Best Performance in 2008: Mattresses

What a year 2008 was for equity investors. Money flowed out of stocks and into mattresses now trading on financial markets under the guise of U.S. treasury notes.

Here is a roundup of the declines on world stock markets (as supplied by Adrian Mastracci, portfolio manager at Vancouver-based KCM Wealth Management).

Market Decline to Dec. 31

China - 65.8%
India - 52.1%
Hong Kong - 48.3%
France - 42.7%
Japan - 42.1%
Brazil - 40.3%
Germany - 40.4%
Nasdaq - 40.5%
S&P 500 - 38.5%
Toronto - 35.0%
Dow Jones - 33.8%
UK - 31.3%
Mexico - 21.6%

Comments

[Dr. C.:]

Actually the best long performance was gold at +5%, money in mattresses lost purchasing power

Jan 02 09:16 AM

[Annualgain:]

Perhaps I should buy Sealy (ZZ) and Tempur-Pedic (TPX) since the performance of mattresses is so good.

Jan 02 09:34 AM

[secmaven:]

Gold was 5% in dollars but much more in every other currency in the world except the yen. Gold demand around the world is strong and will continue to stress supply. Sooner or later big money will cash out he COMEX stores and JPM's short selling manipulation will be over. Then we will see what gold is really worth.

Jan 02 11:00 AM

[1977°C:]

You should mention Russia's RTS -70%, the 2008 will look soon as a bull market when real economy will hit everybody in 2009.

Jan 02 11:10 AM

[Jason Rines...:]

You have it backwards. Main St. and the 'real economy' were extremely weak and weakening in August of 2007. The U.S. consumer began cutting spending in March of 2008. Stimulus checks went towards pricey energy and debt servicing. The global citizen gets it, that we are moving back to Save and Invest economy. Wall St. was disconnected from weakening earnings. Fundamentals were ignored by Wall St. in 2008. Now Wall St. is simply pricing in the reality on the ground.


On Jan 02 11:10 AM 1977°C wrote:

> You should mention Russia's RTS -70%, the 2008 will look soon as
> a bull market when real economy will hit everybody in 2009.

Jan 02 11:43 AM

[raising4dau...:]

Don't buy a Sealy.

I got screwed on one once.


On Jan 02 09:34 AM Annualgain wrote:

> Perhaps I should buy Sealy (ZZ) and Tempur-Pedic (TPX) since the
> performance of mattresses is so good.

Jan 02 01:03 PM

[organic mat...:]

hi larry,

i wonder why china got best performance mattresses award?

cheers,
organic mattresses

May 24 01:35 PM