Phantasmix (aka Re: money)

When you’re unsure why your stocks are going up or down, keep this in mind:

Source: Boston Herald

This is a paid article now, so I’ll only post excerpts.

A 10-step recovery plan for panicked investors

John Heinzl
Thursday, August 16, 2007

Overcome by subprime sadness? Crying about the credit crunch? You’ve come to the right place.

As a service to readers, the in-house therapeutic staff at Market Moves has designed a 10-step program to help you cope with the market mayhem.

Followed diligently, particularly when supplemented with a program of moderate alcohol consumption, these steps will allow you to ride out the current discombobulations with a smile on your face.

Look at our picture. We’re smiling. And our portfolio is going down the tubes!

Step 1. Admit you’re powerless over the stock market.

Step 2. Stick with quality.

Step 3. Buy stocks with rising dividends.

Step 4. Double-up on your mortgage payment.

Step 5. Make an RRSP contribution.

Step 6. Stay positive.

Step 7. Remember that this, too, shall pass.

Step 8. Focus on the long term.

Step 9. Resist the urge to check share prices every 30 seconds.

Step 10. Give yourself a break.

Everything’s gonna be okay, really. But you have to follow the program.

I disagree with a lot of it, but then I’m a semi-degenerate semi-gambler-trader, not an investor.

Here’s a few things that caught and held my attention for a few minutes today.

Mexicans are being encouraged to reclaim a piece of Texas, more than 150 years after they lost the Lone Star state to the United States.

Texan estate agents are heading south of the border to drum up the interest in buying cut-price land and property in the foreclosure-hit state.

Source: Telegraph

Funny.

The debut of powerful atom-smasher

The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August.

This collider, called the largest scientific experiment in history, is expected to begin test runs in August.

But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists’ wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump?……

….CERN team this month issued a report concluding that there is “no conceivable danger” of a cataclysmic event

Can’t you tell that the lawyers wrote this report? So these scientists have no idea what might happen, but there’s no “conceivable danger”. In other words, there is danger, they just can’t imagine what it might be.

I can’t stand any of the current U.S. presidential candidates in the running, disgusting lying puppets. Today I learned that Obama’s election campaign slogan is “Change you can vote for”. It’s really a pretty loaded and clever sentence “change you are allowed to vote for” is another way of putting it (but I’m biased).

Still can’t believe Americans don’t vote directly for candidates. Supposedly un-democratic Russia or just about all ex-USSR member countries have a system where you can have 15 or 20 or whatever number of candidates from numerous parties in existence there. And you vote directly for the party, and directly for the candidate. Not for a representative of the representative, and not one of the two available parties, often having to pick “the lesser of two evils”.

And some people call me paranoid… It’s all true.

Jim Cramer on Market Manipulation: In His Own Words

Despite the major selloff, however, the market is not yet in “bear” market territory. A bear market is defined as a drop of at least 20% off the recent high. The Dow closed at 14,164.53 on Oct. 9, and ended Thursday down 19.1% from that peak.

Source: CNN

It’s just a technicality at this point. Just declare the bear market already, CNN!

Even though people are expecting “an oversold bounce” tomorrow, is anyone really brave enough to buy ahead of the weekend?

Not that my opinion has much clout, but I can have one nonetheless

The week before, Dow Jones price-to-earnings ratio was about 63 (current, not forward). After last week’s several earnings announcements, and even after Friday’s big drop, its P/E currently stands at 98. Since earnings aren’t expected to rise much in the next little while, it’s reasonable to assume the markets will drop, and probably a lot more.

I’ve thought about starting a long-term buy-and-hold portfolio of stocks, but I just don’t see anything attractive at the moment. I feel that even stocks and industries that look moderately priced will get cheaper in the next year or two, along with the general market. The environment doesn’t seem right, there’s so much going on now. There’s not necessarily a lot of fear, just uncertainty. Swing trading is my MO these days.

I overlaid DJIA and my favorite Insider Score chart (from InsiderScore.com, a link is in my Blogroll). Before 2007 insider activity was all over the place, but since early 2007 seems there’s been a correlation between the market (as represented by DJIA, at least) and insider buying/selling:

It’s not perfect, obviously, but I’m betting on the market going down in the short term.

6 long positions, 3 short.