p0ltergeist

because this is not stocks leading the economy down (2000), this is the economy leading stocks down. this is a global debt crisis. simply restoring confidence will not change anything. those in debt will have to come out of debt. why aren't banks lending? would you lend to someone already technically insolvent?

we've increased the national debt by 10% in just about a month. you tell me if you think that bodes well for the economy.

indeed, debt will become more of a problem in coming years as people see their secured assets lose value (i.e., classic "underwater" loans). people will all seek to liquidate at once, but since they are underwater they will still be in debt even when they no longer have possessions.

DEBT. that is all you need to know about this crisis. it will take years for our debt situation to be solved. until it does, we are in a secular bear.

well obviously there is no bad season for a true lead-to-gold scheme....but the market will be the judge of that. good luck

i do and i will

not that i need to satisfy you, but i have seven figures in high yield bonds that are tax free. why are my bonds high yield? because i bought them when you and your other ham-and-egger friends were trying to figure out when GOOG would hit $1000...when instead you should have been cashing out. i'll definitely be ready for 20% t-notes with plenty of ammo, and you'll still be chump-change

No value in planting in an economic winter? Doesn't that conflict with 'buy low sell high' principle?

no. the dow is going to 5000 (but will likely go to 12000 first) . that is a better time to consider "planting". furthermore oil is going to go over $200 and t-notes will yield 20% before this is all over, because what we are doing now is planting the seeds for hyperinflation (to follow our current deflation) with all of this "50 billion here, 100 billion there, 700 billion here" money printing.

smart move by ballmer. he either lets YHOO drop to $8 and then makes an offer for $13 (after making yang do massive layoffs), or he just lets yahoo shrink into irrelevance and then positions msn to (try) to take marketshare. either way ballmer wins.

with the google deal dead and no obvious offer from ballmer, jerry is dead in the water

welcome to the L-shaped recession. welcome to the secular bear market. a secular bear market periodically shows amazing % gains in stocks, but always ending down. look at the dow in the 30s, the nikkei in the 90s (and now)...even cyclical gains of 100% or more could not stem the larger down trend

forget all this garbage of now being a great time to max out ten credit cards to build a website. there is only one rule for secular bear markets - preserve wealth. there is no value in planting in an economic winter. don't fight it, wait for an economic spring to appear in the economy and have capital ready for a more appropriate climate. we have years to go. this will end only when all excess debt is deleveraged and governments, consumers and companies alike have healthier balance sheets purged of debt.

it was never going to go through anyway, smart of them to cut their losses

the etf management fee is much less than you would pay on trading charges to individually transact even a small number of positions aggregated in any etf

the only other route is vanguard which tends to have low fees for index funds

uh, yeah, we call it the ETF industry.

there are ETFs for every risk tolerance of every global stock market, commodity, bond, etc etc etc. there are even ETFs of ETFs