Reading all the gloom and doom in the papers, I'm beginning to wonder if we might be in the early stages of a real crash. Global economy in the trash, US credit rating dropped, shaky economy here getting worse, dollar value sinking, race riots in England and Europe, generally a lot of crap happening. Anybody else concerned?
I just got approved for an auto loan and I saved a TON on my auto insurance...
Ya'll are screwed.
Me? Worried? Nope. If you really go back and read history books, this E36 M3 happens all the time. I will survive.
(*edited for Ian F's reply below: I'm only 30 years old.)
An automotive gif of whats going on in the Stock Market:
I have all my cash in mattresses. I think a crash might be good...... it'll allow me to buy stock at rock bottom prices and make a profit!
The real problem is the banks and investors, not the rest of us.
They are too "scared" to loan money out to companies who wish to make new jobs or expand their current work. Which leads to fewer workers/ AKA consumers with money, which leads to less consumption, which leads to companies cutting back. Not that we, as an industry didn't have problems, but what really lead to GM and Chrysler's final demise was that they could not secure loans for their customers AND pay for new products. We squeaked thought that until we got guarunteed loans for customers. Toyota got the same from Japan.
I'm more mad than worried. banks make stupid loans/investments/bets, get caught with thier pants over their heads, and we all get the short end of the stick. Happens all the time, as Ross points out.
dow is already up over 100 on the day right now, yesterday was probably just a panic sell off, which i half hoped would stick around today. i've been saying that i'd buy ford if it got below 10/share, after i didn't buy when it was 1.50. ford closed under 10 yesterday, but it back at ~10.17 right now...
edit: in the time it took me to type that, the dow went from +130 to +164
I'm most concerned about the "Self-fulfilling Prophesy" thing. Everybody just stops spending their money= bigger problems.
A girl I work with took everything out of the market and put it into some low yield savings type account. At that rate, how long before you get back the money you just lost? You only lose money if you actually take it out, right?
My 401k dropped ~$12k but I'm guessing things are low, cheap and when it goes up everything I bought low will be worth more.
...or am I missing something?
Dan
In reply to cwh:
Yep. A lot.
Investors want each other to start investing so that everything will just start working and they can go back to making money off of it without being the ones to stick their necks out. But if nobody goes first, it just doesn't happen.
I keep thinking the screwy thing about "the markets" today is that they need a psychiatrist as much as an economist... Not sure how much better to feel when things are working since it still relies as much on faith as anything, but for better or worse it's easier to stomach the insanity when people are getting paid.
/mumbly rant
I blame the Smurfs. Since they rang the bell at the stock exchange it's been going down.
In reply to 914Driver:
No, you have it right. It hurt a lot when the Dow dropped into the 6's a couple of years ago. But it felt pretty good seeing not only my existing funds work their way back up but getting a huge increase at the stuff I bought at the low point. Over time it all works out.
However, I did diversify when the Dow got back up over 12K and put about 40% of my investments into cash and bond funds. The roller coaster is a bit much to take sometimes.
One thing that does bother me...all financial information was available to everyone before S&P dropped their rating. With an efficient market hypothesis, the market should not have changed much. But it did.
In reply to Wally:
how the hell does a cartoon character ring the open at the NYSE?
cwh wrote: Reading all the gloom and doom in the papers
That's your problem right there...
The mass media is not the best source of investment advice.
RossD wrote: Me? Worried? Nope. If you really go back and read history books, this E36 M3 happens all the time. I will survive.
Yup. Were I a lot closer to retirement, I might be concerned... but even then, were I closer to retirement, I wouldn't have so much money in volatile investments... The market goes up. The market goes down. The best thing the relatively young (under 50) can do right now is to stay put, ride it out and keep putting money in (401k contributions) as normal.
I agree about the spending money bit... so a few months ago I took advantage of my good credit rating, borrowed a bit of money and bought a few things (like my '72 GT6). 
The only downside is in my effort to pay it off as quickly as possible, I'm now somewhat limited in free spending cash for next few months, so my E30 STX build will be delayed.
don't look at me.. this roller coaster ride has been good for my stocks
buy Low.. sell high
I'm long on my stocks, I'm bargain hunting right now. I think by the end of the week I'll grab up a few more shares of KO.
I'm wondering where the price of gold is going. Wife's daughter is planning a trip to Senegal next month to buy 4KG of dore' gold, 22 carat, at 6000.00/KG. It will be interesting to see how that works out. She's dead serious.
DukeOfUndersteer wrote: An automotive gif of whats going on in the Stock Market:
You see though, the key is to buy at full suspension compression and sell at full droop.
In reply to slefain:
Maybe this can help me stay interested in investing.
Can someone explain diversification in terms of corner weights?
in terms of ballast, it would make more sense...
In reply to ransom:
No, but when the market crashes on you, you have to push out the radiator support.
In reply to RossD:
Dangit, did nobody think to run an EconomyFAX before we picked this thing up?
Strizzo wrote: In reply to Wally: how the hell does a cartoon character ring the open at the NYSE?
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