Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
July 19, 2007 at 11:29 PM in reply to: Is the liquidity tide finally rushing out of Wall Street? #66630July 19, 2007 at 11:29 PM in reply to: Is the liquidity tide finally rushing out of Wall Street? #66694
CoronitaParticipantthe stock market has done what, 20% in the past 4 months? is it on track to do 40% on the year? is that normal?
No it's not "normal". But there's nothing "normal" about the stock market. One could argue the 9/11 terrorist attack was not a "normal" event. Or the corporate corruption such as enron is not "normal" either to have depressed the market as much as it did. Markets tend to overreact both ways. It is what it is. Big banks/mutual funds/etc aren't going to let a market simply crumble, even if it means proping the markets some way.
That's why I sort don't get at all the software out there that claims to allow you to make $$$ day trading by using historical data to create trading strategies. Past behavior isn't a guarentee of future behavior.
It seems it's all about expectations. You have a crappy company that loses less money than expected, stock goes up. You have a great company that beat earnings, but not the "whisper" numbers, and the stock craters. That's why folks average folks shouldn't gamble on 1-2 individual stocks.
In my observation, I don't think the stock rise has been attributed to individual "investors" getting back into the stock market. It appears all the action has been happening because of institutional moves, as if they are positioning to ride the momentum up, with the prospects of unloading to individuals. The time to get out of the market is when the average joes starts thinking the stock market is a great thing again. It doesn't seem like average joe has that sentiment yet.
Anyway, the market uptick doesn’t make up for the dollar’s decline anyway, like someone previous said. Which is why holding U.S. dollars in low interest instruments to me isn;t appealing. the latter is a slow painful decline, the former is the risk of a quick drop. In the end, if the US economy suffers, both get screwed equally. But the low interest instrument has a capped upside.
July 19, 2007 at 7:55 AM in reply to: Is the liquidity tide finally rushing out of Wall Street? #66449CoronitaParticipantDon’t know where the thing is really headed. but to me, if you go against the grain by shorting the entire market, it seems like you have way to many forces going against you. Shorting individual stocks probably works if you know what your doing. But shorting the entire markets with these new reverse indexes, I’m not so sure.
July 19, 2007 at 7:55 AM in reply to: Is the liquidity tide finally rushing out of Wall Street? #66514CoronitaParticipantDon’t know where the thing is really headed. but to me, if you go against the grain by shorting the entire market, it seems like you have way to many forces going against you. Shorting individual stocks probably works if you know what your doing. But shorting the entire markets with these new reverse indexes, I’m not so sure.
CoronitaParticipantWow, Countrywide has about 20 pages (100/page) of California homes.
Ouch.
CoronitaParticipantWow, Countrywide has about 20 pages (100/page) of California homes.
Ouch.
CoronitaParticipantBefore getting all excited about that 5% yield, remember, anyone investing in billions of $ (like Central Banks) want absolute certainty that their PRINCIPAL is safe and secure! That Emigrant Direct savings account is only insured up to $100,000 by FDIC. Anything beyond that can just "emigrate away" if the bank goes belly up! And you need a really big mattress to put a billion $ in Ben Franklins under it. So it boils down to currency risk diversification, preservation of principal and practicality.
Yes, that's per account. So open a couple… But if you think about it, what guarentee does a bond "really" have that is sooo much safer than the FDIC if we have a financial crisis? The only "safe" thing at that time is to have precious metals (albeit expensive now.) Safety of an investment is just an illusion. It assumes theres no financial crisis. As such, I'm really not sure why folks want to put a majority of things into low yielding, "safe" things. If there is a meltdown, it doesn't really matter.
CoronitaParticipantBefore getting all excited about that 5% yield, remember, anyone investing in billions of $ (like Central Banks) want absolute certainty that their PRINCIPAL is safe and secure! That Emigrant Direct savings account is only insured up to $100,000 by FDIC. Anything beyond that can just "emigrate away" if the bank goes belly up! And you need a really big mattress to put a billion $ in Ben Franklins under it. So it boils down to currency risk diversification, preservation of principal and practicality.
Yes, that's per account. So open a couple… But if you think about it, what guarentee does a bond "really" have that is sooo much safer than the FDIC if we have a financial crisis? The only "safe" thing at that time is to have precious metals (albeit expensive now.) Safety of an investment is just an illusion. It assumes theres no financial crisis. As such, I'm really not sure why folks want to put a majority of things into low yielding, "safe" things. If there is a meltdown, it doesn't really matter.
CoronitaParticipantAnyone who buys a 5-year note yielding 1.5% is f*cking insane. I don't care what currency it's in. If you want to diversify your currency holdings (or bet on a currency, for that matter) then just buy the currency; there's no need to commit to 5 years at a paltry 1.5%. I would put money in a bank at 0% or under my mattress before I'd commit to a 5-year note at 1.5%. If rates uptick just a little that bond will get whacked – do the math. And if you're holding it until maturity, well… you're just getting 1.5% per year. So, the Nips are crazy. What else is new? Of course we've got our share of crazies too… we've got people willing to hold 10-year notes yielding 5.5% or thereabouts, which is barely above inflation. Meanwhile, you can get a CD that yields almost the same rate with almost zero duration risk. Go figure. The world's gone mad. But at least it's entertaining.
…..Or open an Emigrant Direct savings account that yields about 5.05% for short term cash reserves. (ok slightly less). Screw the cd.
CoronitaParticipantAnyone who buys a 5-year note yielding 1.5% is f*cking insane. I don't care what currency it's in. If you want to diversify your currency holdings (or bet on a currency, for that matter) then just buy the currency; there's no need to commit to 5 years at a paltry 1.5%. I would put money in a bank at 0% or under my mattress before I'd commit to a 5-year note at 1.5%. If rates uptick just a little that bond will get whacked – do the math. And if you're holding it until maturity, well… you're just getting 1.5% per year. So, the Nips are crazy. What else is new? Of course we've got our share of crazies too… we've got people willing to hold 10-year notes yielding 5.5% or thereabouts, which is barely above inflation. Meanwhile, you can get a CD that yields almost the same rate with almost zero duration risk. Go figure. The world's gone mad. But at least it's entertaining.
…..Or open an Emigrant Direct savings account that yields about 5.05% for short term cash reserves. (ok slightly less). Screw the cd.
CoronitaParticipantThanks for the comments fat and rad, we'll likely say no but I'm still interested in learning if others have done something similar.
You mean loaning money? If so, not on real estate. There was a time though when one of my wife's college's friend's friend was admitted one of the top 3 MBA schools. The only problem was that he couldn't afford to go. His friend's friends started to solicit college friends (5 folks, wife included) if they could help "sponsor" him for a student loan. It started out that someone suggested each of us could loan him a couple of ten-thousands, with a "promise" for payback plus market interest. The problem was that this person was from China, with no credit, no assets here, nothing (hence why he couldn't qualify for a student loan). I was sort of leary of this, but my wife was generally sympathetic to students from her college. Being a foreign student herself, she could relate what a great opportunity it was and how it would be terrible if the person couldn't go, so she was considering helping the guy out. And since she was planning to donote to her alta-mater anyway, we thought well why not just cut out the middle man and help an actual person out….We probably would have gone through with it except other folks bailed out, and it somehow ended up that his friend's friends were trying to get him a real student loan, co-signed by the rest of us. At that point, we bailed out. The way we got out without upseting her friends was that I just told her to tell them that "my husband is a cheap american bastard, and won't cosign any loan without collateral…"
In hindsight, I don’t know what we were thinking. While I feel bad that i think the guy didn’t end up going, it’s really not our responsibility to bail everyone out either.
There are the other friends that occasionally ask us if we would like to “invest” in some fund/asset/property/etc. The polite thing to say imho is, “gee, we’d love too, but were broke especially now with a kid”.
CoronitaParticipantThanks for the comments fat and rad, we'll likely say no but I'm still interested in learning if others have done something similar.
You mean loaning money? If so, not on real estate. There was a time though when one of my wife's college's friend's friend was admitted one of the top 3 MBA schools. The only problem was that he couldn't afford to go. His friend's friends started to solicit college friends (5 folks, wife included) if they could help "sponsor" him for a student loan. It started out that someone suggested each of us could loan him a couple of ten-thousands, with a "promise" for payback plus market interest. The problem was that this person was from China, with no credit, no assets here, nothing (hence why he couldn't qualify for a student loan). I was sort of leary of this, but my wife was generally sympathetic to students from her college. Being a foreign student herself, she could relate what a great opportunity it was and how it would be terrible if the person couldn't go, so she was considering helping the guy out. And since she was planning to donote to her alta-mater anyway, we thought well why not just cut out the middle man and help an actual person out….We probably would have gone through with it except other folks bailed out, and it somehow ended up that his friend's friends were trying to get him a real student loan, co-signed by the rest of us. At that point, we bailed out. The way we got out without upseting her friends was that I just told her to tell them that "my husband is a cheap american bastard, and won't cosign any loan without collateral…"
In hindsight, I don’t know what we were thinking. While I feel bad that i think the guy didn’t end up going, it’s really not our responsibility to bail everyone out either.
There are the other friends that occasionally ask us if we would like to “invest” in some fund/asset/property/etc. The polite thing to say imho is, “gee, we’d love too, but were broke especially now with a kid”.
CoronitaParticipantUm… even if this was you immediate friend, I wouldn’t suggest helping. Funny things happen to friends when it comes to money. After all, this is business, it’s not personal.
We’re not talking about a couple of bucks because someone forgot to bring their lunch money.If you’re concerned about upseting your middle friend, just say “sorry, we like to help, but we’re cash strapped ourselves.” Works everytime for us.
CoronitaParticipantUm… even if this was you immediate friend, I wouldn’t suggest helping. Funny things happen to friends when it comes to money. After all, this is business, it’s not personal.
We’re not talking about a couple of bucks because someone forgot to bring their lunch money.If you’re concerned about upseting your middle friend, just say “sorry, we like to help, but we’re cash strapped ourselves.” Works everytime for us.
CoronitaParticipantHow much do you guys pay for TV? What's the NPV of the purchase price plus all the monthly costs ad infinitum? HD service from the cable company is very costly. I just get TV over the air. I have a 37" lcd and it's just fine by me. I can't foresee buying another TV for a long, long time.
$13 for basic cable. We can't justify spending more because we rarely watch tv. And we only use it because most of our tv's are still analog. We have a 42" plasma for which I use the OTA HD signals for all the local channels (and pbs). It might just be me, but I think the OTA hd signals are better than the HD local signals from Time Warner.
-
AuthorPosts
