a believer

S&P 500: Inflation Adjusted Chart Looks a Little Different

Great perspective.

When you say *...the chart doesn’t show the massive double top...* to me it shows very clearly. (??)

I am curious - what is the second suppot level (1968 top) you show in today's index value? It looks like about 650.

Richard Russell: Bear Market Remains in Force

Eventually the only option the US government has is to print its way out and devalue the dollar, thereby decreasing the national debt which will be in relatively fixed dollars. This argues well for gold and commodities ownership long term. In the short term there will be bear market rallies.

Why would the government ban 'paper gold' (gold futures) ownership? I don't see why this would happen or how it would benefit the government.

Sentiment Overview: Pessimists Increase by 18%

Herbert Hoover:

I have to totally disagree.

Sell what you have left during the next bear market rally and invest what's left in a precious metals ETF or physical gold and silver coins. Or at least hold onto the cash until inflation starts its inevitable ramp up and then find a way to protect its value. That is, if its not too late.

Speaking of ramp-ups, check out GOE daily! Is this a harbinger of the infaltion to come?


On Feb 21 06:18 PM Herbert Hoover wrote:

> There's no reason to sell now. You may as well just sit there and
> watch it run its course.

Sentiment Overview: Pessimists Increase by 18%

My father-in-law spent most of his cash on tech stocks and blue chips in the fall of 2000 (at the peak).

He had a stroke and died in December of that year. The following month his wife called Schwab repeatedly and tried to get them to sell the stocks. Scwab would not sell them because the stocks were not in her name.

The crash came in March 2001, and again last year. She still owns those stocks but they are worth only a small fraction of what they paid for them 9 years ago, and of course they are still going down. The tech stocks fell 89% in 2001 and they are now back below those levels. Like many of you I think the blue chips have alot further to fall in the weeks and months to come, since they are only down about 50% from the 2007 peak.

This is just a lesson for those of you who don't think it will happen to you. In the midst of this market carnage, you need to have a well thought out exit strategy.

The Sound and the Fury in the Markets

Do you think everyone is realizing that the shyster banks add no value to anything - they just subtract it - and that's why they are shrinking to zero?

The Sound and the Fury in the Markets

You mean there's no such thing as a Hedgie Zombie?


On Feb 20 10:53 AM ROLEXDAYTONA wrote:

> The hedge funds are liquidating, even the biggest ones, it will go
> on and on and on till 90% of hedge funds will be gone.
> There is no place for gambling, there is no money available to a
> hedgies from investment banks, theres is no investment banks either
> left, investors requests for money back will make this industry look
> like Jurrasic Park in few years, the scam is the word of the day,
> nobody knows what a portfolio is worth, people panic, who cares about
> some graphs, there is no prove for nothing, portfolios that looked
> 20% up turned to be a black holes.
> The hedge funds as an industry are dead, this is history you are
> witnessing today.

Panic in CDS Market to Cause Next Collapse in Equities

The plug has been pulled...

Someone said: Let There Be No More Leveraged Debt Industry

and POOF! It was gone.

The world is a better place for it.

Last Thursday Was the Bottom - It's Time to Get Back in

This market is just back to its previous trading range.

Stay in cash unless you are a successful day-trader. When I survey the corporate landscape, I see that that the dominoes have just started to fall.

Nassim Taleb: Renegade Trader with Renegade Ideas - That Work

Excellent article - the only one I've seen yet at Seeking Alpha that gets close to describing how to make money in the markets, which is to have the discipline and cash to survive multiple small losses until the inevitable big win comes along.

The kicker is that this strategy only works because most traders are addicted to the the entertainment value of gambling in the markets - very entertaining but a sure loser long term. Look at Cramer, the biggest loser of them all, and the most entertaining.

If you look into the really serious research that has been done on mechanical trading systems, they all point to the same answer: the more boring the system, the more money it makes. The best mechanical systems lose money most of each year, but the few winning streaks that occur make up for all of the small losses.

Planned, Cautious Buying Amidst This Panicked Selling

Next stop for the SPX: 650

Good probability of getting there in the next dew days.

Next stop below that: 450

Cash is king for now, unless you have a trading strategy suited to this new, 'limit-down' market.

Survival of the Longest

Only gold can save us now? I doubt it. You are assuming large numbers of people will start to value good as a medium of exchange, which to me is unlikely.

No, what will 'save us now' is providing REAL goods and services that other people want and need.

Right now, I would take Leveraged Debt off that list.

Seeking the Fix That Will Finally Work

In our local paper, the October 10 front page news, ‘Nothing stops stock plunge,’ about the 679 point plunge in the stock market on Oct. 9, was accompanied by ‘They all filled up for $20, and now they’re all wanted,’ and article about ‘possibly hundreds’ of criminals stealing from a local company by participating in a gas card scheme.

Both articles are actually about the same thing: how far we have fallen, and how much farther down we have to go.

Where Are We in the Stock Market Cycle?

Good article. A rule of thumb is that markets tend to retrace 50% before a countertrend rally which would take us to Support 2. But if you look at NAS 100 after the 2000 crash, it dropped about 85% before recovering which takes us somewhere south of Support 3.

I'd say this is alot more like the NAS 100 bubble, and probably alot worse.

So, nothing worth betting real money on here. Stay in cash (or gold).

History Shows We Can Rally and Rebound

1) Is this like the crash of the 1930's? Yes, it is shaping up to be very similar. There was a 90% drop in '29-'32. Then there is a high probability that we have a long way to go yet - something like Dow 14,000 to 1,400.

2) When I look at the chart I do not see many trade-worthy rallies.

The message: stay in cash.

Don’t Blame Wall Street - At Least Not Completely

The next 10 days will be very interesting, likely a worldwide market cataclysm such as we have not yet seen. It has been decreed to occur - to those who have been worshipping at the golden calf called The Market.

"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return."

Genesis 3:17-18

Painful? Yes.

Necessary? Absolutely.