Anyone watch the stock market these days, or is it too painfull? The Dow is back to Oct 96 levels! It's currently at 6800. You think the housing market is bad. The high for the Dow was Oct 2007 at 14,146. It's now at 6763. That's a loss of 53%! And the large financial companies are STILL carrying all that toxic crap.
Last year I thought the Dow would bottom around 7500. In anticipation of this I moved all my 401k investments to the safest fixed income accounts I could. That probably saved my 40 to 50% of my retirement savings (what little I have). I thought my predictions were probably on the pessimistic side but as we can see I was actually overly optimistic. Has the Dow bottomed out? It's hard for me to see how it could have. With all those toxic assets still littering the books of the major financial institutions and the economy falling apart faster than a Kia, it's a little hard to believe the bottom is here.
If you really want to be depressed watch Dr. Doom (Roubini)
So who the hell is buying homes in this environment?
3 comments:
I'm guessing you won't be buying anytime soon, X! I thought you were about ready to get off the couch?
Many people have heard about the Crash of 1929 but few know stocks continued to decline and lost 95% of their value in a 3 years period. The market took until 30 years to regain its value.
I ask everyone to go to Yahoo Finance and look at the chart of the Dow, even all the way back too the Depression.
In the past 20+ years (from 1987 to today), the Dow increased from 2,000 to over 14,000. Now thats a problem!
thank heavens we rolled my husband's old 401 into an indexed fund. my ancient 401 has basically gone back to what it was worth when it started - i foolishly avoided rolling it because i didn't want to pay the fees. big fat sigh.
I was out near the peak. I've bought and sold SDS three times this year. Sadly, my last buy was at $77 and I sold at $90, thinking the PPT would defend the market. It closed at $109 today. ARGGHHH!!! Market timing is always tough.
Anyway, you should keep watching the market very closely. Even if you're out, it can affect your life. Think about this... if it continues to drop, pensions will go bust and retirees will stop getting paid. There are many stories out there on the topic; this is real.
Final note:
Cash is king until it's not, and when it's not you need to be out.
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