Horrible Stock Market

[so.cal.fan]

Are any of you still in it?
Now, I have posted here before about how none of us know enough to be pessimists, but geeeeee.....................
Is it ever going up again......ever?
I have switched my home page to GOOGLE, where I don't see a chart of the DOW and NASDAQ in RED everyday. It was getting PAINFUL!
I sure hope none of you lost as much money as I did in the CRASH OF 2000! If I had losing years at the track for the rest of my life, I couldn't possible lose as much!

:( :eek: :(

[PaceAdvantage]

It's tough to have much conviction in the face of cooked books, terrorist threats, and threatened nuclear conflict.....

Couple that with the tech-bubble burst of the last few years, and you wonder why the market isn't dropping further then it has....


==PA


PS. I'm still 'in it'. ;)

[ranchwest]

I've stayed with the Stable Value Fund. It wasn't very impressive when Yahoo! was going through the roof, but now that everything has passed me going the other way it is pretty good.

[Dick Schmidt]

So Cal and all,

In the middle of the Great Depression, Bernard Baruch (sp?), a famous investor of the time, mentioned during an interview that he had to leave early to go buy some stock. The reporter asked: What? Who is buying stocks now, during this horrible depression? The answer? The millionaires of the 1950's. He was, of course, completely correct.

Moral: the worse the news, the better time it is to buy. I bailed from the market in early 2000 when the news got just TOO good, too detatched from reality. When everyone wants to buy, be the guy selling to them. Right now seems like a great time to get back into the market. It's what the multi-millionairs of the 2020's are doing.

Dick

[so.cal.fan]

Thanks, men!

I made a profit selling Nextel and others when they were high.
However................I foolishly reinvested in the QQQ and a tech mutual fund.
I'll wait it out, like you guys say. Hope I live long enough.
I have a Verizon cell phone, and I get a message on it everyday, with the quote of the QQQ.
How do I get rid of that BAD NEWS everyday? I don't know how to get it off my cell phone. It really bums me out. I'm enjoying my day, I hear that little message beep, and see those CUBES going DOWN everyday! It is GRIM.
I was such a fool, telling everyone how stupid they were not to be investing in fiber optics and such. Now I shake when I have to go put my $2500 IRA into Charles Schwab S&P500 fund!
I think I'm losing on that too, but I'm too depressed to check.
I guess I haven't really lost until I sell at a loss.

[Rick]

Hang in there. Things should improve in the fall. I'm in a couple of mutual funds that did OK when everything else was going south. Find something that's done well over the last 3 years. It won't make you as much in a bull market, but you'll suffer less pain in the inevitable bear markets. There are some tools out there to help you reduce the volatility of your portfolio without sacrificing too much in return. The Oakmark funds are a good place to start. I was really impressed by their approach to finding value. And the main fund manager plays horses as a hobby! How about that for a compatible thinker.

[so.cal.fan]

Thanks, Rick.
I wrote that down, and I'll put my IRA in it!

[Rick]

so.cal.fan,

Yikes! I don't want to be responsible for stock market advice now. You're dealing with an amateur here. I'm about 50% invested in OAKBX and 50% in VWINX if anyone is interested. But, past performance is no guarantee of future whatever, blah, blah, blah! You know the mantra.

[so.cal.fan]

Rick!
How would you like to be in this position?
50% Nasdaq 100
50% Northern Technology Mutual Fund

ANYTHING is BETTER. LOL


PS
Is the market cruel or what you guys?
Most of the day, it looked like the Nas was going to stay in the green. No such luck.
Like a quitting favorite in the stretch..............lost again!

<sigh>:eek: :confused:

[Rick]

so.cal.fan,

Three ways to lose money these days: technology, technology, and technology. You need to be more diversified. Get into something really boring that is sure to grow as the population gets larger and older.

[David McKenzie]

Here are some notes I jotted down while watching Maria interview one of all my all time favorite investors. Take the advice with grain of salt.

Portfolio Advice from Sir John Templeton: 6/3/2002

1) Diversify- Never put over 50% over your money in anything, whether it be a country, industry or stocks.

2) No Hedge Funds

3) No stock market for at least the next three years



Preferred countries to invest in:
United States
Russia- close to entry level with everything
Bulgaria
Australia- not as hot as it was, but still good
New Zealand
South Korea- was good, but pretty much hard to find value now

[so.cal.fan]

David,
Forgive my "dumb question" but could you explain a Hedge Fund?

[David McKenzie]

Here's a fairly simple yet good explanation.

http://www.hedgefundresources.com/htmls/page2.html

*Note- I certainly don't agree with Sir John, as I'm a "player" in this game, but I defer to his wisdom advising non-players to steer clear.

[so.cal.fan]

Thanks, David
I am "hanging" onto Dick Schmidt's suggestions.
I'll hang in there. I have no choice, now.
I always prided myself on never being a sucker.
I always researched things well, before I laid down my bets.
Well..............Not only am I a sucker, I am a PRIZE SUCKER.
I knew NOTHING about the market, but jumped in there anyway.
GREED.
If the Stock Market was a mutual pool........boy, would you guys want So. Cal. Fan's "sucker" money in it!
:confused: :confused: :(

[Rick]

I lost 0.62% today, so don't necessarily listen to my advice. On the other hand, the S&P 500 lost 1.66% so I guess I should feel smart. You draw the conclusion here. Maybe I should have more invested in horses than the market. I definitely have a better annual ROI there. But I'll still bet at the end of this year I'll be doing very well in the market. Just my opinion though, I could be wrong.

[rrbauer]

Wow!

Maybe I shouldn't be here. I have a very simple formula that I follow:

Buy Low.

Sell High.

And, the patience to discern which is which.

And, a time-frame that will let it happen.

Back in the 60's when I was very wet behind the ears, a piece of advice came my way: When the public is "throwing away" their shares; that is the time to buy. And, when the public can't get enough and is bidding stocks up to new highs; that is the time to sell.

Sometimes this approach isn't easy to follow. Indeed, it isn't even easy to recognize. But, it works!

[so.cal.fan]

Wow, RRBAUER!

I sure wish I would have heard that back in 1999, but I probably wouldn't have believed it. LOL

I thought up a system, after the fact:
If a stock goes down 10% or more in one day, sell it.

Not that anyone would want to take stock advice from ME, but then again, I did LEARN the hard way! I LOST my money.

:( :( :(

[Racehorse]

(FIRST PART of two)

Simple and Solid, New Stocks

Emerge as Market's Leaders
By E.S. BROWNING
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The stock market looks awful. But maybe people are looking in the wrong place.

Despite big declines in the most visible market gauges during the past two years -- including a 70%
plunge since early 2000 for the Nasdaq composite -- a huge chunk of the stock market is doing just fine.

Nearly half of the stocks on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market have gained
ground since late March 2000, according to a study by
Birinyi Associates, a research and money-management firm in Westport, Conn. The rising stocks are up a median 53% over that period of more than two years, while the decliners have fallen a median 66%, Birinyi found.

Many of the stocks that have been holding up surprisingly well were scorned or ignored during the bull market. As these new market leaders quietly emerge from the
wreckage of the bust, they offer a potential lifeline for
investors who have been burned while waiting for International Business Machines Corp., General Electric
Co. or Cisco Systems Inc. to turn around.

"You've got to get a fresh new line of soldiers in there," says John Meara, president of money-management firm Argent Capital Management in St. Louis.

The new leaders -- stocks with the strongest gains since the market turned down -- come from a
number of categories. But they have one thing in common: Almost all of them avoided getting caught up
in the excesses of the late 1990s. They generally are smaller and less complex than the old leaders, and
they trade at a lower price, compared with their earnings. In recent months, some foreign markets also
have begun looking like winners, performing better than the U.S. market and causing investors to shift
money overseas.

The performance of this new group obviously hasn't
turned around the major indicators, such as the Dow
Jones Industrial Average or the Nasdaq Composite Index.
Both of those are dominated by bigger, better-known U.S.
stocks, whose declines statistically outweigh the gains of
the generally smaller companies that are doing well. In
addition, more people own the big popular stocks that
have been suffering than own the smaller, more obscure
stocks that have been gaining.

The shift to a new breed of winners is the latest example
of a longstanding historical trend. When one group of
stocks declines, it doesn't tend to bounce back and take
over leadership again. A different group tends to emerge
in that role.

In the 1970s, oil stocks dominated. By the 1980s, that
group was fizzling, replaced by fast-growing
consumer-product multinationals such as Coca-Cola Co.
and McDonald's Corp. The 1990s saw tech stocks taking
the lead, producing one of history's biggest stock bubbles.

So far this year, the big gainers cross a wide range of
groups, including home builders, health-care providers,
steel companies, clothing makers and restaurants.

Nearly 300 stocks have more than doubled in price in the
past 12 or 13 months. For example, robust consumer
demand has helped auto-parts retailer AutoZone Inc. post
strong sales growth. Michaels Stores, which sells
home-decorating items, has soared on the back of strong
home sales. Owens-Illinois Inc., which makes glass and
plastic containers, has benefited from strong profit gains,
although it and other economically sensitive stocks have
pulled back a bit recently amid fears of an economic
slowdown.

Some analysts think of the current winners as just a
transitional group of refuge stocks, whose steady
corporate performance amid the post-bubble turmoil drew
enough investment to turn them into gainers. These
analysts think that once the market gets through the
turmoil, a more tightly defined new group of leaders will
emerge. Among the candidates: health-care stocks
benefiting from the aging of America; financial or
consumer-related stocks gaining from prosperity and lower inflation; or perhaps a dark
horse, such as natural-resource stocks, which might repeat the strong performance of oil stocks in the 1970s.

Market leaders can retain their dominance for as long as a decade or as little as a few months. Whatever group emerges in the years to
come, many analysts warn that the huge, double-digit gains of the 1990s may not repeat themselves, as even the leaders put in more modest
gains.

Here are the new rules for a new set of leaders:

Simple and boring is better.

During the boom, the sought-after companies were high-tech concerns that used the latest financial engineering and were involved in new
industries and businesses. Today, "cutting-edge" and "complex" are bad words. Wallboard is good. Consider wallboard-maker Centex
Construction Products Inc., which is up nearly 50% in the past two years despite a recent pullback amid concerns that the housing
business could be cooling off. Simple accounting is especially desirable.

"We have diligently tried to scrub our portfolios of anything with creative accounting or financial engineering," says Tim Morris, chief
investment officer of New York money-management firm Bessemer Trust.

Mr. Meara of Argent Capital decided several months ago to check out energy supplier AES Corp. as a possible investment. AES stock had
lost half its value, due partly to the company's exposure to troubled foreign energy markets.

Thinking it might be a bargain, Mr. Meara traveled to AES's headquarters in Arlington, Va., to interview company executives.

"I couldn't figure it out," the money manager says of AES's business and financial structure. "I just said there are too many moving parts. ...
If you can't explain it to a five-year-old in five minutes, it's not worth taking the extra risk for it."

When Mr. Meara made his trip, AES was trading at about $35 a share, down from a high of about $70. Today, despite a sharp rebound last
week, it fetches less than $5, partly as a result of the hammering that energy companies have received in the wake of Enron Corp.'s
collapse. An AES spokesman declined to comment.

Today, Mr. Meara's holdings are focused on simpler names such as manufacturers Ingersoll-Rand Co., Eaton Corp. and Illinois Tool Works
Inc., railroad company Norfolk Southern Corp. and food-maker ConAgra Foods Inc.

"Our clients are pretty nervous," he says. "We tell them that we aren't gunslingers."

Bruce Simon, chief investment officer at Philadelphia money-management group Glenmede Trust, says he has sold technology stocks such
as Sun Microsystems Inc. and Solectron Corp. from most of his clients' portfolios. He has replaced them with names such as United Parcel
Service Inc., managed-care group Wellpoint Health Networks Inc. and specialty-gas maker Air Products & Chemicals Inc.

Small is better than big.

One of the best places to be during the late 1990s was in supersize stocks, companies such as Cisco, Sun Microsystems and AOL Time
Warner Inc. that dominated their markets and were diversified enough to offer investors several ways to win.

Now, with many big companies having trouble boosting sales, dealing with excess inventory and adjusting their accounting to the new
post-Enron conservatism, investors are looking to companies that didn't get caught up in the earlier euphoria. Small and midsize stocks,
which often out-gained big stocks during the 1970s and 1980s, once again are performing better than big ones.

Especially popular are small and midsize stocks in mundane businesses. Today they look both inexpensive and easy to understand.

Of the nearly 300 stocks that have doubled in price during the past year, all but 17 have market values below $1 billion, according to
Baseline, which tracks stock prices. "The average-Joe company is doing better than the big man on campus," says Jon Brorson, director of
stocks at Northern Funds, a money-management arm of Northern Trust in Chicago. "The big-cap, predominantly technology names still are
too high and still are overpriced. It is the little nerd that is probably coming into its own."

Small companies whose stock prices have more than doubled in the past year include Friendly Ice Cream Corp., with a total market value of
only about $50 million, Jo-Ann Stores Inc., with a market value of $500 million, and Johnson Outdoors Inc., with a market value of less
than $200 million.

[Racehorse]

Second Part

One drawback of smaller stocks is that detailed information about them can be less available than it is at big, heavily scrutinized companies
such as Microsoft Corp. or Intel Corp. That makes it more difficult for investors to anticipate developments, increasing the risk of a
company's suddenly blowing up from inexplicable causes. Over the past two years, some big companies such as Tyco International Ltd.
and, to a lesser degree, even GE and IBM have suffered from sharp stock declines, which has made some investors shrug off the risk of
small companies.

One way to get around the risk of small stocks -- including the concern that after two years of strength, they may be due for a setback -- is
by buying broad groups and indexes of them. That way it's possible that any stumbles in a few will be offset by gains in the rest.

Even some investors who still prefer large stocks are leaning toward the smaller members of that group. Merrill Lynch's U.S. investment
strategist Richard Bernstein likes to tell clients that they should be focusing not on the 50 biggest and most famous companies in the
Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, which were the big winners in the 1990s, but on what he calls "the non-nifty 450." Those stocks have
done better recently, and he thinks they will continue to do better. They often are less expensive than the mega-stocks, and they also are
less likely to have been caught up in the excesses.

In the 1990s, many investors focused their investments mainly on the biggest stocks in the S&P 500. Now, as those investors pull some
money out, it is those same big stocks that they are selling.

Cheap stocks are back.

In the boom, investors didn't worry much about a stock's price. If it traded at 100 times its projected earnings, that didn't matter -- as long
as it was thought to be a stock of the future. Dozens of stocks traded at lofty triple-digit multiples of their earnings.

Today, that fascination is gone: The stocks doing the best are "value" stocks, those that are trading at a relatively low price compared with
earnings.

Since the market's peak in March 2000, the stocks that have risen trade at a median price of only 18 times their earnings for the previous 12
months, according to Birinyi Associates. That compares with 23 times earnings for stocks that have fallen since March 2000.

The reason: In an effort to get away from the discredited boom mentality, investors are pulling money away from the darlings of the 1990s,
the stocks whose prices ran up the fastest. They are putting it in stocks that weren't involved in the boom, whose prices tended to remain
more moderate.

Auto-parts maker American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc., for instance, has a price-to-earnings ratio of 10. Owens-Illinois trades at
about 11 and home-builder Ryland Group Inc. at about 10. All these stocks have more than doubled in value in the past 12 or 13 months.

"In 2000, I had very smart people that I knew in the industry saying, 'forget valuation,' " says Mr. Meara of Argent Capital. "Well, forget
that. Valuations matter. Now everybody is looking at valuation, and they don't have any confidence in anybody's ability to execute."

In a similar shift, after scorning dividends for years, in favor of fast-growing tech companies that pay no dividends, investors once again
are starting to put money into companies such as tobacco maker Philip Morris Cos., which pays 4% of its stock price in dividends each
year.

Foreign is good.

Like small stocks, foreign stocks in the later 1990s became almost irrelevant to many investors, who noted then that the U.S. was virtually
the only major country with a booming economy amid a global slowdown.

For years before that, however, foreign stocks frequently did better than big U.S. stocks. Now foreign stocks are back. Tokyo's Nikkei
index is up 15% since February. The Korea Fund, a barometer of the South Korean stock market, has doubled since September.

As a result, some U.S. investors are shifting money abroad again. And some foreign investors, who had been pouring money into big U.S.
stocks in the late 1990s, now have begun to bring money back to their home markets -- or to other non-U.S. markets -- to the detriment of
the U.S. stock market. Foreign markets didn't boom the way the U.S. market did, and some investors think that now is their turn.

And even after the recent gains, "we find that international stocks look as cheap as, or cheaper than, U.S. stocks," says Mr. Simon of
Glenmede.

The S&P 500, for example, currently trades at around 2.8 times its companies' book value, or the value at which their assets are carried on
their balance sheets. The big foreign stocks in the widely used index of major foreign markets compiled by Morgan Stanley trade at about
2.1 times book value. That makes them appear substantially cheaper, despite the gains foreign markets already have made and despite the
drop in U.S. stock prices, Glenmede calculates.

Mr. Peters of PanAgora says his firm likes foreign banks, such as National Australian Bank, Royal Bank of Canada and Canadian Import
Bank. He also likes auto-parts company Valeo SA of France, Japan's Toshiba Corp. and Franco-Spanish tobacco company Altadis SA.

If the stock slide worsens, for example, or if investor skepticism surrounding accounting and corporate scandals spirals, even the
up-and-comers could be caught in the downturn.

But the fact that these kinds of companies have gone up as the indexes have crumbled is capturing the attention of some investors, who
now are forced to unlearn many of the rules of the bull market.

Tom Connolly, manager of the Twins Public House bar in midtown Manhattan, lost a bundle on stocks such as Yahoo Inc. and AOL. He no longer talks to clients about Internet stocks, but Mr. Connolly, 49 years old, hasn't stopped investing. Among his new picks: TeamStaff Inc., a small New Jersey provider of back-office payroll and temporary-staffing services, just the kind of company he would have shunned two years ago. TeamStaff's stock has made little progress since Mr. Connolly bought it, but at least it hasn't fallen through the floor.

"Right now I am just trying to take it easy," the bar manager says. "I want something I can watch each day where there won't be a lot of maneuvers, something where there isn't going to be some surprise coming out of nowhere that makes it crash to the bottom."

[so.cal.fan]

On June 7, so.cal.fan posted:
Horrible Stock Market



YIKES!!!!! Does anyone know a stronger word that horrible???
I'm hanging in there Dick, but it is PAINFUL!
I have to go down to VERIZON Monday and get them to take off my "message" on my cell phone. It gives me the NAS.100 everyday. Now that is GRIM!!!!!!!

As of 7:30 pdt. The Nas is up about $6.
No one write me back if it stays up, because it is just a
DEAD CAT BOUNCE. LOL

[superfecta]

but I see a massive "correction" coming.Has to happen.The market has been going too well.And if you say "well, I'm gonna ride it out cause statistics show that the stock market does better than other investments on average",got news for you-that was based on an average from the beginning of the market to today-over 100 years.That stat is true,but so is the stat favorites win 1/3 of the races.Doesn't make it a winning stat.

[Rick]

superfecta,

The "massive correction" may already have occurred on 9/11. The real concern to me is that the rules of the game might be radically different after that chaotic event. But, the whole idea of value in the stock market involves investor confidence, of which there is little if any these days. There must be massive amounts of money in low yield investments right now that won't even keep up with inflation. That would be a low risk but sure loss scenario that doesn't sound very attractive to me.

[so.cal.fan]

<SIGH>
I guess I'll just eat my losses! I'm glad most of you guys didn't get stuck as bad as I did. It is a real wakeup call for me: Don't invest in things you know NOTHING about!!!!!!!

:confused: :( :confused:

[Rick]

socal,

I wouldn't hope for much at least until July 4th is past. Everyone seems to think that a terrorist attack will occur around that time. But it's really irrational. We're down close to where we were shortly after 9/11 but nothing major has really happened since then. Even a major terrorist attack shouldn't cripple the economy although it certainly would shock people. We have, what, a trillion dollar GNP. Even a billion dollars in losses is only 0.1%. I'm getting really worried that people are willing to ruin their standard of living because of fear of terrorism. Isn't that exactly what they want?

Some are investing in international stocks now, but I don't think you can beat the US economy in the long run because the international equities have much higher volatility. Kind of like junk bonds to me. No thanks.

[Dick Schmidt]

Guys,

I don't think this is the time to "eat your losses" or "hold on." The worse the news, the more people predicting a huge "correction" the better it is. This is the time to BUY!

Dick

P.S. Check back in 10 years and we'll see who's right. Until then, no one knows. Certainly not me.

[Rick]

Yeah, buy some of those stocks I'm holding so they'll go back up. I'll give you a list and you can spread it around to all of your friends that those are the "hot" stocks.

Here's something that could have a huge effect on the market though. If they ever get around to implementing the idea of allowing people to invest part of their Social Security taxes it should cause the market to go up a lot. I'm not saying I like the idea that much, but if you're already in the market you could reap a huge bonanza from the increased demand. You heard it here first. I'll be glad to take a percentage of your winnings for that advice.

[so.cal.fan]

Men,

You guys have more b***s than I do. LOL
I don't know if I can buy anymore stock, Dick S.
Thinking about it, makes me queasy!
It's sort of like making a $1000 bet, when you are a $100 bettor.
:eek:

[Rick]

socal,

You missed your horse in the 2nd at Philadelphia. Market Meltdown, payed $12.00.

[so.cal.fan]

Well now, damn it, Rick
Why didn't you post that for us BEFORE the race???
Something tells me I wouldn't have been the only one to bet it!!!
:D

[so.cal.fan]

Last Change % Chg
Dow 9,379.50 +324.53 +3.58%
Nasdaq 1,448.36 +68.19 +4.94%
S&P 989


7/5 at 11:30 pdt.

:confused:

[so.cal.fan]

7/10 10:07 pdt

<sigh> looks like another horrible day!
I wish I had the control to not even look!
:eek:

[Rick]

socal,

Hey, the market's doing the limbo. How low can you go?

Seriously though, you haven't lost any money until you sell so ride the snake for a while and don't let it worry you. You'll feel better a year from now.

[so.cal.fan]

I guess you guys out in Arizona have "snake venom kits"
Yikes, Rick.
Just when we think it's reached a new low................OUCH.
Oh well, I am finished bitching about it. I have taken the market watch off my home page, I will confine my attention to handicapping horse, and reading the latest news via Boxcar!
LOL;)

[cj]

Playing the horses and losing the track take over the past couple years would have easily "beaten the street!"

CJ

[Rick]

It's rather interesting how losing thousands of dollars in the stock market is socially acceptable while losing hundreds of dollars at horse racing isn't. Heck, I'll even admit that I'm more conservative with my racing bankroll than my nestegg.

[so.cal.fan]

I say, if you bet on horses, you are a unique individual, if it is your passion, and you focus and think creatively, you have a great chance of success, and you'll enjoy the process as much as the result!

If you "invest" in the stock market............well......I hope you are not down to collecting aluminum cans or selling your blood.
Go look at yourself in the mirror........absolve yourself of all blame and commit to acting more honorable in the future!
BET ON HORSES!!!!!!!!!! Tell your stockbroker (even if it is YOU) to
F.O. !!!!


:D :D :D

[Rick]

Here's my take on stocks for what it's worth. It's kind of like owning a house, you own a share of one or many businesses. Now, if the house hasn't been destroyed by some natural disaster or a company by auditors and CEO, then it still has value whether or not someone else is willing or able to pay for it right now. Take the person who owns a house and gets laid off in a recession. Now, if he doesn't have adequate assets to outlast the bad times and continue to make his payments, he has to try to sell the house at the worst possible time, when others are getting laid off and everyone is afraid to take on more risk. Along comes someone who is in better financial shape and buys the house at a huge discount.

The same thing happens with stocks. Some of the largest fortunes were made by people who still had some money to invest at the worst point in the Depression. So every problem for one person is an opportunity for another.

Also, money doesn't just disappear, it has to go somewhere. In Arizona at least, a ton of money is going into banks now, so much that they can only loan out about half of it and all of them are paying close to nothing in interest (no kidding, as low as 0.1%). Probably a lot of it will eventually go into bonds which is OK if you have a diversified portfolio. I'm about 50% in bonds and I only lose about 30% of the market loss when it goes down. The upside seems to be much better however, so I'll just wait it out. If it stays down until September, I'll probably invest more. But I always want to keep at least 6 months income in liquid assets so I don't have to panic.

[Rick]

Hey, maybe we should start a horse racing mutual fund. Get a collection of best bets from some of the proven winners and bet them at several of the large off-shore books so as not to affect the odds. Give the expert selectors 25% of the winnings and the investors 75%. If an expert shows a loss over several hundred plays you can kick him off the panel and replace him with someone who's proven themselves over a trial period. Just a thought.

[so.cal.fan]

I would be willing to bet, we would "beat the street" LOL

[Rick]

socal,

I've got a hot stock for you. It went up 0.79% yesterday while the rest of the market was down 2.3% (S&P 500). Berskshire Hathaway A (BRKA) is the stock. For only $70,300 you can buy one share! :D

[so.cal.fan]

Rick,
I sure would have like to have had 2 shares of that!
My money would have still been there!:(

Does anyone think real estate is a good buy?

[Rick]

socal,

"Everyone" seems to think it is now, so it probably isn't.

The stock I mentioned is a company run by Warren Buffet. Don't make the mistake of following the Jimmy Buffet investment strategy though. :)

[so.cal.fan]

I don't know about that, Rick......A Margarita sounds better than buying anymore stock!

[Rick]

Actually, investing in liquor companies might be profitable these days. I'll have to look into it.

[superfecta]

Originally posted by so.cal.fan


Does anyone think real estate is a good buy? Wouldn't be any worse than stocks,as long as you pay less than fair market value(which aint really that hard if you pick your spots and have the liquid assets to pay cash,or have a credit line just for that purpose).I know of no land that drops in price as quick as a stock,and it always has some value,no matter what someone else may think.

[so.cal.fan]

How do you determine "fair market value?"
Here in California, real estate is really expensive in most areas.

[superfecta]

Originally posted by so.cal.fan
How do you determine "fair market value?"
Here in California, real estate is really expensive in most areas. It takes a little bit of study.See what price similar types of houses go for in your area,and familarize yourself with what improvements cost ,either what you can do yourself(like painting for example)or what it would cost to have it done.And see what rent costs on the type of property you want to own.Do this over and over before you ever buy or think of buying property.After awhile you can spot houses that need a little fixing,for little cost,and will bring more in rent than the monthly payment.Or you can stumble across a home that someone needs to sell ,so they lower the price just to hurry a sale.
Reminds me of looking at horses PP.Is this puppy in the race to win,or does it look like he has problems and is getting unloaded before they get worse?A horse with questions is not nessarily a bad bet if the odds are high enough.Its not worth backing a bad horse at short odds.
I know Cali. has some high real estate prices,but look for the house that needs work before someone moves in.We humans are notorious for buying the perfect house,the right color,the right location ,ready to move in.You are looking for rental investment,not your dream home.A renter is looking for a place to live,it may not be perfect,but it will suffice.

[so.cal.fan]

Thanks for the tips, Superfecta.
Not only did you help me with my question about real estate, you clarified something about my bets on horses!
You're a clever guy. Good luck to you!:)

[Rick]

Market Meltdown finished second at Philly today. Maybe that's a good omen. :rolleyes:

[so.cal.fan]

Rick, we have seen so many "dead cat bounces" I feel like we should open a pet cemetary!
:confused: :confused: :confused:

[Rick]

socal,

Nah, keep the faith. Besides, my cat Sabrina really hates that saying.

[so.cal.fan]

Sabrina:
I didn't mean you!

Rick:
It's only 9:10 am here, but do you think we will have another winning day?

Gosh...........I hope so!

[Rick]

socal,

Sorry, I didn't see this until after the market closed. I was too busy watching my investments go up. It's fascinating when things are going well.

[so.cal.fan]

Don't get too carried away, Rick. Remember what happened last time we spent all our time watching our investments going up!
"CAUTION" ain't the word here, you guys.

[PaceAdvantage]

Carried away is right....take another look at your charts....

The Nasdaq is only 120 points removed from its 52 week low, set just a few weeks ago at 1200!!!

I would need to see the Nasdaq close above 1360 before I would even begin to have the slightest thought that perhaps we are seeing anything more than a very short-term reaction to an extremely oversold (in the short-term) market.....


==PA

[so.cal.fan]

Do you guys think the market has already factored in all this negative (for lack of a stronger word) effect the crooked CEOistas, have created?

PA:
I own many shares of the QQQ, I am a BIG LOSER on it, should I buy more at a cheaper price to offset, or will it ever go up?
:confused: :( :mad:

[Rick]

socal,

I don't own anything traded on NASDAQ so I don't have much of an opinion. It's too volatile for my taste and I don't like high tech growth stocks anyway. I have a lot more value and dividend earning stocks. Really boring stuff but it does better in bear markets.

[so.cal.fan]

Rick,
I agree, however......you know what everyone, including you ,has been saying......"just when you think it is down the toilet.....it starts going up." Damn.........if we only knew when.
Do you think that the crooked CEOistas, are responsible for the most part in the crash of tech stocks?

Did anyone see the news report of the woman CEO, whose company went bankrupt and left everyone out of work and she now wants to SUE the stockholders for 12 million dollars! She feels she needs compensation, she says she "deserves it."
That laughed at the bitch.......I'd have like to have slapped her face!
Must be related to Martha Stewart, another crook!

[PaceAdvantage]

I have been told that dollar cost averaging is never the way to go when you have a losing position....however, I guess it really depends on your time horizon....

[Tom]

World Com just dicovered another 3billion missing.
How in the HELL do you misplace 3 billion dollars.
I'd sooner put my money on a swayback with track marks on its butt and ice chips on its legs than get into that miserable stock market. Talk about rigged games, give me racing...it is too hard to fix. The businees world, I don't think there is room for honesty anymore.

[so.cal.fan]

They had better get more honest, Tom.
Otherwise, all us little "suckers" are not going to invest our money in stocks! When we are not even trusting mutual funds, they are going to be in trouble.
The corruption MUST END!

[Rick]

socal,

1. I think you should get out of "high tech growth stocks" with high P/E ratios but that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

2. Anyway, whatever your position is, don't sell until at least the end of the year. By the end of October things should look WAY better.

3. Don't pay any attention to the gender of the weasel.

[Rick]

Market Meltdown runs today in the 10th at Philadelphia at 5-1 morning line odds. I told ya in advance this time.

[so.cal.fan]

In respect to your "Goddess Cat" Rick, I am not using the
DC bounce word.
I sure hope your right about a rally, but I think the tip you just gave us on Market Meltdown has a better chance of winning than most stocks have of going up next week!
Damn it, I hope I am wrong.

:(

[Rick]

My guess is down until 9/11 and up thereafter. But you're right, I do like the horse better.