TomF75

Why Merrill Lynch Is Bullish on 2010: Foreseeing a Burst of the Pessimism Bubble

Take you one better...70% income tax on ALL income above $1.5 million EXCEPT those with an ownserhip of at least 2% in a Public or Privately held company. You keep entrepanuerism alive, and kill the parasites.


On Dec 15 01:55 PM apppro wrote:

> Until something is done about the 'Trader/Traitor Decade' and the
> short-term mentality it has fostered - nothing will change for the
> better. We have allowed short-term option traders/traitors to deplete
> what little optimism is left after 'The Shorting of America' and
> we need that to end.
>
> STOP THE INSANITY NOW!
>
> Revised Tax Rules:
>
> 1. Capital gains under <6 months - 55% tax on capital gains
> 2. Capital gains 6 > 12 months - 45% tax on capital gains
> 3. Capital gains 1 > 2 yeas - 35% tax on capital gains
> 4. Capital gains 2 > 5 years - 18% tax on capital gains
> 5. Capital gains 5+ years - 5% tax on capital gains
> 6. Most critical of all — Institute a capital gains tax of 55% on
> ALL short sales not directly tied to a long buy by a licensed hedge
> fund.

Great Depression Not Imminent, But Inevitable

Rants about the impending end of the world by aarc and other on SA make me confident the bottom is in sight. Even if the USA is going to hell in a hand basket, there are plenty of lucrative places to invest during the Chinese-Indian-Brazili... Century

Are Index Funds the Only Rational Choice?

BobHank,

I think the biggest problem w/O'Shaugnessy's Funds were the timing. Fundamentals & Quantatative analysis didn't matter in the late 90's! When I first got into the investing game (1997) I tried to utilize these methods, got P.O.'d that the NASDAQ kept making everybody rich. So wanting my fair share I threw in the towel and joined the madness just in time (Feb 2000) to lose 40% of my portfolio (which thankfully was pretty small, but the loss still stung).

I'd love to see a study or something showing on how a portfolio using his method picked in 1995 would've held up. I'd not be surprised to find that the 1995-2008 returns probably would've been comprable to the S&P, DJIA, QQQQ with a lower Beta over the period.

Remeber when you buy SPY for every DELL, MSFT, and other star performer you also get stuck with overleveraged stinking corpses like AIG, F, GM, Enron, and WorldCom.


On Dec 15 01:11 PM BobHank wrote:

> One of the best sources on backtesting stocks is O'Shaugnessy's "What
> Works on Wall Street". He wrote this in 1995. He analyzed and came
> up with different portfolios, that he then went on to backtest. He
> came up with 5 different portfolios that were built on a risk tolerance.
>
> He started a fund company and offered these funds.
>
> His funds massively underperformed, even before 2000. He closed the
> funds.
>
> His analysis is superb in the book. To this day, i don't have a rational
> explanation for why it failed Others will use their 20/20 hindsight
> to tell me why O'Shaughnessy's analysis and portfolios didn't work.
> But his approach is the same presented by Mr. Considine.
> The book is well worth your time.

Friday Market Preview: Was Dow 8,000 the Bottom?

CLH,

I'm afraid the problem with that is marginal tax rates were WWAAAYYY lower in the 1940's. When the average Federal Tax rate is 3% (granted I think the top rate was 80% or so) its easy to double even triple the tax rate to grow revenue. When the top tax rate is 35% not much room for growth w/o the rate becoming punitive. I just saw some left-wing German wants to raise the top rate to 80% on incomes over $750k, its a bit much in my mind.

On Nov 14 05:51 AM CLH wrote:

> Where did the money come from in the 1940s war? Our debt was 5 times
> larger then today (%of GDP). We soon paid it off with no inflation.
> This is what ended the depression. Spend--spend spend.