quote:

ORIGINAL: happypervert

It's funny that people get all freaked out over a one day drop in the market without putting it into perspective -- the DOW index has been climbing pretty steadily since last July and so the drop yesterday put it back to where it was around mid Dec. Furthermore, no one seems to have a good explanation for the drop -- sometimes these things just happen because computer programs kick in to capture gains, and that selling causes prices to drop further causing more selling.

Now it's up 55 points today, so someone is cashing in on the overreaction yesterday. But that isn't unusual either -- panic one day then calmer heads take over later.

quote:

OK but real estate in the UK translates as buildings. to me anyway..
With regard to "plots" then, again in the UK, planning permission is crucial.
Is that a problem/limitation in the US ?

quote:


So- What is your take on the stocks markets??

bush2 has spent more money the ALL other US presidents COMBINED!

I wonder how many folks had they been in "safe stocks" would fare/ [pensions, retirement]

quote:

Now, one poster mentions that since 2002 the market has risen by over 4.40 trillion dollars in valuation. Very true……but what he doesn’t tell you is that the overwhelming percentage of the growth is coming in the area of the highly speculative derivatives /futures market which is where Pension funds, insurance companies, and banks invest their money.

quote:

The nature of this type speculation relies on nothing that’s tangible. Much of it is fixated on the housing bubble that has been falsely inflated through interest only mortgages and the over extension of credit. And if you’ll notice, these Hedge funds are all starting to go belly-up.  

Although it was kept quiet in the news, the 10 billion dollar Hedge fund known as Amaranth, went bankrupt in mid October which the biggest Hedge fund bankruptcy in history. And that’s just for starters

quote:

Griswold
This is as if I bought a stock for 10 bucks, its value last week was 20 bucks but because of some unforseen circumstances, the general public now values that same stock at 15 bucks.

quote:


This is misleading on a couple of levels: First, you make it sound as if Pension funds and the others invest ALL their money in derivatives markets, and that is hardly the case; second, derivatives should be seen as being about as speculative as insurance -- in other words, they are financial instruments used to manage risk. Just as we all pay for auto insurance that we hopefully never have to actually use, investors can buy options to manage their risks, and other derivative markets are similarly viewed as markets in risk instruments. So, if an insurance company can make money taking a risk you won't crash your car, others can make money in other risky markets . . . if they manage their own risks properly.

quote:


It can be a lot of fun to focus on a few high profile failures and then extrapolate gloom and doom from that, but that ignores all the other hedge funds that do a fine job of managing their risks and have been around as long as Soros. Even with LTCM in the not so recent past, funds like Amaranth are able to spring up and fail on their own, and investors (pension funds etc) who lost money there are probably making a killing in another hedge fund they've parked money in. It is no big deal as long as the investors do a better job of managing their risks than the folks at Amaranth and LTCM , and it ceratainly isn't the scary and speculative world you portray. Claiming "these Hedge funds are all starting to go belly-up" is just flat wrong, and for the ones that do fail there will be others to take their place because the market for their services is still growing.

quote:

ORIGINAL: seeksfemslave

Commenting on the recent stock market "shenanigans"
Where did that word come from lol

quote:

Griswold
This is as if I bought a stock for 10 bucks, its value last week was 20 bucks but because of some unforseen circumstances, the general public now values that same stock at 15 bucks.

 

Problem is MrG that many may well have bought at 25 bucks.
Similarly with your selective use of dates. Had you have chosen 1999 instead of 2002 a totally different picture emerges.

Also the general public have zero influence on stock vlue. This is the provence of the Wall Street Threadneedle Steet(London) "experts".
By and large the general public take the hit. Its the poor wot gets the blame.

quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy
bush2 has spent more money the ALL other US presidents COMBINED!

quote:

This above quote is from a post I made five days ago. Below is a story that is on the front page of today’s Oregonian newspaper that outlines the market's woes.

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/1173153317169510.xml&coll=7

It's nothing more than simple case of mathematics: High paying job creation is on the downslide; those jobs are being outsourced. Lenders are lending money to folks who cannot possibly pay it back.

quote:


WOW! You've done an amazing job of distorting the meaning of that article. There's nothing there about outsourcing high paying jobs or a collapse in the housing market -- it is about sub-prime housing lenders, and such companies target customers who won't qualify anywhere else. There are similar companies doing auto lending and credit cards, and I'd expect to see them in other niches in financial services markets as well. I'm aware of one sub prime auto lender that went belly up, and I don't recall it resulting in a collapse in the auto market, though it may have had some impact in the market for securitized auto loans (I don't follow that market).

quote:


Such companies expect higher defaults but are compensated by charging higher rates. Some do an excellent job of managing their risks and are unusually profitable; this article discusses an example of the opposite. There should be no surprise here -- long ago Michael Milken built a big business in junk bonds based on studies that risk adjusted interest rates more than compensate for increased default risk. He went to jail not because there was a flaw with the business, but because of insider trading from the mergers those bonds financed.

quote:

I'm wondering -- did Enron cause you to also go into a panic about a collapse in all energy companies, or Worldcom do the same for communications companies?

quote:

 It seems you see bubbles everywhere, which leads me to suspect you got burned by dot-coms; although bubbles can can certainly occur, the evidence you present for them is so tenuous and disjointed that it appears to be nothing but fear mongering. Such stuff may make sense to someone who has been burned before, while it is just random noise to someone else. However, the markets always freak out temporarily over such stuff, but life goes on as they are eventully forgotten and everyone waits for something new to spell impending doom that never really comes.