Anybody feeling nervous?

[Krazy P]

Just checking.

I am getting a bad feeling from the financial markets.

A shift in the wind?

[Monte314]

Are you "in" or "out" right now?

[Mogura]

Are we talking about the US market, or overseas markets?

Are we talking about particular sectors, or the whole shebang?

[Hamburglar]

Just checking.

I am getting a bad feeling from the financial markets.

A shift in the wind?

Are you sure your cat didn't fart?

I mean- you can't just come in to a forum like this and say something like that.

[hubcap]

I've had a bad feeling for the last year or so. Nothing has given me any reason to change.

[Night Runner]

Well, Bernarke himself just told the Congress that he's a bit nervous about the unemployment numbers. If that guy said something like this, things are bleak indeed. There is the growing and disturbing disparity between the improving stock market and the decreasing number of jobs. (Official unemployment figures are a joke, since they represent the lowest possible number one can come up with.) Someone is lying...

I'm taking a break from trading for the time being. If I'm wrong, I'll miss a few months. If I'm right, I'll survive another October '08 or, worse yet, '29... :sulk:

[ArtistTyrant]

why don't you short some things, Mr. Confidence? :)

[Night Runner]

why don't you short some things, Mr. Confidence? :)
"Warren and I are chicken about buying stocks on margin. There's always a slight chance of catastrophe when you own securities pledged to others. The ideal is to borrow in a way no temporary thing can disturb you."
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's right-hand man

[ArtistTyrant]

yes, those two lived during the best era in history to invest, and they're really old -.-

[GrnEyz]

I think so... I'm in cash at the moment... believe there is a substantial correction coming. Take that and 1.25 and you can buy a cup of coffee at Waffle House.

[SShack]

But my 401k has finally recovered all it lost in 2008. Siiiiigh.

[GrnEyz]

My game plan... sit on the cash... wait for a 10 percent correction... start putting it back in 20% at a time.

It's a bearish plan, but I think a good one. (Of course the market could go up from here but I seriously doubt it)

[Night Runner]

yes, those two lived during the best era in history to invest, and they're really old -.-
a) Both of them are still very much alive.
b) There are no best or worst eras. Booms and crises occur on a regular basis. It's all cyclical.
c) Regardless of their age, their point is true - as much today as it was in the 17th century.


Actually, I think I'll benefit a little if we get hit with inflation: my student loans are locked in at a relatively low interest rate. If we get the same stagflation we did with Carter, the real value of my debt will go down. :thumbsup:

[ArtistTyrant]

1950-1960: invest in military/aerospace
1960-1970: consumer goods
1970-1980: oil and natural resources
1980-1990: banks and real estate
1990-2000: technology and real estate

you are a billionaire!

[Aronnax]

1950-1960: invest in military/aerospace
1960-1970: consumer goods
1970-1980: oil and natural resources
1980-1990: banks and real estate
1990-2000: technology and real estate

you are a billionaire!

They could have followed a long term investment strategy at any point after banking reform and ended up very wealthy.

On topic:

I've had my short term money out of the market and in oil + precious metals for about a year now. That's not saying a lot though, I started moving short money into commodities just after the Iraq invasion.

[Night Runner]

It's the foresight bias. Almost every decade has something worth investing in - the trick is knowing what and when. And for the record, Buffett&Munger didn't participate in any of those bubbles. They made their wealth by purchasing reliable companies. Also, there were a number of bear markets during those decades, so your point is null and void.

[rahdam]

Are you sure your cat didn't fart?

I mean- you can't just come in to a forum like this and say something like that.

Given his career, he really can. KrazyP is legit.

I'm worried that Greece and Spain will drag down the entire Euro region.
I'm worried that employment will continue to stagnate in America.
The "mood" as it were seems increasingly bearish.
IIRC, China has a bit of an asset bubble themselves presently; not good.
I think the developing world has a great opportunity for growth here.

GOOD STUFF:
The euro is down against the dollar; time to travel to Europe!

[Shauru]

I'm honestly not too concerned.

My Piggy Bank portfolio has been holding steady at 0% interest for the past 23 years.
My Under-The-Mattress IRA seems to also be holding steady at 0% interest with steady input of 200 dollars per month.
My checking account and savings account are holding stable.

I currently only have one outstanding debt in the form of a car loan.

I find all this talk of recession to be so boring. If you didn't buy into the mess, you didn't lose anything when it all came tumbling down.

I didn't. I still don't. So I look forward to having 100% liquidity in my assets. IE cash.
Good luck playing Russian roulette suckaz.

[reb]

shorts...isn't that what the 'slow to react/not competent at forecasting' wind up wearing after the market is done with them?

i've got my chickens and sheep; my propane tanks are full.

what? me worry?

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[Krazy P]

Thanks for the feedback.

Just collecting data.

I am in cash, like many of you. Made a little in the Gold thing, enough for my AU/NZ vacation with the fam. Back in cash now.

Things on my mind...

Hedge funds are after the Euro, betting it down to 1.00 from 1.35 today (from 1.54 a year ago?). The euro may fall apart - that is a shock. The size of the bets right now is getting close to the same order of magnitude as occurred before the same thing happened to AIG. We know how well that turned out. Sovereign Debt Default. It happens. Should be interesting. Spain is a LOT bigger than Greece.

Intentions to purchase autos and homes are at historic or 27 year lows.

Home purchases fell again (7%) after a big fall in the previous period (17%). Foreclosures? increasing at an accelerating rate despite the best efforts of the gvt to slow them. Backlog of inventory? you betcha! Hard to figure with all the foreclosed property in the pipeline.

Bank Failures? Oh boy! The FDIC does not have the staff to close the banks fast enough. Seriously.

Deflation? yup. And at a rapid clip. This, in spite of the heroic efforts to inflate. And I do mean heroic. Check out the Dallas Fed trimmed inflation numbers for a thrill.

Bailouts? Supposedly the Fed is going to stop buying Fannie and Freddie securities AND fannie and Freddie are going to stop holding in their own portfolio so "someone" is going to buy all that product come the end of March AND of course the $80 - $120 billion in annual losses of Fannie and Freddie (not INCLUDING FHA - the new subprime) are just going to continue forever until the Feds "get around" to addressing the issue "sometime" next year.

China? Whoa! Exports falling just as fast as bank lending is increasing. Pig Farmers buying copper banding to store on their farms instead of raising pigs. Soybean processors using cash to buy real estate instead of making soy products. RE prices in Shanghai up 27% in 6 months. Investment in fixed assets at 45% of GDP. Stimulus at over 50% of GDP. Empty cities, Empty malls. Bullet trains with no riders.

This is the background behind of my question.

[Tyrant Soup]

I find all this talk of recession to be so boring. If you didn't buy into the mess, you didn't lose anything when it all came tumbling down.

I didn't. I still don't. So I look forward to having 100% liquidity in my assets. IE cash.
Good luck playing Russian roulette suckaz.
Cash is not safe. If inflation takes hold, paper money will lose buying power. It's like having some it stolen without you noticing.

[Nikita]

This year is the first time we really started feeling the crisis in Central Asia, at least from a PCV perspective. Prices are increasing like crazy, including 800+% spikes in electricity and gas. We don't have the utility allowances to cover the cost, so we supplement from our living allowances (which haven't been raised to cover the increased cost of food), which means even less money for food and transportation, so you get used to being hungry.

[NYK]

OH yeah! it's all going down into the shister hole. world economy crumbling to ground as the tower of babel fell from so high. all thiat will remain are those who are lucky. or decided to burry themselves over a thousand feet into the ground for two hundred years and decided to take 50 people with them to ensure the safety of the human race and with enough knowledge and food to last to boot. Even then there is no real security cuzz that meteor will be a few years we get blasted by x-waves from the sun in 2012. So you got about a slim chance if your on the y-axis of the impact and hope to be jetisoned towards mars or a near by planet that was not destroyed... sorry got distracted with doom and gloom again... I would'nt worry about the economy very much. It will last long enough.

[zibber]

Just checking.

I am getting a bad feeling from the financial markets.

A shift in the wind?

The same people that caused the crash are probably already hard at work on the next bubble, so yeah.

[Causa Mortis]

Thanks for the feedback.

Just collecting data.

I am in cash, like many of you. Made a little in the Gold thing, enough for my AU/NZ vacation with the fam. Back in cash now.

Things on my mind...

Hedge funds are after the Euro, betting it down to 1.00 from 1.35 today (from 1.54 a year ago?). The euro may fall apart - that is a shock. The size of the bets right now is getting close to the same order of magnitude as occurred before the same thing happened to AIG. We know how well that turned out. Sovereign Debt Default. It happens. Should be interesting. Spain is a LOT bigger than Greece.

Intentions to purchase autos and homes are at historic or 27 year lows.

Home purchases fell again (7%) after a big fall in the previous period (17%). Foreclosures? increasing at an accelerating rate despite the best efforts of the gvt to slow them. Backlog of inventory? you betcha! Hard to figure with all the foreclosed property in the pipeline.

Bank Failures? Oh boy! The FDIC does not have the staff to close the banks fast enough. Seriously.

Deflation? yup. And at a rapid clip. This, in spite of the heroic efforts to inflate. And I do mean heroic. Check out the Dallas Fed trimmed inflation numbers for a thrill.

Bailouts? Supposedly the Fed is going to stop buying Fannie and Freddie securities AND fannie and Freddie are going to stop holding in their own portfolio so "someone" is going to buy all that product come the end of March AND of course the $80 - $120 billion in annual losses of Fannie and Freddie (not INCLUDING FHA - the new subprime) are just going to continue forever until the Feds "get around" to addressing the issue "sometime" next year.

China? Whoa! Exports falling just as fast as bank lending is increasing. Pig Farmers buying copper banding to store on their farms instead of raising pigs. Soybean processors using cash to buy real estate instead of making soy products. RE prices in Shanghai up 27% in 6 months. Investment in fixed assets at 45% of GDP. Stimulus at over 50% of GDP. Empty cities, Empty malls. Bullet trains with no riders.

This is the background behind of my question.

What heroic effort to inflate are you speaking of? Bernake's handing of ~1t in minted money to the banks that they've all effectively tucked under the mattress?

And the solution to all of this, with the exception of China which is its own clusterfuck, is for the Fed to take Friedman's advice and engage in robust open market operations to get us from what's really 2-3% deflation to 2-3% inflation. That will fix everything except China.

We've stroked Bernake's ego and let him believe that his fail academic work on the sanctity of finanfical institutions was actually better than Friedman's work on the Great Depression. We're 2.5 years into Bailout Ben's miserable monetary policy and things don't look much better than they did when the stuff hit the fan. Let's try Friedman now please - fire up the presses until we're at least at price stability.

[reb]

and what will we do when no one pays attention to the presses, because no one trusts 'paper money'? (which is really not paper...just digits on a page, manipulated by governments and markets)

i have been wondering what would happen when the currency has no value. i may yet get to see it.

[LaoTzu]

You may want to look at the current Toyota crisis...

Were that to put a dent in the Asian market share, there would be a lot of jobs and money coming back into North American markets.

One possible bright area for N.A. perhaps :)

[reb]

LaoTzu,

i wouldn't get my hopes up. like many other multinationals, they have profit centers all over:

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if toyota closes a u.s. plant, those workers will be laid off. the way the economy is going, that may only mean no place else to get hired. i tried to find a ford forecast, and got gibberish.

[tp6626]

I'm extremely anxious. I'd say my own economic meltdown severity level was upgraded 3rd week in January to severe, and again about 10 days ago to critical. I'm pretty sure that something big is going to happen soon. I think the UK election in May would be a good candidate for a tipping event, too, because I do believe that the UK government are hiding things, and trying to make things appear better than they are, in the lead up to the election.

I must say I wasn't aware of the situation being as bad as that in Europe, but I don't see any reason why it couldn't be like that.

I also heard that Japan is now becoming attractive to certain types of investors, who believe it is due something, because it hasn't really bounced back in line with the way some other similar performers have done recently.

I am amazed with the UK situation though. It is scary to see how badly the economy is still doing, in spite of the sheer force of 'cures' the government has implemented so far.

We've had interest rates at 0.5% for well over a year, £200+billion of quantitative easing, massive bail-outs of almost all our major banks (government's an 80% shareholder in at least one of them, I think), reduced VAT and other tax-breaks for the past several months, and still the economy is faltering.

Where would it be if none of these things even had been implemented. I mean, any one of these things on its own is a significant thing, which should have a massively noticeable effect.

And it makes me laugh, that all the while the papers are reporting apparently 'booming' house prices (sick), monster profits for the banks and utilities, and their bosses awarding themselves monster bonuses (still). There is no way in the world that this can be sustainable.

Anyway, things are badly wrong when all of these things implemented together don't trigger a slight falter in the downturn!! And come May, when the new government have to start switching off all this aid and biting the bullet, then the real chaos will break loose.

I've even gone as far as considering rioting on the streets of London a likely occurrence within the next year.

And as I've been saving up a house deposit over the past two years, I am concerned about that all inflating away. Any ideas what to invest in to protect that value (I assume that as precious metals are already highly sought after, I'm not sure how much further they can increase in value by, or for how long they'd retain their value anyway).

:(

[Night Runner]

Any ideas what to invest in to protect that value
I heard that guns, stainless paperclips and canned food can last for quite a while. :wiseguy:

There is a silver lining to this mushroom cloud: if and when stock market collapses, it'll be a great buying opportunity - all those stocks (even those of good, reliable companies) will be on sale! :thumbsup: The only question is, how long will that bear market last?

[Mogura]

Thanks for the feedback.

Just collecting data.

I am in cash, like many of you. Made a little in the Gold thing, enough for my AU/NZ vacation with the fam. Back in cash now.

Things on my mind...

Hedge funds are after the Euro, betting it down to 1.00 from 1.35 today (from 1.54 a year ago?). The euro may fall apart - that is a shock. The size of the bets right now is getting close to the same order of magnitude as occurred before the same thing happened to AIG. We know how well that turned out. Sovereign Debt Default. It happens. Should be interesting. Spain is a LOT bigger than Greece.

Intentions to purchase autos and homes are at historic or 27 year lows.

Home purchases fell again (7%) after a big fall in the previous period (17%). Foreclosures? increasing at an accelerating rate despite the best efforts of the gvt to slow them. Backlog of inventory? you betcha! Hard to figure with all the foreclosed property in the pipeline.

Bank Failures? Oh boy! The FDIC does not have the staff to close the banks fast enough. Seriously.

Deflation? yup. And at a rapid clip. This, in spite of the heroic efforts to inflate. And I do mean heroic. Check out the Dallas Fed trimmed inflation numbers for a thrill.

Bailouts? Supposedly the Fed is going to stop buying Fannie and Freddie securities AND fannie and Freddie are going to stop holding in their own portfolio so "someone" is going to buy all that product come the end of March AND of course the $80 - $120 billion in annual losses of Fannie and Freddie (not INCLUDING FHA - the new subprime) are just going to continue forever until the Feds "get around" to addressing the issue "sometime" next year.

China? Whoa! Exports falling just as fast as bank lending is increasing. Pig Farmers buying copper banding to store on their farms instead of raising pigs. Soybean processors using cash to buy real estate instead of making soy products. RE prices in Shanghai up 27% in 6 months. Investment in fixed assets at 45% of GDP. Stimulus at over 50% of GDP. Empty cities, Empty malls. Bullet trains with no riders.

This is the background behind of my question.
Yeah, things are seriously f*cked up.

That said, money doesn't simply "disappear"; it just moves from one place to another. One man's fail is another man's gold strike. (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

So, the $64,000,000,000 question is, where's all that money gonna go?

[Valiyn]

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[Lucid]

Nope. I just got into a growth industry.

Unemployment. :pimp:

[Causa Mortis]

and what will we do when no one pays attention to the presses, because no one trusts 'paper money'? (which is really not paper...just digits on a page, manipulated by governments and markets)

i have been wondering what would happen when the currency has no value. i may yet get to see it.

All right. I was planning on sending you $100,000, but since its just worthless paper currency (rolleyes) I won't bother.

Please. This whole "crisis" has been caused by people and banks panicing because they realized they were excessive in the housing bubble. So now, no one can be bothered to part with their "worthless paper currency". The solution to this, as it was 1929-1933, is to fire up the presses until price stability/mild inflation occurs and people can be persuaded to part with their money for legitimate purposes. The problem is one of excess money demand relative to effective money supply.

And what other entity is there besides "governments and markets"? That's pretty much everything pal.

---------- Post added 03-02-2010 at 05:50 PM ----------

Yeah, things are seriously f*cked up.

That said, money doesn't simply "disappear"; it just moves from one place to another. One man's fail is another man's gold strike. (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

What's your point? That hedge funds got out before everyone else?

So, the $64,000,000,000 question is, where's all that money gonna go?

Hopefully back into transaction velocity for real goods and services, which will create jobs. To date, all of Bernake's monetary creation has been effectively tucked under the mattress, and that's why we're not seeing any growth/employment/price stability.

[zippikay]

More and more Japanese companies recalling products, but why all of a sudden?
Paradigm shifts toward more regulations, in crisis people call for governmental action, would it prove for the better?

the feeling in my stomach gets funnier...

[IslandHead]

The USSR didn't go into a depression during the Great Depression. What we need now is COMMUNISM!!!!!


Joking aside, can anyone tell me how Canada is gonna hold up? Cause if the USA goes down it'll bring Canada down too right?

[Mogura]

Joking aside, can anyone tell me how Canada is gonna hold up? Cause if the USA goes down it'll bring Canada down too right?

You might be encouraged by this (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)...

[IslandHead]

Thanks Mogura, I have already read that a while ago. I mostly lurk on this forum without signing in. That is encouraging, but Canada's economy is rather depended on a stronger American dollar (at least stronger than the Canadian). If the USA has a weak dollar, Canada must have an even weaker dollar or find a better more profitable trading partner. So what would happen if the US's economy completely crashed?