Posted on 10/15/2008 7:17:16 AM PDT by Red Badger
9,009.60 down -301.39 -3.24%
(Excerpt) Read more at moneycentral.msn.com ...
Maybe what the MARKET is saying, is that it has a MIND OF IT”S OWN, and needs to NOT be tampered with by politicians who cohort with power bankers to bring the rest of us into slavery. Leave it alone, it will right itself out in the storm when it finds the REAL level of what the dollar is ACTUALLY worth.
IMHO,401Ks and IRAs are the biggest scams ever.They prop up the markets with money from you and I,in hopes of getting a good return.This artificially inflates the value of a company's stock,IMO.
Practically speaking, if you sell something there must be a buyer, so buyers and sellers must be equal in number. It's the price they are selling at that is driving it down.
Don't sweat your 401(K). If you have it in stocks, it's because you won't need the money for a very long time, and the market will come back.
If you need the money next week, you should have been in bonds already, and the stock market shouldn't matter.
Just don't panic and bail out now. The time to get out has passed, so now you just need to ride it out. If you sell now, you'll only buy back in later at a higher price, and the same money will buy fewer shares of your favorite mutual funds.
Had you sold out a year ago at the peak, now would be the time to put the money back in, so in either case you'd be in the market right now.
If you had put all of your 401(k) money into nice, safe T-Bills your entire life, you'd have less money now than you do even taking the recent crash into account. So relax!
(I'm selling if the market ever gets to 12,000 again...) ;^)
I have a friend who drives 18 wheelers for UPS.
He’s now seeing shipping loads down as much as 75%.
How does it do that any more than simply buying a stock would?
It needs to settle down and stabilize once it hits bottom, rather than gyrating around convulsively, as it is right now.
Well, by all means let’s all panic and start posting vanities on FR!
Most of the people watching the market today usually never pay attention to it, so freak at every tick. Yes, there is more than usual volatility and that is not a good thing.
But anyone listening at all knows that that a recession is coming regardless. The bailout was simply to put some parameters on the deleveraging process and to address the counterparty risk factor caused by toxic paper. Otherwise, as Paulson has said over and over again, within those parameters the market will be allowed to ruthlessly do its thing, including allowing more banks to fail.
Buying a stock,I have the advantage of picking (A) company “I” think will do well.What we’re doing now,with 401K and IRAs is taking money and throwing it across the board,investing in many companies.Most don’t even know the companies they are invested in.That might “prop” up a bad company with money gathered from individuals and invested in it,if it is included in a particular “fund” account.
If Obama wins, kiss 12,000 goodbye. And if you’re lucky enough for it to reach 12,000 again, well, Obama will tax it anyway. It’s a no-win situation . . . unless McCain wins.
If you are placing your trust in John “socialist bailout” McCain, you are going to be disappointed. McCain has supported every recent socialist measure by the Bush administration....and then some.
I think that a major component of the "bad economic news" is due to emotion, rather than any fundamental technical issues. Right now, the traders are operating in a cycle of fear and hope, applied to a time horizon measured in days or even hours. (In fact, I think the whole mess began because of this mindset.) I think the same dynamic helps to explain the volatility in oil prices.
It's like trying to steer your car by watching the center line as it disappears under the hood -- you're always going to be caught by surprise when the road curves, and you end up comtinually over-correcting.
No! Yoyo is actually very correct. He said when there are more sellers than buyers, meaning when there is more supply than demand. He is 100% correct.
I have seen this fallacy several times on FR, where FReepers say the market must be 'busted/manipulated/etc' because it is 'obvious' that for every seller there must be a buyer. That is not the case. Sure, when you sell 1 share of 'Spetznaz Inc' that means someone bought that 1 share. However, what if the demand for Spetznaz Inc is very low (say only 300 bids are present for Spetznaz Inc), and supply is very high (say there are 5,000 offers for the company since everyone is trying to repatriate funds to their old aunty in Florida). Because supply is so high, and demand so low, the price of the company will go down.
The inverse is also true. If there are 10,000 people who want Spetznaz Inc, and only 250 shares available of the counter, then the price will shoot up.
Anyways, the reason the price changes is simply due to demand and supply. If there are more buyers than sellers (more bids than offers), then prices go up. If there are more sellers than buyers (and offers out-hang bids), then the price will go down.
At least people on this thread are not saying the market is moving because of McCain or Obama.
Well, just because it’s in a fund and you don’t know at that exact moment what particular stock the money is in doesn’t mean that ssomeone working for the fund didn’t do any different than you would do with an E-Trade account or the like. It’s the same process, it’s just a managed fund with the money spread out over several stocks.
Any investment, whether you choose it or it’s chosen on your behalf, that invests in a company will prop up that company value.
I still don’t get your point. How are 401k’s a scam?
Throwing massive amounts of money and/or regulations against the markets is just delaying the inevitable and perhaps making it worse for the future.
I didn’t say I was enamored with McCain. But, on a scale of 1 to 10, he gets at least a 5 or 6 compared to Obama’s 0. What I said was simply that that Obama will be a disaster. It’s simple logic. Give my regards to Mr. Spock.
The markets are anticipating an Obama win......
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