Originally Posted By hopemax Down another 678.91 to 8579.19. One year ago it was at 14,164. That's almost a 40% drop. And I don't feel confident we are anywhere near the bottom yet. Throughout all of this all I can hear in my head is Samuel L. Jackson in Jurassic Park..."Everyone hold on to your butts."
Originally Posted By vbdad55 90 days ago a trader I have known for a long time told me he feared a drop before the election ( no - no conspiracy theory as to why, just was the timeframe) - and that the 'bottom' could be 7500 - 8000. I dismissed it at the time-- but it sure appears we couldbe there - maybe by the end of this week ! Trippy - was this another glass half full day ? Man I'd like to be as positive as you are- but taking daily hits like this - I just don't know how
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy Black Thursday -- another deja vu moment from 1929. I'm putting some chips in now. I think we might be set up for some gains in the next few months at this point.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<Trippy - was this another glass half full day ? Man I'd like to be as positive as you are- but taking daily hits like this - I just don't know how>> Sooner or later it has to go up.
Originally Posted By hopemax I know very little about economics, but I don't think things are going to stabilize until the election, whomever wins. An Obama Presidency or a McCain Presidency would look very different economic policy wise. Hard to plan a future when you don't know what you are going to have to work with.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>An Obama Presidency or a McCain Presidency would look very different economic policy wise.<< My suspicion is that they're already assuming it's going to be Obama. I don't think the downward spiral has that much to do with the election. It's all about housing values and credit and nobody having any idea how screwed up (or not) the various large banks are.
Originally Posted By Mrs ElderP I'm hoping the election, no matter what it's result is the excuse the stock market needs to stablize. Today I had fun scaring myself by reading up on the great crash of 1929. According to the most omnicient Wikipedia the stockmarket ultimatly lost 89% of it's value from Sept. '29 to July '32. The DJIA ultimatly took till late 1954 to recover its 1929 levels. That's how bad it could get: 90% of value gone (so far we've lost about 30%) and TWENTY-FIVE years to recover, UCK!!
Originally Posted By DyGDisney The dow has actually lost 39.4% as of today. Disney stock is waaaay down. We know a guy who cashed his in a couple weeks ago when it was over $34.00/share. Now it's around $23.00.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Sooner or later it has to go up.*** There's optimistic, and then there's naive. Sunday night I started this topic with my concerns, and Roadtrip dismissed them. Now here we are on Thursday and the crap certainly HAS hit the fan just as I feared. Sorry, RT, but at this point you just sound naive. This sort of percentage drop over a few days IS 1929 level stuff. Look at the comparable percentages here. And folks in 1929 also said "it has to go up sometime". And it did of course. But not before going ALL the way down first. I hope that doesn't happen. But let's not be naive here. Things are NOT good economically for the planet right now. Time to start stocking up on canned goods and guns, maybe? Yikes.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Today I had fun scaring myself by reading up on the great crash of 1929. According to the most omnicient Wikipedia the stockmarket ultimatly lost 89% of it's value from Sept. '29 to July '32.*** You think THAT'S bad? Worse is happening, right now as we speak. For example, the Russian market is down 87% YEAR TO DATE, and is closed until further notice. That makes the "great crash" look like child's play!
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << And folks in 1929 also said "it has to go up sometime". And it did of course. But not before going ALL the way down first. >> After the 1929 crash, though, the market recovered a lot until well into 1930 -- that's when it started its long downward slide that coincided with the Great Depression. I think there's potential for a lot of short-term recovery. How these banks recover, unemployment, and other factors will determine where the market goes from there. The trend all through the week has pretty much matched the market behavior of 1929. I'm going to get some money (not all of it) that we see a recovery in the next 6 months just like the period from 1929-1930. I think history might be repeating itself.
Originally Posted By barboy ///Time to start stocking up on canned goods and guns/// ----Netflix time.... let's see, hmmm??? how about either 'A boy and his Dog', 'Water World' or 'The Road Warrior'.
Originally Posted By Mr X Nikkei lost another some 880 points today, nearly 10 percent again. DOW overnight futures as low as -300 once again. At this point, all we can hope for is that this week isn't the setup for the mother of all crashes on Monday (essentially this week WAS a crash, just a strangely slow one, so I'm hopeful it won't come to that).
Originally Posted By Mr X ***lets face it; I win as far as predicting today would not be "the big one". OPTIMISM RULES!! Is it one helluva lot more optimistic a result than what was expected by those who thought today would be equivalent to Black Monday 1929? You bet it is! In 1929 stock value dropped 13% on Black Monday. Today stock value dropped 3.58%. The two figures are worlds apart. I have never in my life seen people who are such a bunch of downers as exit on this board.*** As of now, the market has dropped 16.9 percent in four days. Hardly "worlds apart" at this point, RoadTrip. Granted not quite as impressive as Black Monday (though it was pretty much exactly the same here in Japan), but I think your sarcasm is unfounded here at this point to be honest. I wasn't predicting bad stuff this week just to be a chicken little or anything, I do have a lot of research behind my comments. So I predicted the potential for a catastrophic situation, and we got one. YOU pulled some sort of prediction off of a ray of sunshine you found in the backyard, and then patted yourself on the back. Like I said, there's a difference between optimistic and naive. Naively optimistic with a sarcastic streak is particularly annoying.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Where was the DJIA ten years ago? Thanks for asking! On October 16, 2008 the DJIA closed at 8,416.76, AFTER the largest weekly gain in history.*** You're welcome. And with the DOW closed today at 8579 (let's ignore for a second the collapsing overnight futures), ~drumroll please~ if you had invested 10 years ago you would find yourself with a yearly return today of... 0.19% Geez, I think I can do better than that in a Japanese bank! (it's only funny if you know that Japanese banks don't pay jack)
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy The really scary thing about all of this is the unknown impact to the millions of Baby Boomers who are on the brink of retirement. What did this week's crash do to the pension funds that are left in America? 401(K)'s? I know the commentators will suggest that Baby Boomers just work longer instead of retire, but that's not a real likely scenario. If we see a massive wave of job cuts and layoffs, it's fair to assume that companies will likely seek to shed their older, more expensive workers first. That's usually how these things work.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "I know the commentators will suggest that Baby Boomers just work longer instead of retire, but that's not a real likely scenario. If we see a massive wave of job cuts and layoffs, it's fair to assume that companies will likely seek to shed their older, more expensive workers first. That's usually how these things work." And then they'll all hit on Social Security as a supplement. As soon as Obama takes office doing something about Soc Sec should be his first priority.
