AvlGuy

Late Payments on Loans the Highest in 16 Years: The Pooring of America Continues

Great post, TM! I'm not a professional trader like you. I just dabble via a small Scottrade Acct. Yet, though I know this de-leveraging will be brutishly long in duration, I still earn spending change trading stocks because I know there are too many guys unwilling to abandon the market at this point, instead, they trade on the market's reaction to 'good news' like WAMU diluting shares 100%, Bear getting bailed out, deceptively small unemployment #s due to not counting the under-employed and the 1099 contract workers, Fannie/Freddie getting authorization to buy bigger loans despite not having enough spare capital to actually do so, etc. It’s upticks in response to whatever CNBC and WSJ can spin as ‘good news’.
So, in a way, I'm willingly contributing to the Dow's appearance of ‘denial’, though I'm fully expecting a long lumpy period of de-leveraging. So, Thornburg can bounce 90% up and down on consecutive days; and RIMM can bounce from $90 to $120. Thanks to RIMM, I have some pocket change to buy a new Canon digital cam at a discount.
A little guy likes me still plays in the market...I just don't bet the farm...or my savings...or my 401K. That’s why the US markets will be a sluggishly lagging trailing indicator in 2008 for a downward spiraling economy.