Stock Run-up 3 Weeks Old, Experts Confused-- Investor Thread March 1, 2015

Weekly investment & finance thread ^ | Mar. 1, 2015 | Freeper Investors

[expat_panama]

[excerpt from Stock-market crash of 2016: The countdown begins] Dow will drop 50% as market replays 2008, 2000 and 1929.  That will translate into the DJIA crashing from today’s 18,117 down 50% to about 9,000. Ouch, the Dow crashing all the way below 10,000. Unimaginable. Bulls will hate it. No wonder our brains tune out, turn off. Instead, we prefer the happy talk that will just keep coming out of Wall Street and Washington till the 2016 collapse. We’ll just keep denying reality ... till it’s too late, and we suffer another $10 trillion loss is on the books. Deja vu 2000: irrational exuberance, dot-com technologies Remember 1999. Just 16 years ago. Roaring hot “irrational exuberance.” Renewed stock market mania. Wall Street was hot. Stocks roaring. Back then investors demanded insane annual returns during the worldwide millennium celebrations: the top 19 mutual funds had 179% to 323% annual returns. Yes, dot-com stockholders expected 100% plus returns on zero revenues... [snip] ...Deja vu the Crash of 1929: and the long Great Depression... [snip] ...Yikes, it took 13 long years to break even from Wall Street’s losses of 2000 and 2008. And now investors are being warned that the Crash of 2016 will be even worse, with new losses of 50%. In short, the market really is bad news. But still, here we are again, panicking: Fearing that 2016 will repeat 1929, fearing that Wall Street and Main Street, tens of millions of Americans, plus the Fed, the SEC, Washington politicians in both parties will refuse to prepare for the Crash of 2016. Will deny hearing the warnings ... of the Crash of 2016, one that promises in the end to become bigger and badder and far more dangerous than 2008, 1999 and 1929 combined. Listen closely, the countdown to the Crash of 2016 has started.

[excerpt from Barron's rebuttal Considering the ‘Stock Market Crash of 2016’] DI’ll give veteran MarketWatch columnist Paul B. Farrell his due: The man knows how to draw clicks. It’s hard to avoid an article with the headline: “Stock Market Crash of 2016: The Countdown Begins.” While many seasoned consumers of financial journalism might be inclined to dismiss an article with such a bombastic headline right off the bat, I’m always willing to at least consider the arguments behind such a claim. If such a crash is a year off, it’s important to start preparing. A 50% decline in stock-market value is a sharper drop than we endured in 2008. Fortunately for long investors everywhere, there is little about the article that should send anyone cashing out of stocks... [snip] ...The bigger issue on trial here is the idea that investors should make big asset bets based on bold market forecasts, whether by professional money managers or journalists.... [snip] ...“Sure, they suffered steep losses (and likely lost some serious sleep) as stocks cratered during the financial crisis,” Egan writes. “Yet they also enjoyed a dramatic rebound in U.S. stocks as the system stabilized. The S&P 500 is up over 200% since the bottoming out in March 2009.” He adds that it may be tempting to stay on the sidelines. However, holding too much cash for fear of a market crash will almost certainly cause you to miss extended periods when markets perform well.

 

More precision confusion from experienced professionals:

• Worried About a Stock Market Crash?
• The Folly of Forecasting
• Is the Energy-Stock Rebound for Real?
• Why You Should Return to Energy Stocks
• GOP Attacking Fed? Careful What You Wish For

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *  

 

This is the thread where folks swap ideas on savings and investment --here's a list of popular investing links that freepers have posted here and tomorrow morning we'll go on with our--

Open invitation continues always for idea-input for the thread, this being a joint effort works well.   Keywords: financial, WallStreet, stockmarket, economy.

 

[BipolarBob]

I don’t normally watch the TV program “60 minutes” but last night I did. They done a piece on Lumber Liquidators that wasn’t pretty. If you seen it, it would make you want to short the stock but I see it’s up slightly. Their Chinese made laminate flooring does not meet legal standards on formaldehyde levels.

[RicocheT]

First trading day of March 2015 and the market opens up. Spring is in the air and the bulls romp in the pasture. It will continue for a while absent really bad news here or abroad.

[expat_panama]

Sure seems like it, I know I’m having fun! I do have to avoid thinking about congress tho...

[expat_panama]

Huh. I used to own it.

iirc they'd been Rush sponsors but they quit using the 'slut' thing as an excuse, but the main problem was dealing w/ the leftist attacks over wood cutting being bad for ecology. They had a big law suit/inventory confiscation over 'protected' woods at one time. Maybe this 60minutes was just the latest left wing attack.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Mobile Wallets Race: Samsung Pay Debuts; PayPal Deals

http://news.investors.com/technology/030215-741486-samsung-mobile-payments-launch-ebay-paypal-acquire-paydiant.htm?ven=rss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[expat_panama]

huh, that wasn’t in this morning’s news, it just came out this aft.! Interesting...

[Wyatt's Torch]

In case you are interested, here is Torsten Slok (DB's chief economist) March Chartbook:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25532818/Slok_Presentation_Mar.pdf

[expat_panama]

Yesterday:

Today's futures see stocks going -0.09% and metals -0.21%.  Ah well...  In the meantime we don't got much for reports (auto & truck sales) but in the news:

This Time NASDAQ 5,000 Actually Is Different - Dave Callaway, USA Today
Is Obama Bashing Wall Street to Hide His Own Failures? - Editorial, IBD
Europe Is the Market To Watch Right Now - David Rosenberg, National Post
How Should You Choose Your Int'l Investments? - Kate Stalter, U.S. News
The World Economy a Year From Now - Richard Rahn, Washington Times
Janet Yellen Visits with a Few Members of the Right - Ralph Benko, Forbes

[expat_panama]

Whoa, lot of stuff there —tx! Wording in the title (”US Economic Outlook Edging closer to Liftoff”) is saying the US economy has still not “lifted off”. That’s not the party line of most PhD’s...

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Nice fifteen year cup on the NASDAQ.

[Wyatt's Torch]

Slok is really good.

[Wyatt's Torch]

F sales -2% vs exp of +5%

Oops...

[expat_panama]

“Ooops” is right, but the stock price is recovering from its 4% opening slam.

[expat_panama]

Yeah, the tech folks keep telling us to never try to use technical indicator patterns like cup’n’handle etc. on indexes, but we all do it anyway. My bet’s on a NASDAQ break-though.

[Wyatt's Torch]

The APPL Dow instead of IBM:

[expat_panama]

Market Watch headline on this thread:  "U.S. stocks retreat from records after Netanyahu speech"

What actually happened:

[expat_panama]

Good morning and the futures traders (metals -0.38%, indexes -0.30%) are beginning to tell us "take the money and run!"  True, both stocks'n'metals have been flat for the better part of a week now but they may be seeing things in terms of a rally that's showing its age.  Reports galore today--

MBA Mortgage Index
ADP Employment Change
ISM Services
Crude Inventories
Fed's Beige Book

--to go w/ lively FR econ threads:

• Target to cut thousands of jobs in restructuring
• What's America's Economic Fragility Score?
• American Companies, States Firing American Workers, Importing Guest Workers To Replace Them [Video]
• CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATS; RIDING “CAP AND TRADE” TOWARD THEIR FINAL SUNSET
• US running out of room to store oil; price collapse next?

[abb]

See my post #12.

[grania]

What's going on? Stocks are down, gold and silver are down, at the grocery prices of some basic foods that had stayed stable were up and there were shortages of some items.

Add to that what I'd call a common sense factor. Fuel bills for February are going to be a nightmare in a large part of the country. What's that going to do to the economy in the near term?

[expat_panama]

What's going on? Stocks are down, gold and silver are down...

Actually, they're up --all major indexes are now higher than they were two hours ago.  OK, you mean they're down from where they were at close/business yesterday.  True, but they're still higher than they were 2 weeks ago.  It goes on and on and it's not news that stock prices fluctuate.  You asked; imho they're right now generally down (see I agree on using your time frame) because the current buying wave seems like it's cresting --like steering a car as we first correct one way and then back the other.

Then again, I may be wrong...