Soham Das

2009: What to Expect - And What Not to Expect

I guess, time is validating me nicely.[which doesn't serve much except ego smothering]

1. Obama again, I reiterate has very few resources at hand, and bailouts, TARP/CRAP/TRAP are all ways to say "Alright, let me see, if this works....oops!" [Bailouts: Check]

2.Job losses in 2008, was staggerring but nothing compared to the ones we will have in 2009. [Job Loss: check]

3. Auto Loan Default mode is already on. GM annoucing possible bankruptcy. [Loan Defaults : Check]

4. Housing Mortgage Failures [Partial check]

5. I am wondering if India will turn by '09Q3 or not.[Cross]

There are a few developments which are rolling in right now. The year is still young. And I am shorting [for disclaimers and disclosures]

Investors' Collective Fears Point to Continued Losses

Looks like a double top to me and Gods above save us, this is going to get murky. All supports are going to lie aside broken and the rapid sell off will start now. For any technical guy, this seems that double top is just now formed. Short the hell of out of the system, will be my call

Capital Markets Defy Terrorists

Interesting perspective.... but the crux of my opinion is that the general social mood defines market.

In a bear run [which in turn is an exhibition of increasingly negative social mood] companies who underperform get hammered but those who generate results outside street's expectations [positive] just stay placid. The situation just reverses in bull market.

Information will be seen from a general lens of social mood. And to say that 'this' news made the markets rally high is flawed. You might say the social interpretation of so and so news made it rally high.
And this social interpretation is decided by prevalent social mood

Capital Markets Defy Terrorists

You are making a mistake in believing that news makes or breaks a market. Run some historical check, and you will realise that if you show the charts without the time stamp to any other technical analyst, and ask if he can point out the most probable time a bad news hit the market, he will fail.

Because markets are dominated by crowd behaviour and crowd behaviour is essentially emotion driven and not logic driven, thus expecting it to rationally analyse the situation while a news hits the market is irrational in itself.
We are forgetting, markets are not efficient.

A few words delving deeper in this arena is given here:

jumpup.wordpress.com/2.../

Stocks Will Bottom Before the Economy

Hi Chris,

It is but a common knowledge that stock markets lead the economy by approximately two quarters.
While, the common socioeconomic mood will worsen (or lets say hit a bottom), investing will see higher and higher VIX . And this might be an interesting thing for long term buyers, because often higher volatility is marked by a significant bottom.

So you might say, that worsening socio economic mood is helping stock market to bottom out.[Just a perspective, its extensively used by options traders]

So the question we might be asking here is, is this the bottom?
Who knows?
Is this the time to invest?
You bet!

In what?
Frontline stocks, midcap stocks, commodities [the great commodity bull run should be starting any time now], precious metal etc.

Thursday's Stock Rally Means Little to Trends

Fantastic work!!!