Tricky

Three Reasons Why Investors Should Worry About Bank Nationalization

Author wrote -- "A further 25% drop in house prices is a very severe assumption; house prices are already close to their long-term equilibrium in terms of their ratio to earnings, so a 25% further drop would imply a “bear market” similar to that in stocks. That seems unlikely; the traditional level of U.S. house prices was a rather smaller multiple of earnings than in most other industrial economies, so a sustained drop below that level should meet with an upsurge of new demand from renters who could now afford homes"

Although the US may not have gotten as overblown as Spain or Ireland, it was still quite overblown and still has a ways to go in falling back to levels that match up with income affordability (endangered income, at that) . Let's also recognize that overshoots happen frequently when corrections take place. Predictions are a fools errand, but I'll venture in anyway. Based on the data I've been seeing (i.e., Case Shiller), I'd say a further 10% drop is almost a no-brainer, 15% drop probable, 20% drop possible, and 25% certainly not implausible.

Financial Terrorism? - Cramer's Stop Trading! (9/18/08)

Just to explore Cramer's theory... if this is financial terrorism, are the terrorists really going to have anything to fear regarding the rules?