Who wants to make some guesses on when we will see the bottom, and at what price, for the current free fall in the DOW? Is this evidence of the second dip in recession(USA) to come?
My take, and I was wrong last time, is that the market will bottom out when it becomes leveraged less than what it was in 1997. Actually that is probably not the right way to say it. What I am looking at is the long term growth trend before the late 1990s and projecting that trend into the future to see where the falling market may intercept what would have been slow but steady growth. Doing so I get a very crude approximate bottom around 8,000 points. Failing that theory my next guess will be the lower 9,000 range.
The bottom occurs when people feel confident that they will be able to keep the work of their hands.
Why would you invest to start a company if there is no confidence that your company will make money or that if it does make money that the government will let you keep the products of your own hands?
Why would a company invest to expand?
Why would an individual/company invest in the R&D necessary to create new products?
If you have no confidence that the market is going to be better down the road than it is today, why would you spend extra funds instead of hoarding them?
If your hours are cut or revenue decreased due to the market, you don't have any extra funds to invest or hoard.
The Administration with support of Congress and the Treasury Department are performing the classic "pump and dump" on the US currency. We can all sense that this is happening. The response is to postpone any large purchases. To behave more cautiously.
EVERY indicator that shows that the market is exactly as bad as we think will be met with drops in the market as people work to preserve any gains that have been created since 2008.
To answer your question, the fill probably continue until we hit 2008 levels. The gains were driven almost exclusively by market demand vs. the fundamentals of business performance.
As that money bleeds back out of the market, the Dow will drop.
the new currency will be ammo, gas, food and barter. The bottom of the market?.... hell they really only need one after noon of a 'computer' glitch to make it all disappear.
Vanguard Japanese small and mid cap funds, to hold for the next decade. Plus gold and cash equivalents. Maybe a small basket of mixed currencies: Norwegian Kroner, Canadian Loonies, and other natural resource producing/exporting countries.
Not much down, but down again today. Of course the Fed says it wants to keep interest rates low(zero) for the foreseeable future. That is, in a way, more financing of the market. Well, you can't go below zero percent so maybe the strategy just isn't working?
Nothing in the world more likely to end with egg on one's face that predicting the future, especially that of the stock market.
With that caveat aside, and with no fear of a bit of yolk on my bib, here I go.
I predict that the bottom will occur just before or shortly after the November elections.
At that point, even the dullest American, or at least enough of them, will realize that the "historic moment" that made them so inordinately pleased with themselves, was a bit of a faux pas, (that's "a bad" for all of you in Rio Linda), and will vote the rascals out of office.
The new rascals, and the old ones that remain in office, will do an about face,( not wanting to lose one of the sweetest benefit packages on the planet), and reject the current administration's anti-American, anti-business, socialist agenda.
At the same time, Europeans, the Chinese, etc. with their own socialist economies going up in flames, will realize once again that the dear old green back Dollar isn't such a bad idea after all, and capital will start flooding our markets.
I think we'll see some optimism and excitement, albeit with little basis, headed toward the end of the year.
Unemployment is at record levels and showing nearly no signs of improving.
Confidence in government is waning as they attempt to skew the figures citing silly stuff like hiring the same census worker 4 times in one month.
In addition, the Obama administration has announced plans to let the Bush Tax Cuts expire on January 1, 2011 so folks are already arranging their finances to move income from 2011 to 2010.
Businesses and investors know that nearly all taxes, income, capital gains, investment and inheritance, will be going up in January. That should put a damper on any hopes of improving the economy.
I'm going long heading toward November as optimism builds from the "throw the bastards out" mentality but will likely turn short heading toward 2011.
With China poised to displace the United States as the world financial power and starting, as a result of holding nearly all our debt (how crazy was that to have the Chinese finance the $878,000,000,000 stimulus and then piss the money away) they are starting to exercise influence over US policy at the same time our leaders are intent on "redistributing" wealth . . . "if you make over $250,00 it'd only be right for you to help a less fortunate person afford their mortgage".
At the very least it's going to be interesting but I'm not terribly optimistic about the next 24 months.
The good news is that, as folks are hoarding money out of the market, there is tons of investment capital available . . . say for instance if you wanted to start a motorcycle manufacturing operation.
At the same time, Europeans, the Chinese, etc. with their own socialist economies going up in flames, will realize once again that the dear old green back Dollar isn't such a bad idea after all, and capital will start flooding our markets.
Hmmm, I don't think you can compare any of the European economies with China, as I don't think even the most left wing Euros are quite THAT left wing
The problem at the moment isn't just in the US (the US$ is stronger against the UK£ than it has been for 3 years now) but is a worldwide recession that had just been masked by pretty muchy all western economies lending huge amounts of money to the banks in order to stop them collapsing.
It is only now that governemnts are having to think about the costs of their 'stimulus' packages and start to plan just what stringent cuts to public services/spending that they will HAVE to make right across the board in order to pay for them
For the last 3 years this recession has pretty much hit big business, but not directly affected the man in the street. Now the time has arrived when the man in the street will once again pick up the tab, and that is going to take a long long time unfortunately, regardless of who is in power right now