genauer

4 Ways to Profit from Germany, Country with the Smallest Stimulus Package

The German DAX (^GDAXI) (upper 30 values) as the other mid MDAX (EXS3.DE) and small TecDax (EXS2.DE) are all engineering / investment industry heavy. No retail / commodities / real estate.
That means that global boom/bust cycles are larger by a factor of 2-3 compared to US & average Europe.

Average German Consumers dont buy trains, power stations, lathes, bottling & labeling machines etc. There is no "domestic demand substitution"

If you hope for a short recession ending 4Q2009 Germany may be a good bet. If you fear a depression until 2013, not so

S&P 500 Price Growth: 1927-Aug 2008

Hi folks,
my first post here.
You can get similar data from a website of NY Econ. Prof Adamodar.
Nice excel sheet, compares to TBill and Treas and enables you to calculated the whole thing, including dividend, tax, and inflation for yourselve. It gives you an avg real rate of 4.4 %, and shows a drop of the real value by a factor of 0.67 between 1968 and 1981, instead of going up the expected factor 1.75. You see also a 35 year period wave in it, the next bottom would be 2012-2013. I mean, this is just a rerun of 1973. Everything is in place: a lost war, make it two, yeah, "honorable return home" it will be called, exploding oil prices, a dishonest GOP prez. The value of all that debt can only be devalued with inflation. An unemployment of 9 % (ca 12 % in 70ties definitions) will teach Americans to live with 10 - 15 % less, and things will be allright again, just not in the next 5 brutal years. Other countries had to swallow the same medicine