Economy

[BAD BEHAVIOR]

As many of us on this site seem to have been richly blessed and very fortunate that we can afford the pasttime we all love, there most likely are already people who cant make the trip to the coast as often b/c of lack of funds. Therefore, less pressure should mean more fish for everyone. Well, that is until BB shows up, then you can pack your shiot, cause your day will be over. FISH FEAR THE MENTION OF BB'S NAME!!!!!

[Cranfield]

BAD BEHAVIOUR has summed it up very neatly and its not just a US problem, its a World wide problem, take a look at the foreign Stock Exchanges.
Many non US financial institutions are underwriting a lot of the US consumer debt and taking the hit on the defaults.

It amuses me to read people saying that its not affecting our area, the chap down the road has sold his house etc. etc.
People are still blindly increasing their debt liability and accepting "buy now pay later" options, the downward spiral is nowhere near stopping.
The real pain is yet to come.

Who do you think will end up paying for all the defaulted debt in the long term ?
One clue, it won't be the debtors, nor most of the Lenders.

The best investment advice at the moment is to stick with guaranteed no risk bonds (or similar), take the lower return, but preserve your capital.

[Tom Keels]

This is only the beginning. Remember what happens next November.

[Reel Cowboy]

Although I agree with Barhopr, Bman and BB, this thread is misnamed.

It is way to depressing for this early in the morning.

But heres my .02, in the area of industry I work in, sales have been mostly comparable to where the were last year, just spread out a little more. There have been 5-7 large businesses that have gone under in the last 6 months that were (at least seemed) to be doing pretty well last year. The decrease in new construction has a lot of people in trouble, just go check out your local sawmill/lumber hard. Econonmic times such as this are when the poeple who have been smart and planned ahead will be ok but those that just wanted to know what the "monthly" was might be doing some serious rethinking.

[Sir reel]

$.02... I would not be surprised to see the DOW hit 11k or below.

As far as retirement funds... I've got about 88% in fixed income with the remaining 12 allocated to foreign, mid cap, and index. Wish I'd a moved it all to fixed and then started buying on the down side but I feel OK with it.

[Reel Cowboy]

Sir Reel, what is the retirement thing you speak of?

[Sir reel]

State of Florida Deferred Comp

[Chalk]

I will buying stocks with any available capital I have....it's time to buy, you never buy in a good market.

The market analysis are based on totality and averages, if you look at the S&P, NAS, DOW, NIK, stocks individually there are alot of stocks down and up.....someone will always make money and lose money...Furniture, cars, iphones and what not may not be making positive gains but there are things that we can not live with out that people will continue to buy i.e. water, gas, oil, food no matter what the cost. Those commodities will post favorable results.

RB, I said closing on condo's not selling

Invest in GULP seems people can't leave home without it

[Sir reel]

If I wasn't 3 1/2 years from walking out the door, I'd be buying with all available capital as well. Instead I'm more interested in protecting what I've accumulated. On a go forward basis, I'm still buying but not to the degree that I would be if I had a longer period in front of me. My risk tolerance is not as strong as some

[bman]

Would the moderators please merge this thread with the Hurricane Dean Thread.....


If we are going to worry lets do it in one place.
Barry

[Chalk]

If I wasn't 3 1/2 years from walking out the door, I'd be buying with all available capital as well. Instead I'm more interested in protecting what I've accumulated. On a go forward basis, I'm still buying but not to the degree that I would be if I had a longer period in front of me. My risk tolerance is not as strong as some

I believe the math is to subtract your age from 100, the answer is invested into the stock market, your age is invested in secure things like bonds, etc. The older you get the less you invest in the stock market and more in secure options.

The difference and age are the percentages of your portfolio

[Sir reel]

Sounds like we're close to saying the same thing

[MudDucker]

Dis is my opinion....it is only an opinion.

Much of the problem in this market is due to the creation of "derivative" investments in the mortgage market (as well as others). What is this you might ask? It is where folks combine mortgage loans into a package and sell the package to investors. Hence you have a real separation between those who make the loans and those who are to profit from the loans. In the low interest times, there was a real demand for higher yields and yes, these mortgage pools initially offered higher yields. In order to increase demand for loans, generate more fees from lending, while knowing that you ultimately would not be hurt from a failure of the loan you made, unscrupulous mortgage brokers created products that qualified more people for bigger loans (hence bigger fees to them) all based upon the theory that once made and sold, it was someone else's problem. Teaser rates suddenly become the mainstay of the market. Greedy investors who saw real estate booming (mostly due to a glut of greedy investors) jumped on these mortgages that were doomed to failure unless the real estate investment turned quickly. Consumers saw a chance at getting larger and larger homes and jumped on these loans thinking they could roll in and out on their way up the financial ladder. Well guess what, rates went up and suddenly the higher end of the market again saw fewer and fewer people there to speculate and the speculation market began to bust and roll down hill very fast. On the consumer side, rates went up when the teaser period ran out and now the roll mortgages with further teaser rates weren't there to roll out. Folks suddenly were faced with mortgage payments they could not pay. Without payments, the mortgage companies could not service their debt and the snow ball is on.

What caused it...same as the depression, greed. Will it lead to another depression, don't think so, but it sure will cause the economy to recede until the glut of the market is absorbed. Hurting the construction industry will ripple through all of our pocket books.

Just my opinions. I'm not selling my real estate, not liquidating my stock investments and my office window is on the first floor.

[Dubble Trubble]

I will give it to ya straight guys. Americans better start supporting AMERICANS, or we all better learn to speak chinese.

We have sold ourselves out.....


Dubble

[boggob]

Interesting thread. I like the "buy American" statement but what in the world is American these days? Please, name some products that are purely American.