Sober Realist

Five Predictions for This Market

Hey Chris B,
Talking about deals, we bought $750 worth of brand new luggage for $98 at Dillards last week. They were marked for clearance to make way for the new inventory. And of course jackets were on sale for 1/3 the original price. These types of sales will only increase with malls becoming ghost towns this year. Remember that commecial real estate is the next shoe to fall. With all these businesses going under, who is going to rent those vacant commercial spaces?...nobody.
Did you see the new s today?:

"U.S. private sector bleeds jobs, services slump deepens"
Wed Mar 4, 2009 11:19am EST
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. private companies hemorrhaged nearly 700,000 jobs in February and the service sector slump deepened as the year-old recession showed little sign of abating, according to data released on Wednesday.
The private sector cut 697,000 jobs versus 614,000 in January, according to an ADP Employer Services report that suggested hefty employment declines are on the way in the government's more comprehensive payrolls data on Friday.
The service sector's decline accelerated in February, according to the Institute for Supply Management, whose employment gauge also remained at a depressed level despite its improvement from the previous month."This is a slow "U"-shape recession," said Kurt Karl, chief U.S. economist at Swiss Re in New York. "We are still sinking. There is no sign of a bottom."
"On aggregate, the services sector is more pessimistic going forward and it is contracting a bit faster. It's going in the wrong direction."
The service sector represents about 80 percent of U.S. economic activity.
It often resists the grip of recession longer than other areas, but in February, accounted for more than half of the total private sector job losses reported by ADP, reflecting the rapid deterioration of the economy in recent months.

Red Flag ----"WE ARE STILL SINKING. THERE IS NO SIGN OF A BOTTOM."

The Bull Run Begins This Week

Lots of head fake mini-bulls over the coming years. I've got a 20K appendectomy bill for my wife. My insurance paid 12k of it. That leaves me with 8K owed. There should be some bail-out money available for this sort of thing somewhere.