Billy Ford

10 Predictions for 2009

I sure hope most of what you say will in fact come to fruition, but I cant be that optimistic. I will have to disagree with the equities rising 10%. I believe a lot of the banks have shrugged some of this stuff under the rug, and really havent deleveraged to a point where losses wont swallow them up. I foresee another wave of mass foreclosures coming about with the job losses that we are seeing today and still the burden of an illiquid housing market. Much of what we saw was due to ARM resets and plunging home prices...Throw job losses in there and you have yourself a doozy. We will see another panick in the financial markets and with that we will see equity markets sell to at least 6500 - 7000 DJI or even lower. And a rebound above where we are today is unlikely by year end....Most bear markets typically last at least 2 years from peak to bottom and we are only a little over a year into it...the only thing is we did come down a lot in a short amount of time, so nice bounce up could be possible before the bottom falls out again...wherever this timing will fall this year or next is tough to get a handle on, and if I knew, I would be a wealthy man...I am playing for more bad news, and would just offer 1 piece of advice, that being not to get caught up in a bear market rally and think you missed the bottom, because I think we will have plenty more opportunities to buy...Good luck