To find solutions to the current crisis you have to understand the causes and act on logic not panic.
I've written a lot about what a bad idea the so-called Stimulus Package and the trillions of dollars of spending which will follow it are. This has led some of those who are still lulled into complacency by the siren song of "hope and change" to complain that I'm offering complaints but no solutions. Some have even issued a childish "if you're so smart come up with a better idea" kind of challenge.…
Article comments
326 - Chris Edwards
"They will be the ones still standing and in control."
It'll be a crap shoot.
327 - roger nowosielski
Not if Obama has his way. And I'd rather it be him than them. They've got to be put on the leash.
328 - Cindy
John Kenneth Galbraith is mentioned in Dr.D's link there. Gotta love him.
329 - Clavos
It'll be a crap shoot.
Of course. That kind of thing always is. But every crap shoot has winners, not just losers.
330 - roger nowosielski
That's not the one I meant. It's an Irish guy speaking from Dublin. Can't you find it?
331 - Cindy
Chris wishes it will be a crap shoot.
Most ordinary mortals cannot shut down a business like Dave's relatives nor can he move a market.
Chris, it is as if you think these people have the same factors affecting them as an average person. Or maybe it is the "wishful thinking" as suggested in Dr.D's link there above.
332 - Cindy
"he" should be "they"
333 - roger nowosielski
So World War II saved their ass. But I foresee a takeover - just like Castro did in Cuba.
Desperate times, desperate measures.
334 - Chris Edwards
"But every crap shoot has winners, not just losers."
But for every winner there are many losers.
Losers believe markets go up forever.
Winners know that markets fall much faster than they go up.
335 - roger nowosielski
Don't we have a moratorium on "selling short"?
336 - Chris Edwards
roger,
I rode the stock market and real estate roller coaster ride up to 2006 and then cashed out.
The handwriting on the wall was so clear you'd have to be blind not to see it.
337 - Cindy
If it's a crap shoot, then the rich who are playing are the house.
The house always wins for a reason. The odds are in their favor. The stock market is a game. Someone makes money off of someone else's loss. It's as simple as that.
Here is what happens every day:
If you can push the other players around and take advantage of them you can win. And it's very easy to do. Buy a stock low...get people to think the stock will go up by buying with visibility. When you have succeeded in inspiring confidence...sell into them and the stock begins to fall. As it falls, they are getting scared. They are losing the little gain they made. Now they are upside-down and at a loss. They sell...you buy (again). The stock then miraculously "bounces". They get confident again they buy again....keep doing that. It's not rocket science. It just takes money.
Any good day trader knows what's happening and most still can't get in and out at the right times. Because they don't have enough money to make money on just a few cents per share.
The stock market is gambling.
P.S. Roger: Re: a moratorium on short trading. I asked that today in the day trading channel. Not yet.
338 - Cindy
There is a regulation by upticks. So, you have to have upticks to short.
339 - roger nowosielski
Well, the moment it started rising above 7000 and on, to no end, I knew something was fishy. No, I didn't play, but I worked on Wall Street in the sixties when everything was still fairly stable.
What these idiots don't realize that the present Dow levels with historically low dollar is a recipe for disaster. GM stock trading at $2.00 or lower? Give me a break! The system had had it, and if it ever comes up again, it will be under totally different configuration.
I really believe that the power of the corporation will become disabled.
340 - Chris Edwards
"Any good day trader knows what's happening"
Rolling the dice each day is a fool's game.
341 - roger nowosielski
Well, it's a high, and people do it just for the thrill of it. But I thought that short-selling was stopped for a stretch.
342 - Chris Edwards
"The stock market is gambling"
Not if you invest based on fundamentals.
And fundamentals don't change from day to day.
343 - roger nowosielski
There's no more fundamentals to speak of. Not in the present environment.
344 - Chris Edwards
Bingo!
345 - Cindy
When fundamentals were important they mostly applied to investors. Some day traders got some use from them, for some trades. But mostly, from what I saw, most day traders use fundamentals as a security blanket. It's like saying, "I'm safe trading this. It's got good fundamentals."
That's why, I think, when you got day traders as a phenomenon (online day trading), fundamentals went out the window for any stock with any volume.
346 - Cindy
Investors I met were angry when day traders were "in their stock". It could wreck everything.
347 - roger nowosielski
I don't think day traders have enough leverage to affect the movement of the market. They're just riding it as best they can.
348 - Cindy
Yes, Roger. The day traders are not ever moving the market. And these days I have no idea what their influence is. But when I was a day trader the market movers were moving the market to take advantage of them, as I described above.
There are always going to be bigger fish and smaller fish. Whether the smaller fish today are day traders or whoever...the bigger ones (ones with more capital) will manipulate so as to confuse and make money off them.
As an investor, having day traders in your stock means you are subject to the same manipulation. Your stock is no longer a slow moving vehicle based on fundamentals or whatever. It becomes a rollercoaster and it can sometimes be left crashed and burned.
349 - roger nowosielski
So what do you think of Doc's audio?
350 - Cindy
Dr.D had audio? What post #?
351 - bliffle
#284 - STM:
"Having regulators impose some transparency won't signal the end of the world as we know it.
But it WILL mean that we can keep the kind of lifestyles we have without this crap ever happening again."
Not enough. "Transparency" is not a panacea. For example, insider trading reports are required only quarterly which means the trades are discovered 3 months less a day from the time they're committed. Too late.
What's required is to rein in abuse of Corporate malice: Corps must have restricted charters (for specific purposes in specific markets) and the Board Of Directors must be better controlled. For example, government subsidies, even if indirect, should result in government overseers being proportional on the BoD. Deferred employee benefits such as health care and pensions should also be proportionately represented. Vendor bankers should get a rep.
352 - roger nowosielski
#303 - this one.
353 - roger nowosielski
bliffle - you said in detail but I'll say it plainly. The power of the corporation has got to be broken. They must be restored to the way they originally functioned - as part of the community, in a symbiotic relationship with the local economies - consumers, employees, the whole shebang. And we'd be fools if we allow private enterprise to hijack this country again.
354 - Cindy
lol that was good. #303
355 - roger nowosielski
Well, I'm gonna check out. Today's posting was like being on a holiday - a departure from clear thinking and reasoning. Just let my emotions do the talking. Tomorrow it'll be back to normal.