[Coronita]

Porsche has full page ads for the Cayman at $589/mo lease. The high end is not doing that good if they are doing incentives. Boat sales are also down. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20070801-9999-1b1boat.html Now, some have argued that the rich are immune so their housing communities are immune as well. I doubt very much that anything under $5 million is immune to the downturn.

 

The irony to this is how many americans lease a car they can't normally afford….When I hear about so and so "bought" a high end car, I chuckle because a lot of them are leases.  Nothing wrong with leasing if you get a nice tax writeoff because of your biz. But folks that I've seen lease because they can't afford.  Oh well.

[Coronita]

Porsche has full page ads for the Cayman at $589/mo lease. The high end is not doing that good if they are doing incentives. Boat sales are also down. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20070801-9999-1b1boat.html Now, some have argued that the rich are immune so their housing communities are immune as well. I doubt very much that anything under $5 million is immune to the downturn.

 

The irony to this is how many americans lease a car they can't normally afford….When I hear about so and so "bought" a high end car, I chuckle because a lot of them are leases.  Nothing wrong with leasing if you get a nice tax writeoff because of your biz. But folks that I've seen lease because they can't afford.  Oh well.

[Coronita]

Do a search on undoing a roth conversion. If I recall you can undo a roth conversion if you do so before the end of the tax year.

http://www.rothira.com/reverse.htm

[Coronita]

Do a search on undoing a roth conversion. If I recall you can undo a roth conversion if you do so before the end of the tax year.

http://www.rothira.com/reverse.htm

[Coronita]

I don't know what is wrong with the Lucent folks. A guy I worked with was working in Lucent and they invested all his 401(k) in Lucent stock. He lost it all when LU melted down. (I was a 'value investor' on the downward slide – bought into the Bell Labs sheen – and got creamed)

 

It's not just lucent folks. It's the average employee at any company. Look at all the Enron folks.

 

Imho, one of the worst decisions I've seen some folks do

 

1)Hold on to vested stock options for a long period of time

2)Buy and hold on to ESPP stock purchases for a long time

3)Invest 401k money into company stock

4)Buy the company' stock with Net income.

 

It's not that any of the decisions above are bad by themselves, but I've seen folks do 1-4 simultaneously. Folks usally do this when the company stock is rallying ,because of greed. But this is really asking for it because if the company does bad

1)The stock you purchased with net income loses money

2)You screw your retirement account (401k)

3)You end up doubly screwed on the ESPP from (a)share value loss and (b) paying for taxes on income from ESPP share purchases due to how the IRS recognizes ESPP shares differential from the FMV as income versus cap gains

4)Your options probably go underwater, rendering them useless

5)You might even lose your job due to the performance of your company.

Hence, when you are in the most financial crisis, any financial backup you had went with fall of your company.

[Coronita]

I don't know what is wrong with the Lucent folks. A guy I worked with was working in Lucent and they invested all his 401(k) in Lucent stock. He lost it all when LU melted down. (I was a 'value investor' on the downward slide – bought into the Bell Labs sheen – and got creamed)

 

It's not just lucent folks. It's the average employee at any company. Look at all the Enron folks.

 

Imho, one of the worst decisions I've seen some folks do

 

1)Hold on to vested stock options for a long period of time

2)Buy and hold on to ESPP stock purchases for a long time

3)Invest 401k money into company stock

4)Buy the company' stock with Net income.

 

It's not that any of the decisions above are bad by themselves, but I've seen folks do 1-4 simultaneously. Folks usally do this when the company stock is rallying ,because of greed. But this is really asking for it because if the company does bad

1)The stock you purchased with net income loses money

2)You screw your retirement account (401k)

3)You end up doubly screwed on the ESPP from (a)share value loss and (b) paying for taxes on income from ESPP share purchases due to how the IRS recognizes ESPP shares differential from the FMV as income versus cap gains

4)Your options probably go underwater, rendering them useless

5)You might even lose your job due to the performance of your company.

Hence, when you are in the most financial crisis, any financial backup you had went with fall of your company.

[Coronita]

Good lord. The Dow futures are down 170 points already! Anyone who is long this market is going to get destroyed tomorrow. Bring on the carnage, I say! We need to get home prices and stock prices back down to reasonable prices that make some sense.

 

Next prediction? 🙂

 

Mine: the market is going to swing back and forth bigtime around for the next 2-3 months as folks try to sort through the garbage of earnings/ sub prime mess/ etc. 

[Coronita]

Good lord. The Dow futures are down 170 points already! Anyone who is long this market is going to get destroyed tomorrow. Bring on the carnage, I say! We need to get home prices and stock prices back down to reasonable prices that make some sense.

 

Next prediction? 🙂

 

Mine: the market is going to swing back and forth bigtime around for the next 2-3 months as folks try to sort through the garbage of earnings/ sub prime mess/ etc. 

[Coronita]

let's see…. "Yahoo Message Boards"–presumably several tens of thousands (hundreds?) readers/posters/viewers vs piggington.com–readership/posters/people who have any clue this wonderful resource exist…statistically insignificant great comparison, though, fat_lazy 😉

 

If you read the Yahoo Finance Message boards, you'd see that the posters are just folks with bear and bull positions, which alternate in posting how "smart" they are when the markets move in the direction to their positions, and suddently disappear when the market moves in a direction causes them to eat their pants. It appears, that there is a fair share of posters here that are doing this here as well.

 

Lately, just by reading Piggington forum post, I can tell how the market did for that day, because you can see a lot more bear "see I told you so" posts on down days, and bull "see I told you so" posts on up days.

 

 

[Coronita]

let's see…. "Yahoo Message Boards"–presumably several tens of thousands (hundreds?) readers/posters/viewers vs piggington.com–readership/posters/people who have any clue this wonderful resource exist…statistically insignificant great comparison, though, fat_lazy 😉

 

If you read the Yahoo Finance Message boards, you'd see that the posters are just folks with bear and bull positions, which alternate in posting how "smart" they are when the markets move in the direction to their positions, and suddently disappear when the market moves in a direction causes them to eat their pants. It appears, that there is a fair share of posters here that are doing this here as well.

 

Lately, just by reading Piggington forum post, I can tell how the market did for that day, because you can see a lot more bear "see I told you so" posts on down days, and bull "see I told you so" posts on up days.

 

 

[Coronita]

Sort of Off topic, We are seeing alot of the engineers (software types mostly) who don't already own homes (this is in North L.A. area), leave for Bigger San Jose firms. You Engineering types Down in SD seeing this as well. I guess there is no advantage anymore to staying down here at the moment.

 

.. Tech is back in the bay area. I've been getting calls from headhunters offering positions. Talked to a few of them, got a few offers for the hell of it,..Found out all are all well funded startups that offered 20-30k more than what I make down here, and the current company I work for isn't exactly paying shabby. If i didn't have a family to consider, I'd move back there because I really miss the rush. Now, the hires are different now. It seems like they're looking for more higher level engineer types (architects/designers/system folks), because most of the grunt work is oversees, but that's just what I've been seeing.

The issue is that most of the tech industries here in SD are big companies with limited growth..And things move slow here. I guess working at these big bloated companies means you'll be content to see at most a 2-3% raise, and see a promotion if the guy above you dies or gets fired, because there's not much lateral or upward movement among companies here. Fortunately, I work for a company that is decent (non-defense/non-telco), so it's alright (for now)….

 

[Coronita]

Sort of Off topic, We are seeing alot of the engineers (software types mostly) who don't already own homes (this is in North L.A. area), leave for Bigger San Jose firms. You Engineering types Down in SD seeing this as well. I guess there is no advantage anymore to staying down here at the moment.

 

.. Tech is back in the bay area. I've been getting calls from headhunters offering positions. Talked to a few of them, got a few offers for the hell of it,..Found out all are all well funded startups that offered 20-30k more than what I make down here, and the current company I work for isn't exactly paying shabby. If i didn't have a family to consider, I'd move back there because I really miss the rush. Now, the hires are different now. It seems like they're looking for more higher level engineer types (architects/designers/system folks), because most of the grunt work is oversees, but that's just what I've been seeing.

The issue is that most of the tech industries here in SD are big companies with limited growth..And things move slow here. I guess working at these big bloated companies means you'll be content to see at most a 2-3% raise, and see a promotion if the guy above you dies or gets fired, because there's not much lateral or upward movement among companies here. Fortunately, I work for a company that is decent (non-defense/non-telco), so it's alright (for now)….

 

[Coronita]

And the bear’s come out kicking today about how right they are 🙂 Man, this site is turning into the Yahoo Message Boards.

[Coronita]

And the bear’s come out kicking today about how right they are 🙂 Man, this site is turning into the Yahoo Message Boards.

[Coronita]

Bet against them on Monday and doubled my portfolio in two days. Man I've been waiting for them to dive. I pulled out of my BSC puts prematurely yesterday with a 60% gain. Would have had 200% percent after today. Tomorrow should be fun if you look what happened to the Yen and NIKKEI in the last two days.

 

Capemen, My experience is that you can rarely time the option prices correctly. If you start thinking "if I only waited, I would have made 40+% more", the next time you buy options, you will mentally want to stay in longer than you probably should..And chances are your options will expire worthless. While you possibly could pass off buying/shorting stocks as an "investment", playing options is really gambling. You're not going to win every hand, and on the hand you want to win on.

 

[Author]

Posts