This is really scary

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/195065/Europe’s-Crisis-Much-Bigger-Than-Subprime-Worse-Than-U.S.?tickers=ubs%20%20,cs,db,hbc

I keep thinking that the US stock market is over exaggerating the economic situation. The usa is in a lot better shape than europe. read the article also on that page. This article scares me. european banks blowing up could be the trigger to a worldwide fully blown DEPRESSION far worse than the 30’s here. and i dont mean a statistical depression i mean soup lines that lead into anarchy & chaos.

we have banks to big to let fail. they have banks to big to save. it would be like our bank bailout package would cost 14 Trillion dollars.

their situation makes ours look like a party

Ok, I’m about 1/4 of the way down the page and my mouth is already hanging open. Should I keep reading the rest of it or run off to the local store for rations and ammo?

Pretty scary stuff, but it is just an opinion. Much like a read on Monday that a Russian economist is predicting the break-up of the US by the end of next year.

We already did that once, I don’t recall it going so well last time.

Eh. This is nothing of concern… for those banks that have the money to buy up the banks going under. Which will happen: “we have banks to big to let fail. they have banks to big to save.” Our big banks will buy up their “big” banks. If I had the money, I’d be on the phone with all those European banks that can’t be bailed out. “Hello? Yes, I’d like to buy your Euro bank. Its not for sale? I see. How about a major share of stock? No? Ok, do you want me to call back in a few months and offer a lower price than I’m willing to offer now? Or should I call back in a year when you’ve lost another 50% of value and have no other choice but to take my offer?” :biglaugh Those that can’t survive because of stupid decisions will be eaten up by those that can survive because they were more savvy. Talk about Economic Darwinism at its finest! :bigthumbup Its the same with governments. Governments that make stupid decisions, oh, say, for example, currency devaluing bailouts?, will be eaten up by governments that were - or will be - more savvy.

They are all hurting now. How does the big one that is hurting have the cash reserves to buy the smaller banks? And what good does it do them to buy a turd? Bank of America bought Countrywide…guess where their stock price has gone lately? 5 months ago it was around $40 a share, its $3 a share now.

I don’t understand why they bought Countrywide. They (BOA) were doing well before that acquisition.

Good question. I think of it like this- Apples are $2/lb, a rotten apple is $0.50/lb. Ok, the rotten apple is cheap but its STILL ROTTEN!

I thought there was a way, when you buy a company with toxic assets, to create two companies and put all the bad assets into one of the two companies (maybe rookienyc or someone else can explain this better than I).

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/03/06/afx6135137.html

Here’s what scares me…

In August of 1929 the Dow sat at 380

In November of 1929 The Dow had dropped 50% (like we have NOW) to 190…

At that point people tried to pick the bottom (EXACTLY like OUR Dec/Jan rally) Everything looked cheap at 50% off.

The problem???

The Dow fell to a 1932 low of 40!!!

4 0 …F o r t y :flush

An equal drop for the Dow would bring it UNDER 2000.
I’m not saying I think that is likely…But my Firefighter economic indicator has NOT flashed a buy signal…NOT EVEN CLOSE.

The Firefighter economic indicator is almost failsafe…

Some past buy/sell signals

June 2008…Every guy I work with begins SELLING their beloved F 250’s, Duallies, C 2500’s and they start BUYING HONDA CIVICS!!!
That immediately triggered a sell signal in the OIL market that proved 100% correct.

Now…Deferred comp programs have been HAMMERED…But strangely NONE of these guys has STOPPED contributions. In 2001 during the tech bust…THEY ALL stopped contributions…This signaled the EXACT bottom of the market…
With no buy signal yet generated…I think we STILL have a long way to go…

Personally…I would not be surprised to see the Dow hit 4000 at some point.

Gold will also EXPLODE…$2000/OZ is not out of the question in my book.

This MESS took us DECADES to create…To think it will UNWIND in 2-3 quarters is extremely short sighted IMHO…

Just my 2 cents…I could be COMPLETELY WRONG here.

Gold-
What is you opinion on this question. I don’t know about your area but around me I have a ton of places popping up that buy gold, silver, etc. Couple that with the barrage of cash4gold.com and copycat sites popping up. Cash4Gold even had Superbowl ads for christs sake. Are these places popping up in response to the gold boom or are they CAUSING the boom. I don’t think I’m the first person to say this but mark my words here, gold will boom and bust just like oil and real estate. Between the money coming out of the stock market looking for a place to stash it and pure speculation we will see a huge spike and drop. Gold isn’t necessary to survival like oil is so I can see it taking a bigger dive, same goes comparing it to real estate. I’m right with you on $2k an ounce, though I wouldn’t be shocked if we saw $2500-3000 in this economy of harsh swings. I think we’ll see a real nice graph for the next 2-3 years then it will look like someone dropped the pen that was drawing the graph. This is one of the more prominent places buying gold around me:

http://gambit.org/2008/02/24/good-ole-toms-creepiest-local-commercials-ever/

VERY creepy commericals, especially the last one. Be sure to watch it, classic weird TV.

Edit: I’ll go on record saying gold at $600/oz in 2012/2013.

I agree 100% Rich…

I really like your BUST theory on gold too…No doubt it WILL crash once everyone gets… IN!!!

If I had some cash laying around I would probably get in now and ride it about 6 months, I know I said a few years until I think it will die…but why risk it?

Ironically I came home from work to find this month’s National Geographic with a cover story “Gold- The true cost of a global obcession”

The problem with buying actual gold is you need someplace safe to store it. And I believe there is a law where the federal government can seize bank safety deposit boxes under certain circumstances if they believe too many people are hoarding precious metals there. Of course if they ever resort to something like that our society will have probably collapsed by that point anyway, so it could be a moot point.

You can buy gold without buying blocks of gold, just like buying stocks means you are buying it on paper…not buying bricks that make up the building.

That’s what I did–I bought a little bit of Streetracks GLD over a year ago and it’s done well. But some people think you should only own physical gold if you’re going to do it. But I don’t agree with that, I think it’s too much of a pain in the neck. In any scenario where gold shares and the dollar are worthless, but you hold physical gold, the whole society will have broken down to get to that point. That would be an absolute worst case scenario. If there’s mayhem and murder in the streets are you going to be able to barter with those gold coins? I doubt it.

Too funny…

I finally get the paperwork in the mail for my Fidelity IRA account and login for the first time. I start looking through some of the funds they offer and almost fell off my chair laughing. Supposedly the list I was looking at was their best funds, all rated 5 stars by Morningstar. Well considering the BEST performing fund I saw was -36% for the year, -11.5% for the past 5 years and -1.5% for the past 10 years I don’t see why I would buy into funds. These are PROFESSIONAL fund managers, right? I’ll give them a pass on this year, it was a hard year, but in 10 years they couldn’t even break even??? Most that I saw were high 30s, low 40s in the red. 45% negative I might as well drive down to the casino and play roulette. After all roulette is only about 10% difference in return and certainly more fun. Plus, free drinks.

Rich,

just a suggestion…

But in making the transition from something like Fidelity…to means by which you manage your own funds…something to consider is MarketClub.

If for any other reason…go to their site and watch some of the videos.

But beyond that…it’s a simple, straightforward green triangle, red triangle…trend system.

Just some food for thought.

BTW…free 30 day trial is pretty nice too.

-Mike

as an example…right now we are in a fairly vicious downtrend…something condusive to that would be PSQ…a 1:1 Short of the Nasdaq 100…likewise QQQQ would be 1:1 Long.

there are 2:1 Long and Shorts for the Nasdaq 100…but these are more suitable to intra-day trading, which is beyond the scope of MarketClub. Still…it’s a nice, effective approach for controlling your own shots. A lot to learn with their videos…

Adam Hewison…who runs the site…was just featured on CNBC this past Friday afternoon.