Market Watch 7/23/02

none | me

[wardaddy]

Nice post....it's an emotive Bear. I hope the Bull that's coming is emotive as well(as in enthusiastic). I do know the next Bull should have less flotsam floating up with it.

[hchutch]

I've always felt that George W. Bush is what Raymond Spruance would have been had Spruance gone into politics. Spruance was not known for losing, although sometimes, people thought he lacked an instinct for the jugular.

But nobody really argued with Spruance's results. George W. Bush is the Ray Spruance of politics.

[Southack]

Thanks. My personal opinion is that the stock market "recovery" will be glacially slow, pushed forward only by undeniable profits and sound business plans.

In the future, people will associate "growth" stocks with the same disdain as they heap upon get-rich-quick schemes, leaving only true value plays left for both investors and speculators alike.

[Centurion2000]

Real Estate will alway be just fine. The only time real estate takes a big hit is if a certain area losses massive amount of jobs, and usually only in areas where the prices have rose significantly in the previous years. As long as local prices have not increased 30% over the last few years and the local economy is in decent shape, Real Estate will appreciate.

Sounds like Dallas is in for a good drop in real estate then.

[bandlength]

ditto for upstate NY

[wardaddy]

That is in essence what my pro in NYC is saying. He doesn't expect any high flying dogs riding the back of the next Bull. He expects a strong rush to the markets once we have an orderly upward trend established. He thinks it will be early 2003 at the earliest but it should be a well earned Bull unless a terr hammer strikes hard again and then who knows. Right now like everyone else...I'm just watching a down trending waffle till 8-14.

[Nick Danger]

In the future, people will associate "growth" stocks with the same disdain as they heap upon get-rich-quick schemes...

How old are you? I ask because this will be my second time through this movie. Sometimes I think the same stuff happens over and over again at 25- or 30-year intervals.

There was a previous round of these high-flying "growth stocks" in the early 1970's. It was exactly the same game: certain companies had insanely high P-E's because they were growing rapidly, and they were growing rapidly because they were buying other companies with their insanely over-valued stock.

After that round of shenanigans came down on everybody's head, I'm sure somebody wrote, "In the future, people will associate 'growth' stocks with the same disdain as they heap upon get-rich-quick schemes..." Except now we know that 'the future' lasts about 30 years. By then, everybody who got burned the last time around is either retired or an old fart who doesn't know what he's talking about, and all the people who are making the mistake are the same age as the old farts were when they did it.

This shows us that even the dumbest ideas come around again. You watch: even communism will be back. There's a whole new generation in Eastern Europe that hasn't made that mistake yet. They will. They'll think they invented it.

[steveegg]

One out of 3 predictions right (and the general trend; I believe I heard 5-1 decliners on the NYSE) isn't bad (it's terrible, really; too bad I don't see positives).

Given the gist of this little gem (Citigroup/Rubin and JP Morgan Chase are painfully exposed), anyone for a -500/-60/-50 day?

[steveegg]

This shows us that even the dumbest ideas come around again. You watch: even communism will be back. There's a whole new generation in Eastern Europe that hasn't made that mistake yet. They will. They'll think they invented it.

Isn't the lack of history in our screwels great </barf>? Seriously, regarding Communism, it's not going to be the Eastern Europeans that try it next; it's our own DemonRATs.

[Southack]

"This shows us that even the dumbest [greediest] ideas come around again."

Yes, communism (perhaps under another name brand or flavor varient) will come back in Eastern Europe, just as "growth" stocks will one day come back (again, perhaps under another name/fad/pretense), and both for the same reason: greed.

With Communism, the greed is two-tiered. Those at the lower tier are promised the riches of their "oppressors" (AKA those who create jobs with their brilliance, hard work, and productive use of capital), while those at the upper tier of Communism (i.e. the politicians) are promised vast power over the rest of society. For an unemployed, uneducated kid in rural Eastern Europe or darkest Africa, that's always going to have a certain appeal (ala "something for nothing").

Same thing with "growth" stocks and other such fads. People want to believe that the old rules really don't apply. They want to believe that everyone who created real wealth up to that point in time is a dottering old dinosaur who just doesn't understand modern society (and other such nonsense), and they want to believe such outrageous, time-disproven things because they want something for nothing.

That being said, the Market's punishment for denying the fundamentals of wealth creation - will postpone the return of such fads and crazes for decades or more at a time.

But yes, I'll concede that the next generation will get it's chance to call all of our hard-earned wisdom "outdated" and irrelevent, only to later be punished mightily just as our generation was punished.

Wasn't it Shakespeare who verbally admonished his audiences that Life only has a few basic stories, doomed to repeat themselves time and again?!

[RJayneJ]

Thanks for the heads up! };^D)

[philosofy123]

Thank you so much for your informative responce about Citi, and Rubin. I don't like Rubin or Weill, but we are stuck with them. I think O'Neil is doing nothing to help Wall Street, or may be the movers and shakers (the liberals of NYC) are not giving him a chance to sucseed? I guess these liberals managed to push Reed out of Citigroup? I liked him more. Again thanks for all the info in your post.