[quote=burghMan]
…what I’m asking is a market timing question, which is something I know the “experts” say we should never try to do, but I cannot help but try and do it anyway. It seems to me like buying stocks today is much like buying real estate in 2002 or so. Not insanely expensive, but certainly expensive by historic data. Which means a big decline is a real possibility and upside is limited.
[/quote]
as I read the tea leaves (to try and get the big picture) the market is going up because there is a giant pool of money, pushing up prices
[quote] Public Pension Plans Continue to Shift Into U.S. Stocks
Nov. 5, 2019
As the bull market enters its 11th year, state and local pension plans are piling on risk, as they try to make up shortfalls.
…State and local pension plans have about $4.4 trillion in assets, according to the Federal Reserve, $4.2 trillion less than the value of promised future benefits.
BUT as they say what goes up,… eventually must come down
a story in the back pages of the newspaper caught my eye about the CA state auditor raising a red flag about the fiscal health of this city
[quote] AUDIT: SAN DIEGO’S FISCAL HEALTH
San Diego is the most fiscally troubled city in San Diego County, according to the California State Auditor.
…That poor ranking appears to be driven by the city’s large amount of long term debt, more than $3.3 billion, and its failure to set aside adequate funding to meet the demands of its pension and other post-employment benefit obligations, according to the dashboard.
San Diego also received the worst rating when came to the amount it has set aside in its financial reserves, an issue the auditor specifically highlighted during her press conference.
“The city of San Diego really only has a couple of months of reserves set aside,” said Howle. “This should be a warning flag for city officials and the city of San Diego, that this is an area officials need to focus on.”
at some point because of all the debt obligation(s) not just here in this city
[quote] PBGC Projections: Multiemployer Program Insolvent in FY 2025
May 31, 2018
WASHINGTON – The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s Multiemployer Insurance Program continues to face insolvency by the end of fiscal year 2025, according to findings in the FY 2017 Projections Report. The agency’s insurance program for multiemployer pension plans covers over 10 million people.
The new projections show a narrower range of years for the likely date of insolvency of the Multiemployer Program. The likelihood that the Multiemployer Program will run out of money before the end of FY 2025 has grown to over 90 percent, and there remains a significant chance the program will run out of money during FY 2024. The likelihood the program will remain solvent after FY 2026 is now less than 1 percent.
pretty certain there will be lots more people forced to be between a rock and a hard place because politicians have no financial sense AND the courts don’t want to address “the California rule” (which legally implies the taxpayer is the financial backstop for mismanaged pension debt obligations???)
[quote] Calif. High Court Avoids the ‘California Rule’ in Pension Benefits Change Decision
March 22, 2019
In its much-anticipated ruling in Cal Fire Local 2881 v. California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the California Supreme Court avoided opining on the long-standing pension rule, known as the “California Rule,” which is a state court interpretation of constitutional law that prohibits reduction of pension benefits unless they are offset by comparable new benefits.
doing a little more digging, seems all is not right in the SFR housing market,… ever hear of “shadow inventory” held by big financial institutions? using a “special purpose entity” seems its possible to keep assets off balance sheet,… this is useful because it makes the financial position of big financial institutions, look better than it really is
[quote] Why the 2008 Housing Crisis Recovery Is Just an Illusion (w/ Keith Jurow, MarketWatch RealEstate)
and some of the smart money players who noticed things were not kosher in w/ subprime loans and made smart bets against derivatives,… are at it again
[quote] Citing climate risk, investors bet against mortgage market
NEW YORK (Reuters) – David Burt helped two of the protagonists of Michael Lewis’ book The Big Short bet against the U.S. mortgage market in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Now he’s betting against the market again, but this time, the risk is not from underwater subprime mortgages, it’s from homes sinking under water.
As he did then, Burt has given up his full-time job to make that bet. He left his role as a portfolio manager at the $1 trillion Wellington Management last year to start an investment firm, DeltaTerra Capital, which aims to help clients manage climate risk, and, where possible, take advantage of ways the market has not yet priced in that risk. His first investment strategy is targeting residential mortgage-backed securities, or RMBS, with exposure to climate hot spots like Texas and Florida.
In doing so, Burt is joining the ranks of a small number of investors who have become worried that climate risk is underpriced in these securities, which are pools of home loans sold to investors.
“The market’s failure to integrate climate science with investment analysis has created a mispricing phenomenon that is possibly larger than the mortgage credit bubble of the mid-2000s,”
if you want to know what kind individual one is up against (and is anecdotal evidence why it seems we are headed for eventual market turbulence),… this kinda guy (using NSFW “language”) is basically the archetypal character type that sees no problem w/ the mortgage market says banks understand managing risk,…
[quote=burghMan]
…How long can the bull market go on?
[/quote]
in general people find good news more credible than bad news,… so this human nature (i.e. psychology) will drive the market forward up until the point various market players have a sudden loss of confidence in the system
so the trick w/ timing IMHO is keep one eye on the fundamental valuations and the other eye on the mindset of the other various market players,… IOW when fundamental valuations suck and when various market players have a sudden loss of confidence in the system, that is when we have a big crash like in 1929 and 2007/2008
