you need capitulation. You need to scrape the abyss and there needs to be some type of resolution to get us out of there.

You are a good guy GPK. I dont know you but i can tell you are. Believe me when I tell you that there are more dominoes to fall.

Remember that this isnt a typical market. This is an unwinding of not only a speculative housing bubble but a 25 year credit bubble. Lots of parties that we are paying for.

Timmi i love you. You make this site infinitely more entertaining for me.

Thank you sincerely.:{>:

Thats why I am unsure when to bump it back up. :zz: :zz:

Thanks for the advice....and I guess I should be happy I dropped back to 10% back in August

And Scavs may tell you different...but I like to think Im a good guy:tro:

I am certainly no guru and there are a few on here that have forgotten more than i know.

What I do know something about are contingent liabilities and sweetheart those are worse in some ways than the actual losses.

Kev if you hear this from someone you are on a first date with - plan on pulling your own pud later :D

:eek:

:p ;) :p

Think of it this way. Would you bet on a baseball team that has lost 20 games in a row? Why bet into a streak? It's the same thig with the market. Dropping like a stone with no end in site. Wait for a sustained turn around and then slowly get on board. It might not be the bottom, but you will still get good value on big time names.

Fixed annuities are going to be extremely popular in the short-term.

okay, the market just rallied about 800 points in a half hour.

Okay, in the last five minutes it just dropped over 300 points.