How much wll the stock market drop?

[Jim]

I am guessing a drop of about 450 points during the day and a closing bell drop of about 250 points.

[T Pat]

LOL, I guess 500 points at the closing bell
BofA,s financials are coming out today, My son in law heard rumors Friday that the Countrywide buyout isn't going to happen
Karmer predicted Friday that there will be a 2000 point drop within two weeks because the insurance companies that are insuring the subprime mortgages are going to be falling like domino's

[Fonz]

Damn you all, stock markets worldwide are dropping because the fear of an upcoming US recession. Good thing I pulled all my $$$ a few months ago to pay for the new apartment

[Jim]

Originally Posted by T Pat

LOL, I guess 500 points at the closing bell
BofA,s financials are coming out today, My son in law heard rumors Friday that the Countrywide buyout isn't going to happen
Karmer predicted Friday that there will be a 2000 point drop within two weeks because the insurance companies that are insuring the subprime mortgages are going to be falling like domino's

I guess I am trying to be an optimist. I didn't hear that the Countrywide deal was a bust. I did hear that BofA was in some trouble.

And Fonz...it's good to know that the US economy is causing problems around the world. About time someone bailed us out.

[docholly]

I had to go peep at my tiny little portfolio last night at 3am. On a "good" note, most of the stuff I bought was 2 days after the 1987 crash so I bought in when the market was like at 1890 and after 9-11 i moved most of the profits into either long term annuities or indexing funds. So as long as Dow stays at least around 8K I'm still pretty good for my original 10K investment.

Some good advice I received years ago while working for Salomon Bros....Buy it and Forget it. I know there are "other" schools of thought regarding this but if you buy what you love and use, how can you go wrong?

I don't think we've seen the bottoming out of the subprime market and an 800.00 windfall isn't going to go very far economy wise. Encouraging people to actually put money into savings so that banks can use it to loan to small emerging growth businesses will stimulate the economy and jump start the down trending job market. Of course this is what a Republican president is SUPPOSED to know but apparently the last few have lost that POV.

I was watching House Hunters INTL yesterday and the Caribbean is looking better and better.

[JustRobert]

I agree with the "buy and forget" principal as long as your not close to retirement. I am not, so weathering the storm is no big deal. I have mine set up in a restructuring account so every 3 months it sells off gains and buys those that are down keeping portfolio balanced by holding a percentage of each automatically. This has produced better overall gains than the B&F format.

Bulk of my portfolio was purchased before I left my old company 3 years ago and my house was purchased around the same time so both are still way up overall

I will say that sometimes it is frustrating to know that in the past year each have tumbled tens of thousands of dollars and will continue to do so over this year, IMO

[Jim]

Lack of patience was my investing downfall. Back when everyone was making a fortune, I lost about $80k

[Jim]

So far the market dropped about 465 but gained most of it back. I still like my numbers.

[JustRobert]

Just saw that the feds cut interest rates to help stop the plunge and curtail possible recession. Unfortunately this is a bandaid effect. Looks like the European Central Bank will probably raise its rates, to slow inflation, whick will untimately hurt the value of the US dollar even more. This may lead to higher oil prices and such.

Patience is hard when you see money jumping ship from your investments. I remember my father talking about not being patient in 87 and losing a bunch of money because of it. So after 9-11 and the market took its big dip I doubled my contributions from 10 to 20% of salary when everyone was selling. Best move I made. I feel the same scenario is playing today and for this year, unfortunately the best I can do right now is contribute the maximum allowed to my IRA.

[docholly]

Originally Posted by JustRobert

I agree with the "buy and forget" principal as long as your not close to retirement. I am not, so weathering the storm is no big deal. I have mine set up in a restructuring account so every 3 months it sells off gains and buys those that are down keeping portfolio balanced by holding a percentage of each automatically. This has produced better overall gains than the B&F format.

Bulk of my portfolio was purchased before I left my old company 3 years ago and my house was purchased around the same time so both are still way up overall

I will say that sometimes it is frustrating to know that in the past year each have tumbled tens of thousands of dollars and will continue to do so over this year, IMO

I was about 32 when I first bought in. After 9-11 I restructured some things in order to have some kind of income when I hit 65/70 etc. I'll probably never retire in 12 years but I know that S/S will never be able to cover even the most basic of living expenses.

I did dabble in "Day trading" at the end of the 90's. but it was too volatile for me. it wasn't much but I love to gamble and I could see a serious addiction coming on. So I quit and just went back to my original plan.. of Research, find, buy and forget.

[T Pat]

The Fed saved the day but we still haven't seen the bottom

[JustRobert]

I totally agree about S/S, in fact I seriously doubt if it will be there when I reach that age so I do not count on it at all. Figured that if it does come it would be like getting an unsuspected pay raise

[JustRobert]

I just read that do to our stock demise Europe has taken a hit. Instead of raising interest rates this thursday, which was rumored last week, they may actually cut them. This should help stop the dollar losing more value against the euro.

[Useless]

This makes me feel pretty good about my complete lack of savings or retirement plan. Damn, I sure hope my wife's step-mother doesn't leave all of her money to her church. Fingers crossed. (I'm fairly certain that she hates us.)

[stuveltje]

i think stocks will drop huge, before i did adult bizz almost 8 years ago i was in stocks, well in the "call and options" part an bought stocks on the usa market, a dangerouse part but in the right time and lost huge amound of money an hour and earn a huge amound an hour, with the stocks bizz i did.i had to focus every minute an hour when stockmarket was open, i drop out of stock bizz the time, the us market said all went to an recession again, the dutch stock market AEX went from 700+ points to a 350 points, i am follow the shit all, because when the right time, i jump back into it, on this moment the dutch AEX lost more then 160 miljard (now there goes my english, i dont know what a miljard is in english) in value of stocks, thats realy bad, now the ECB from europa told this midday, they wont do like the usa, drope the intrest rates to save the economy, the ecb is only interested to save the banks, this means to me, the stocks will drop huge, 8 years ago they manage to drop to bad value and it will happen again.

[stuveltje]

btw stocks dropping in value, even on that part you can earn

[LD]

The interest rate cut will prop it up for a time, but the concern there is that our debt financed economy will find it harder to attract more investments. Manipulating money supply like that to ward off a recession is tricky, but it's getting close to election time, and a recession would probably ensure a Democrat in the oval office.

[docholly]

Originally Posted by LusciousDelight

The interest rate cut will prop it up for a time, but the concern there is that our debt financed economy will find it harder to attract more investments. Manipulating money supply like that to ward off a recession is tricky, but it's getting close to election time, and a recession would probably ensure a Democrat in the oval office.

It will also ensure that 4 years from now .. whoever is in the white house will be blamed for all the problems. 18-24 yr old voters in 2012 won't remember who the hell GWB and his croneys were that put us in this position and will blame it all on who ever is at the moment.

Wall Street (collectively-US/Hong Kong/Euro etc) is the worlds largest casino.. and it's all a crap shoot. Which is why you should always buy what you love and what you own or at least get a fund that has shares in them.

Encouraging people to put money in to savings is the only real way to stabilize the economy for the long haul. Cutting interest rates is just a very small bandage.

On a semi related note (i didn't want to start a new thread) this was in the Onion today. Pretty amusing.

[stuveltje]

we got the news today, that because the usa dropped the interest rate again that there was a run on the morgage thing in the usa (yeah yaeh my english)

[Ramster]

Originally Posted by docholly

Encouraging people to put money in to savings is the only real way to stabilize the economy for the long haul. Cutting interest rates is just a very small bandage.

Interest rate cuts in 2000-2001 is what put the economy where it is today with the sub prime mortgage crisis and the fate of the low US dollar around the world.

Hopefully it doesn't happen again. I'm sure foreign investors will be smarter this time around.

[T Pat]

Originally Posted by docholly

On a semi related note (i didn't want to start a new thread) this was in the Onion today. Pretty amusing.

Now that made me laugh
I've been saying the new president is going to be Barack or Billary for sometime now.

My son called last night all upset, his house is worth less than he paid for it and his 401k took a major hit too. It's a damn shame all I could say was "hang in there and don't dwell on it"

[LD]

At least we get an economic stimulus package...big corporations can purchase new corporate jets as a perk for their CEO's. Don't you feel better now...?

[Bassmaster]

Originally Posted by Jim

I guess I am trying to be an optimist. I didn't hear that the Countrywide deal was a bust. I did hear that BofA was in some trouble.

And Fonz...it's good to know that the US economy is causing problems around the world. About time someone bailed us out.

I have a second mortgage for about 20,000 with Countrywide. I went this route to avoid paying PMI. I am able to write off the interest on this loan. If I paid PMI, that's about 100 a month out the door. Should I be concerned about the Countrywide problems or will the loan be bought by another company???

[SirMoby]

Originally Posted by Ramster

Interest rate cuts in 2000-2001 is what put the economy where it is today with the sub prime mortgage crisis and the fate of the low US dollar around the world.

Hopefully it doesn't happen again. I'm sure foreign investors will be smarter this time around.

Don't forget about the tax cuts and the borrowing of about $3.5 Trillion dollars.

[QxM]

My guess is that in February when the Fed is due to make some changes we'll see some activity .....in the mean time we are negative