Steven Hansen

Key Factors Driving the Market

how about the key factor driving the market is greed. there is no good place to make money so the market is almost the only show in town. i am not a bear predicting a market collapse, but i believe the market is on the upper side of fair pricing.

overall your points seem to fairly represent both sides of the coin.

Is Anyone Using Chrome?

i try to do most of my work with safari as it is very fast, but it has issues with the java engine i could not resolve.

my backup is firefox which acts like a dependable sure-footed workhorse.

chrome has serious compatibility problems with many sites. i am not sure why they have not embedded some kind of emulator. the difficulties are so frequent that i cannot use this browser.

Google Drops a Nuclear Bomb on Microsoft. And It's Made of Chrome.

having used exclusively linux for the last 2 months on a netbook, and doing my graphics and articles for seeking alpha using open source software - i can tell you windows better buy google to survive.

the quality of open source software rivals what most of us are used to. last week, i went back to my old XP and felt the quality of the graphics actually declined - and the OS was less stable.

the problem with non-windows based OS is the drivers. most of your plug-and-play usb crap will not work. without support from your existing hardware manufacturers, you will have to purchase a new computer to take advantage of chrome (or even linux).

Stocks Will Continue to Erode In This Busted Economy

Alan, welcome to our group. i have looked at what i have written in the last 6 months, and it is mostly negative economically. this bothers me as my style is to look for ways to make every bad situation good. things cannot be as bad as i see them. i keep looking for a piece of data that is positive, that would provide a road map out of this maelstrom. maybe i will see one tomorrow - i can only hope.

Tech May Be a Wreck, But This Isn't 2001

alan, if you wanted some more comments you should have incorporated GM and F into your analysis. (joke, not funny)

leading into 2000, tech was an emerging industry which normally means high p/s and p/e. now they are a more mature industry with lower p/s and p/e. this does not make them good buys yet. this industry is still maturing, and there will be more shake-outs.

but i love this kind of analysis. thank you for the work.

With Pain, There Is Also Gain

i suspect this article was written for publication yesterday.

An Optimist Looks at the Market

thank you for trying to find some good news. the glasses you pointed out are half empty unfortunately....

1) oil and gas price reductions are too little too late. the economic deer has been shot and has lost a lot of blood. it is great the grass is getting greener but the last thing the poor beast is thinking about is eating.

2) the gdp 3.3% is still preliminary. as pointed out it is not indexed properly to inflation. but the most telling is that gdp has not been negative since 1958. gdp simply is screwed with to the point that it is not an indicator of economic health.

3) a strong dollar only hurts our economic engine by making imports more affordable and making our exports less affordable. it is great that mr & mrs smith can travel on their vacation to europe now - oh except they lost their investment nest egg and are worried their kids are going to move back in with them.

4) few people are investing long as it is obvious some dynamic in the market is screwy.

5) housing affordability - too many houses, too few buyers. supply and demand. housing will go down more. if you own a home and just want to move your relative position is unchanged so go ahead and buy (i hope after you sell). if you want to sell a rental or second home - sell now. if you want to speculate or can wait - wait.

andy, you had big cojones to write this article. nahhh, you just wanted to poke a stick into a pig for a little weekend enjoyment.