Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: humble on October 10, 2008, 01:15:57 AM

Title: Going down...
Post by: humble on October 10, 2008, 01:15:57 AM
I told my brother I thought the Dow would hit 7,500 by year end...not the end of the week :O. With Asian markets tumbling and the quarterlies for Ford and GM looming and the train wreck in Iceland we might free fall to 6,000 or so...

What I find perplexing is the undefined impact of the derivatives market. From my admittedly sketchy understanding it appears that the losses suffered seem to be significantly larger then the actual losses suffered by the underlying assets. Almost like somehow a derivative is a kind of reverse put option where the gain is fixed but the loss somehow magnified enormously so that a dozen or more companies suffer the full impact of the underlying loss.

Given all the actual liquidity in the banking system I've got to believe that at some point (I'm speculating 5,000) some serious money will reenter  the market.
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: Nwbie on October 10, 2008, 10:36:56 AM
If you look at the dow historically - since 1980 as in the chart, and you believed all the stuff about over inflated markets since the Reagan era, It could bottom out at the 3750 levels. Who knows

I was thinking around 6500 last week, but with the recent days -who the H knows?

http://stockcharts.com/charts/historical/djia19802000.html

Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: humble on October 10, 2008, 11:42:59 AM
Currently we have about 6 trillion $$$ in global liquidity parked in very low yield investments. No major players are willing to touch anything...

I'm not much on David Smick but I think he nailed this one on the head earlier today...


"In recent years, our banks, borrowing to maximize the leverage of their assets at unheard-of levels, produced mountains of financial paper instruments (called asset-backed securities) with little means of measuring their value. Incredibly, these paper instruments were insured by more dubious paper instruments.

Therefore, the housing crisis was a mere trigger for a collapse of trust in paper, followed by a de-leveraging of the entire global financial system. As a result, we are experiencing the painful downward reappraisal of the value of virtually every asset in the world."

I think that Monday will tell the tale for the short term. We saw the snap back rally get thumped so either things will stabilize as "smart money" decides a defendable position has been reached or the buy and hold pundits will cave in and a whole new herd will head for the exits. Given the record level of borrowing by commercial banks this week I think we'll see a round of forced sell-offs as more banks continue to bleed out due to bad paper. If so then the big $$$ players will be sitting waiting to snap up bargains as the mid tier players are forced to consider reallocating assets. If it doesn't hold at ~7200-7500 I think it'll free fall dramatically again.

Sadly we're stuck with idiots on all sides. McCain had the right idea before he caved in, had we simply decided to buy the underlying assets at a corrected value then we get a written down value on the underlying asset (not that this is all mortgage related) and you can find a bottom of sorts. Now he simply is making the buy out even worse by completely selling out to special interests over sound policy. In effect he is now a worse option then "the other guy"...as horrifying as that thought is...
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: Engine on October 10, 2008, 12:07:10 PM
Does this mean a cup of coffee will be correctly valued at 50 cents again?
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: Kaw1000 on October 10, 2008, 02:20:09 PM
Can't wait to see what happens when Sally Ma and the credit card companys

go belly up...its next..just watch.
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: Nefarious on October 10, 2008, 02:21:59 PM
Can't wait to see what happens when Sally Ma and the credit card companys

go belly up...its next..just watch.

Does that mean I can stop paying my student loans?  :rock  :D
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: FrodeMk3 on October 10, 2008, 02:26:29 PM
Does that mean I can stop paying my student loans?  :rock  :D

Careful, Nef. In the Great Depression (Maybe we should start referring to it as the first GD, with this one being Great Depression II...?) anyway, the bank's started reposessing all assets' they could . They might come after your Student-loan collateral(if you had to have any.)
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: Nefarious on October 10, 2008, 02:31:49 PM
Careful, Nef. In the Great Depression (Maybe we should start referring to it as the first GD, with this one being Great Depression II...?) anyway, the bank's started reposessing all assets' they could . They might come after your Student-loan collateral(if you had to have any.)

I doubt it will come to that, they can't take what's not there.   :D
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: oakranger on October 10, 2008, 02:50:51 PM
Can't wait to see what happens when Sally Ma and the credit card companys

go belly up...its next..just watch.


I agree.
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: Sixpence on October 10, 2008, 03:40:07 PM
I heard in the radio that GM stock was down to $5 a share? And they are afraid GM will go belly up? Seems like a bargain.

Just checked to see the market had rebounded, alot of bargain hunters at the end of the day?
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: VonMessa on October 10, 2008, 03:49:44 PM
Careful, Nef. In the Great Depression (Maybe we should start referring to it as the first GD, with this one being Great Depression II...?) anyway, the bank's started reposessing all assets' they could . They might come after your Student-loan collateral(if you had to have any.)

Margin Calls       :noid
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: DREDIOCK on October 10, 2008, 07:46:30 PM
Since there seem to be a few who know something here.

How safe is a Vanguard account right now?

Really thats the extent of my investments.
I have no plans on changing that.
I'd just like to know how safe it is.
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: humble on October 10, 2008, 08:03:19 PM
Vanguard is a good fund overall IMO but its a family of funds, so it really depends what your allocation is in any specific funds.
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: lasersailor184 on October 10, 2008, 09:22:53 PM
I heard in the radio that GM stock was down to $5 a share? And they are afraid GM will go belly up? Seems like a bargain.

Just checked to see the market had rebounded, alot of bargain hunters at the end of the day?

Not overly.  The problem is that the stock market has become a house of cards.  People were trading stocks way above the ACTUAL values of the stocks.
Title: Re: Going down...
Post by: Nwbie on October 10, 2008, 09:50:19 PM
Since there seem to be a few who know something here.

How safe is a Vanguard account right now?

Really thats the extent of my investments.
I have no plans on changing that.
I'd just like to know how safe it is.

You probably have a diversified portfolio - at least I hope so, many times you would be advised to stay in one type or another fund based on your age, ie. agressive stocks spread out if you are 30 or less, low yield but "safe" funds portfolio if you are 50 or over. It is hard to say unless you listed your fund allocations. I would just sit still on it, you will show losses, but hopefully the fund manager is buying up the solid stocks as they are at lows, again, the lows are a guess, but the lows may be almost the bottom. It is a gamble, but looking at the history you have a fairly safe bet, if left alone the value will rise again.  Now is the best time to learn how you can manage your fund allocations. While the "pain" is still fresh. It took a big drop in the early 90's for me to finally quit letting other people worry about my money.