View Poll Results: How's your portfolio doing?
Making money
4
4.65%
Holding steady
7
8.14%
Losing my @ss
32
37.21%
I'm afraid to look
20
23.26%
I'm not in the market
23
26.74%
Voters: 86. You may not vote on this poll
Ok, How bad are you getting hammered in the stock market right now?
10-22-2008, 09:04 PM
#31
Senior Member
Join Date: 11-27-2007
Location: Austin, Texas
Posts: 1,115
I stupidly didn't follow my own rule about selling a stock if it dropped 10% off its high and the result is at the bottom 0f this page:
http://www.trfindley.com/pgstktrd.htm
I have not found 1 US stock worth buying for over 6 months.
The Dow Jones leads the direction of the market. It has a resistance level where it won't go higher, and a support level, where it won't go lower. The current task is to figure out what the support level is.
In the last decline which started in 2000, the DJIA bottomed out at 7181 on 10-10-2002.
The market predicts business conditions 6-9 months in advance. I think conditions will drop longer than 9 months before the economy improves.
http://www.trfindley.com/pgstktrd.htm
I have not found 1 US stock worth buying for over 6 months.
The Dow Jones leads the direction of the market. It has a resistance level where it won't go higher, and a support level, where it won't go lower. The current task is to figure out what the support level is.
In the last decline which started in 2000, the DJIA bottomed out at 7181 on 10-10-2002.
The market predicts business conditions 6-9 months in advance. I think conditions will drop longer than 9 months before the economy improves.
10-22-2008, 09:20 PM
#32
Senior Member
Join Date: 09-06-2006
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 1,222
It seems like every week the prognosticators push out the day that they, in their wisdom, see a turn-around coming. The hedge funds are continuing to de-leverage commodity and stock positions, and until that is complete, we will continue to have market swings and pressures. Too late to sell, and too risky to bet it all, so therefore "sitting tight" is about our only option.
I'm in for the long ride... You only lose it if you sell or pull out when the funds/stocks are hitting bottom.
I look at the reports and pray I don't need to dip into it for many years down the road.
I'll start worrying about the value in 20 years from now as I approach retirement... if we are all still here in 20 years...
Pulling out now is like trying to sell a $200,000 home when the home value drops to $50,000.
10-24-2008, 08:12 AM
#33
Senior Member
Join Date: 07-21-2006
Location: Ft Walton Bch FL
Posts: 1,708
My access to my account was made harder when they assigned a new account number and very long password. I have to pull out the documents with these numbers every time I want see where I'm at.
In September, I found out I was down about 6% since December so I moved everything to the bond market. The Dow Jones was still over 10,000 at that point. I did this because I thought the government would have to sell bonds to finance the bailout, not to cut my losses. I'm waiting to move back into stocks but don't think things will settle down until after the election. I also made a ton of money in the international market. I'm not sure when it will recover.
In September, I found out I was down about 6% since December so I moved everything to the bond market. The Dow Jones was still over 10,000 at that point. I did this because I thought the government would have to sell bonds to finance the bailout, not to cut my losses. I'm waiting to move back into stocks but don't think things will settle down until after the election. I also made a ton of money in the international market. I'm not sure when it will recover.
10-24-2008, 09:14 AM
#34
Senior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: 05-26-2007
Location: ...
Posts: 1,554
Well, the Mayan calandar ends in 2012 which just happens to coincide with the year in which bad things will happen as a result of the Large Hadron Collider being fired up last month or whenever on the French/Swiss border... like a quasar forming in the Earth's center or a black hole forming and growing, LOL. If you believe the few scientists that sounded the alarm about the collider being put into action, which most other scientists have discounted the doubting Thomas's warnings that it will take four years for the bad side effects of running the Collider to become apparent. So maybe we'll all get smashed into a speck the size of a sub-atomic particle in 2012, when the black hole created by the Collider gathers enough momentum, LOL.
Maybe the Mayans were right
Maybe the Mayans were right
10-24-2008, 10:17 AM
#35
Senior Member
Join Date: 01-31-2007
Location: New Hampsha
Posts: 2,479
I don't look..I pump a good chunk every week into my 401K and will continue to do so......if anything I am buying a lot of stock at cheap cheap prices and in the long run will be better off
retirement is still 25 years away for me
Goose
retirement is still 25 years away for me
Goose
10-24-2008, 11:38 AM
#37
Senior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: 05-26-2007
Location: ...
Posts: 1,554
What Goose is doing is taking advantage of a concept called Dollar Cost Averaging, over the long term. It is a reason to ride out the crashes and continue to make contributions to your 401K or other deferred compensation plan while the market is down.
01-01-2009, 08:57 PM
#39
Senior Member
Join Date: 11-27-2007
Location: Austin, Texas
Posts: 1,115
So now that we closed out year end, and are in to a New Year with optimism, how is everyone (or those willing to share) doing? For me my 401k is down 29%, overall our accounts together are down about 19%. Plan on increasing savings and picking some good dividend paying stocks, preferred stocks and other low debt, low PE stocks to add. Also switched from short USO to long USO 2010 leaps (a bit early). Had not been for Gold funds and USO (long then short, now long) would have been even worse for 2008.
