What can we do?  The Country is for sale.

The markets are going to hit 52 week lows.

I've got a suggestion for anyone with money in the market.  Sell off you holdings and give the money to me.  You'll achieve the same outcome (lose everything) but you'll help a fellow AR owner (me). [;)]

I'm loving it right now. Stocks are low, I've got plenty of cash and I'm socking them away. TXN at less than $30 a share can't be beat. The market is definately turning around and the longer the naysayers keep up the "sky is falling" act the earlier I can retire.

Yall do me a favor and keep selling off technology [:)]

Market is likely to slide along relatively flat for the balance of the year with recovery in 2003.
State revenues seem to lag the national recovery by a few months.  I'm thinking by the second quarter of next year things will be looking.......up.

Not that any of this crap matters unless you're buying the market vs. individual stocks.  Looks like a good time to slowly add.  Definitely no hurry.  (But what do I know?)
The louder and more hysterical the wailing the closer the time to buy.  (This I do know.)

Now there's a smart Pony !  [:D]

That is my thoughts also.

If you are able to put cash in your 401k DO IT.

If you find guns or ammo on sale you jump on it right.

Start jumping

[:D]

Just remember the old saying... "Don't try to catch a falling knife." [;)]

I've got a bit of money in the game, not a lot, but some.  It's doubled in the past couple years because I invest for the long term in "VALUE" based stocks versus "Growth" stocks, many of which are based on wishful thinking and vaporware. In particular I have a chunk of money in one retail corporation that has been quietly plugging along and expanding it's operations carefully both in the US, Canada and overseas in the UK. They haven't been a Wall Street sweetheart because they don't play the wall street game.  But with the recent collapse of many of the Dot Bombs and vaporware high tech firms, people have been re-evaluating their expectations.

What happened today is that two execs up and left their positions, one shot himself to death and the other simply resigned under fire.  This, combined with the Enron fiasco has demonstrated to some folks that an unhealthy attitude has crept into the executive culture where the so-called leaders of many companies are so busy toadying up to stockholders and wall street that they neglect the health and viability of their companies. The result is a loss of faith in the leadership of these companies and the top-level execs who run them. THus falling stock prices.

I actually think that this is a good thing in the long run.  Why?  Because it will force companies to reshuffle their cultures and reconsider the people they hire in their top positions as well as the levels of responsibility for corporate health they are required to take on.

In my opinion, high level executives whose companies fail under their leadership should LOSE their compensation packages rather than being rewarded with golden parachutes.   If the health of the execss paychecks are tied to the health of their companies, they will be forced to focus on that goal rather than on making the stockholders as much money as possible.  Likewise their compensation should be adjusted for legal difficulties and scandals that come up during their watch.  

I think the current state will put some real emphasis on Ethical leadership in corporate culture and requiring executives to be trustworthy and loyal to the company, not just their paychecks.

Maybe I'm entertaining some wishful thinking, but, I think this is a good thing.  Of course I have 35 years to go before retirement so the negative side of a stock market problem has less of an impact on me.

Share the Wealth!

My guess - PETM.  Of course it's just a guess.  Nice little retail chain doing biz in US and Canada.  I'll have to check to see if it has a UK connection.

[url]http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/SC.web?c=petm[/url]

I think you hit the nail on the head there.
It becomes the tail wagging the dog when CEO's & CFO's are beholden to the stock price at the expense of what is the best long term strategy for the company.  They are often more concerned with the short term enhancement of Their stock options then making sure the company will be profitable & viable for years to come.
 IMHO that would be better for shareholders,executives,employees & customers.



I fear your overly optimistic on this one.
If it happend it will be short lived.
Greed is an inevitable part of the human psyche.

Invest in FADS and lose money. Do your homework, invest LONG TERM and make money. Balance your investment. If you can't properly diversify cause you do not have the cash, that's what mutual funds are for.

No arguments here!

I am a mutual fund guy my self.  I do not like to invest in individual stocks.

Janus Mercury is at a 5 year low.

It blew by the 9/11 low and is still dropping quick.

I just bought in at 17.34 or so.  That is the cheapest I have ever seen it.

Ye gods, the Bull testostrone in this post is up to my ankles, your all talking steaks.

It's like watching the dance band on the Titantic.

Let me just ask you guys one thing. Why should we care about the stock market? Actually, let me apply that question to capital markets in general. Our trust has been grossly violated by finance and business communities. They cook the books, fudge the numbers and then come up with all sorts of lies to defraud the American public. You can buy stocks, bonds, financial instruments, but do you know what you're really buying other than an abstract concept with theoretical value?

Everytime these guys get accused of wrong doing, they settle out of court and get a slap on the wrist fine which is dwarfed by their profits from defrauding the American public. I will refuse to put money into financial markets until they satisfactorily prove to me that they have truely fixed things in the financial community.

With the current state of our capital markets, the lack of transparency prevents any sort of real investing. Unless you have insider information, you're just gambling. BTW, another broken aspect of our capitalism, corporate governors are egregiously indifferent to shareholder concerns. They give executives huge compensation packages despite massive losses and poor performance. They structure deals so that shareholders get minimal say in them. And what happened to dividends? What's with all this retained earnings BS? The executives get paid but the shareholders don't? WTF? People seem to forget that the shareholders own the company. The executives are merely employees.

Jz02....I hope that you and Ted Kazinski are very happy in  that shack out it the woods....Really

Remember the saying, the fool and his money are soon parted.

American investors have been played for fools once (in this decade) already. Remember, screw me once, shame on you, screw me twice, shame on me.

Financial capitalism as we know it is broken. Look at Japan, their banks destroyed their economy with inefficient allocations. Similarly, our financial markets are broken, without transparency there can be no efficient allocation of capital. As a result large sums of money will get squandered in ridiculous investments. We're no better than the Japanese.

Jz02=BoG2.0

FearAndLoathing, what do you have against JZ02??  He happens to be right.

The bubble wasted a decade worth of investment capital.  Companies poured literally billions of dollars down the toilet and bought nothing with it.  Where I worked a couple of years ago, the company had huge parties every Friday -- beer, sushi, expensive little goodies.  Everyone in the company had the right to charge meals to the company if they stayed past 6pm, which meant that people stayed late and blew $100 on dinner at the stockholders' expense.  All that money got flushed within a day or two of being consumed.

Even today, the stock market is drastically overvalued compared to historical prices.  It'll go sideways or down for the next year, at least, after which people are going to start realizing that the economy has stagnated.

The "recovery" was supposed to be in 4Q2001.  Then people noticed it wasn't happening, and then September 11th happened, and the recovery got pushed back to 2Q2002.  Well, that came and is almost gone, and nothing happened, and people are talking about "maybe in 2003".

My current guess is that we'll be lucky to have a recovering economy by 2004.  More likely, it will remain stagnant until people begin to realize it's not going to get better any time soon, and then the economy will slide further as they reel in their spending and try to stick things out for the long haul.

JMHO.

where is CAPITALIST when we need him?

Many of you remind me of all the young traders who have only seen a stock market that soars.  They know nothing of bear markets, and are used to "put money in, get more money out".

Guess what?
People make money when the stock market is up, and people make money when it's down.
If it was as easy as you've been lead to believe, everyone would be a billionaire.  My money grew during the past year, ESPECIALLY the money I have in stocks.

i'm diversifying my portfolio.
i'm investing in real estate(land in the mountains), commodities (brass, lead), chemicals(smokeless powder), transportation (fix my jeep), energy (gas, kerosene, solar shower),  consumer goods (TP) and entertainment(more books). all set for the duration.

This downturn in the market must be looked at by all astute investors as a buying opportunity.

Call your broker! ;)

7th

I sell stocks that are bad, and buy stocks that are good.

When fools sell stocks because they think the stock market is "scary", or because they "think" as jz02 does....

....often, they're selling the bad and the good (because, as I said, they're fools). I'll buy the good.

It's still a point of academic debate whether stock picking really works. It has been argued that the financial markets behave like a random walk. But that's all beside the point as that applies to short term speculation.

For long term fundamental investing, you would need to rely on the honesty and competence of the financial and business communities. With our current lack of transparency, there's no way to invest intelligently.

The only ones who lost significantly are the ones who believed all the hype and bought at the top.  The economy has been a fraud for about 6 years, and some could make the case for more.  The Clinton administration hyped up all their friend-sectors to make themselves and their "watch" look good.  Al Gory invented the internet, didn't he?  So, it stands to reason they'd talk it all up.  Didn't the dot coms have something to do with....?  Oh Well.  And, the reports coming out of the feudal system called the federal bureaucracy really wouldn't make them look bad either.

I've been out of the market for 2 years, just sitting on the sidelines.  Looked like bullshit to me then, and I'm still waiting for it to settle.  Needs a final hysteria, in my view.

Amazing still how some people always have, and always will manage to grow their money in the Market.

Maybe, just maybe you're just not really speaking from experience?

Perhaps, jz02, you're speaking from somewhere else entirely..... [moon] hmmm?

Sure there is!

But first let's see how to invest UNintelligently.

Like putting ALL your retirement money into stock with ONE company - especially the company you work for. Stupid, very studpid.

Like the foolish Enron employees who put EVERTHING into Enron stock because they were so greedy they couldn't pass up the great matching funds. When a fool is so wreckless with their own money this way, their sob stories of lost pensions don't move me very much regardless of how corrupt the company bigwigs were.

How to invest intelligently:
1) Think Longterm, Think Longterm, Think Longterm.
2) Diversify, Diversify, Diversify.

This GREATLY reduces the risk of limited "transparency" in companies as well as all other risks (including the GREATEST risk - your own stupidity).


If you have the majority of your portfolio in stocks and you need that money in 5 years or less... you're an idiot.

If you're only holding a handful of companies in your portfolio (regardless of your investment horizon)... you're an idiot.

Stock-picking is gambling, not investing.

It is very easy to confuse skill and luck in the matter of stock picking.

If you're speaking of buying indices and holding them for long term rather than specific stocks, then that's a completely different matter. If you are speaking of long term investment vehicles, then I'd say that real estate is as least as good as stocks. Real Estate offer far more option for leverage and if your investment plans are well structured, they offer a steady stream of income, much like stock dividends would, but unfortunately most stocks don't pay dividend anymore. Also, real estate income counts as passive and gets better tax treatment.

No options for me to vote on. Stock market's a bunch of thieves, commodities for me, that and tangibles like real estate and toilet paper....

how do you do research if you can't be sure the numbers are right?

how do you do research if you can't be sure the numbers are right?

The stock market is not the economy.  The economy (as measured by GDP) grew in 2001Q4, and grew more in 2002Q1. There's some debate as to whether this is an official recession or not, since recessions are usually defined by two quarters of negative growth, and there was only one down quarter in 2001Q3.

Productivity growth is still strong. This is important; productivity took an upward swing in the mid-90's, after 20 years of low numbers, and has been high ever since.

The computer and telecom industry are probably going to be the last sectors to recover. There's still too much of an overhang in the computer market, and the telecom industry could take years to use up all that excess fiber. Not to mention all the fiber companies in bankruptcy who are being restructured (sorry, bond holders!) and can operate at low cost. I don't think the computer industry is going to start to go until sometime next year.

There are some (what I think are) bargains out there now. Web services are going to be the Next Big Thing.

Will the stock market go up? Dunno. The PE is kinda high (around 25 for the SP when a more reasonable number would probably be 20) but I've been wrong before. I stick mostly to index funds, spread between large, medium, and small caps, plus some bond funds. I'm fairly close to mirroring the entire US economy.

The stock market's (S%P500) historical returns average to about 10-11%/year over 70+ years.

Q: What has a greater track record of returns than that over the long term? (Data please)

Hint: it starts with "N".

Personally I think that the tech market is going to take forever to recover. Which in a way is good. We are finally compenstating for all the hype that we just went through.

I never did buy into the dot.bombs. Call me old fashion, but I couldn't buy stock in a company that didn't produce anything tangeable. Some thing, anything they could put for colateral. Unfortunately, most companies have gone with JIT (Just In Time), which limits what inventory they have on hand. It is great for keeping costs down for inventory that goes out of fade.

But only if JIT is done right, can a company save money. Don't know how many manufacturing companies I have seen that talk about JIT, but end up loosing money because they are waiting for one freaking part, that didn't get shipped in time. Most of the assembly line personal are just standing there saying "Why didn't someone order extra last time?" Now they have to hold up the line, pay extra for overnight delivery.

But back to the tech market. I am waiting for the next "IT" to make it big. PC's aren't it anymore. Network... nothing truely revolutionary lately. If anything does come out, it gets tied up with people saying "is it backwards compatable?" then bastardizing it to make it backwards compatable.

Medical tech looked promising, but again it is now being tied up with regulations (like it always is). About the only thing that looks somewhat interesting is gene sequencing (maping DNA). Companies are quiet on this, but they are going great guns on tech to do this work.

(just some personal observations, rants)

Ninjas?

The problem with the market right now is that it has depended on foreigners investing over $1 billion PER DAY in the U.S. as the other side of our trade deficit.  The fact that the markets are falling as is the dollar is a sobering wakeup call.  Foreign investors see better potential returns outside the U.S.  Without these inflows our market will continue down, probably to half of current levels over the intermediate term if history is any guide.

Think of balancing your net worth with some hard assets - real estate and stuff you could actually live on, like more than a week's supply of food, some ammo, etc.  It is only over the last century or so that paper wealth has gained respectability.  It used to be that only hard assets meant wealth.  Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back the other way.

The only stocks I can afford are the beat up ones that Fred sells for $5.

Someone help me out.

Yeah, plus, the interest rates are at a point now where it'd be difficult for the feds to lower them even further. It'd be safe to assume that from here on the only way they're going is up, and rising interest rates cut into the performance of equity markets because it raises the opportunity costs of investing in the equity markets and also raises the cost of capital for businesses thus cutting into profits. In addition to the pulling back of foreign capital, I'd say stuff like real estate would be a much better bet.

Just yesterday I heard that the Europeans are the ones selling off American stocks.

They said, this is what is causing the constant downward spiral.

They, were NPR.

Yes I listen, It is wise to know your enemy as well as yourself.

Lets see if this week is a better one.

My retirement goes into a fixed rate acount that earns a little over 7% every year. I'm doing much better than my coworkers who buy mutual funds or individual stocks.

Um, not necessarily. Not every company is Coke or Walmart. The guys who invested "long term" in covered wagon wheels and butter churns have certainly lost everything by now. It's not enough to just leave you money there and assume it will grow. If you pick the wrong product you will lose it all.

Which doesnt mean a damn thing. It certainly doesnt mean you can throw your money in and expect that rate of return.

Pick the wrong company and you will lose everything.

Are you planning to move it to mutual funds at some point?

I am in my early 30s and plan to retire in 20 years.

7% fixed just won't cut it for me.

I go in and out of the market for best return.

The DOW is down another 340 point right now.

We will see the DOW at 6000 before we will ever see the NASDAQ at 6000.

Good luck

It is not a game of finances anymore.

It is a game of emotions.

I am a DOLLAR-COST-AVERAGING freak!!!!

Buy buy buy!!! (Mutual funds, of course...)

Us young pups can afford to do this, since we are further from retirement..

mug