11:30 a.m. EST, 7/11/2008....DOW is now below 11,000
 

Time to buy?

Seems like just yesterday we were talking about DOW 15K and beyond.....

head and shoulders would take us to the 10k range easily. next stop 8k after that if it goes through.

the fannie/freddie shakedown had/has to happen. next question will be the banks. we have to hit capitulation. we're not there yet.

The time to buy will be after the holiday season. Retailers are going to get SLAUGHTERED when their 4Q earnings for 2008 come out. The y-o-y numbers (on which retail lives and dies) are going to be absolutely horrendous. This will almost certainly push the DOW WAY, WAY, WAY down.

I fully expect below 10,000 by the end of 2008 and probably in the high 8,000 range/low 9,000 range in early 2009 when the 4Q/2008 numbers come out. That will PROBABLY (hopefully) be close to a bottom for the stock market. That's my prediction anyway, but anything can happen.

There's not much out there to be optimistic about right now. I just got massacred on a play on ODP (down 37% just this past week). Plenty of pain to spread around, and this is just gettin' started.

The super rich need not worry...................
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

in 2005, the top 1 percent of tax returns paid 39.4 percent of all federal individual income taxes.
That would bother if I were super rich.

It's funny to go back and read the threads where many of us completely predicted this 6 months to 2 years ago. The funny posts are the ones from those whistling past the graveyard, with their witty sarcastic "Ohhh, the sky is falling."

Anyone who has remained in equities since the beginning of this year has really had their head in the sand.

I'll admit I got out too early and missed some of the runup before the fall (I posted in other threads when I got out, but it's been at least a year). I took it all out, put it in safe places, including some into the Prudent Bear Fund. That is now doing nicely and I expect will continue to do so for some time.

I think it's great when people are optimistic, but you do have to temper it with some realism. The reality is, we are fuchd. You can ignore fundamental economic problems for a long time, and pretend everything is ok, but unless you at least do *something* to correct it, the problems will eventually come home to roost.

This government over the past 8 years, Dems and Repubs, has been the worst, most irresponsible government ever. I know many here have a lot of loyalty to their particular party, but it's just a fact. They've all been horrible, and we will pay.

Never try to catch a falling dagger.....

A five minute video - be scared.
The Dollar is Doomed and the Fed's Days are Numbered
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhLPNdjyjyg

I disagree wholeheartedly. If you look at statistical analysis of stock market performance it has been shown time and again that market timing does not work.

In fact, a recent study looked at the market from 1926 through 1999 and evaluated multiple market timing strategies, producing over a million possible timing sequences. They studied the performance of these sequences vs simple buy and hold. Buy and hold beat market timing 99.8% of the time.

See the problem is not getting out, it's getting back in at exactly the right time. If you look at the historical return of the market, being out of the market for just a few days at the wrong time evaporates much of the total return. Just a few days.

So, while I have held equities through this entire downturn and continue to buy equities as fast as I can in my 401k I certainly do not have my head in the sand. I am buying equities for their return in 30 years, not what the market happens to do on a day to day basis. In fact, the lower the market falls now, the better for me, lower prices = more shares. More shares = more profit when the market goes back up.

I completely agree.

"A nation of whiners" indeed...

Yeah, it had nothing to do with all the low-lifes walking away from their mortgages because it was inconvenient to keep making payments that they promised to make. Blame the government, not the people causing the problem.

It also must have nothing to do with the greedy brokerage houses on wall street running up the price of oil without ever taking a delivery. They had nothing to do with it, blame the government.
Typical liberal.

Its good to hear from someone who is not guessing, and probably in the financial industry. I can tell we speak the same language. I can agree that 10k is where we should see a base. The scary part is the unknown election results, weak dollar, and petroleum based inflation that has yet to fully erode earnings. Fed is going to have to raise rates at somepoint. I want to see the optimists on the ledge. Thats when i see the bottom.

IndyMac seized by the Feds!

Just saw that - wow. This is going to get very, very ugly. . .

Here's an article about it:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/11/news/companies/indymac_close.ap/index.htm?cnn=yes

Banking regulators close IndyMac
The Office of Thrift Supervision shuts down mortgage lender IndyMac and transfers the operations to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- IndyMac Bank's assets were seized by federal regulators on Friday after succumbing to the pressures of tighter credit, tumbling home prices and rising foreclosures.

The Office of Thrift Supervision said it transferred IndyMac's (IMB) operations to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation because it did not think the lender could meet its depositors' demands.

IndyMac customers with funds in the bank were limited to taking out money via automated teller machines over the weekend, debit card transactions or checks, regulators said.

Other bank services, such as online banking and phone banking were scheduled to be made available on Monday.

The bank is the largest regulated thrift to fail and the second largest financial institution to close in U.S. history, regulators said.

"This institution failed today due to a liquidity crisis," OTS Director John Reich said.

IndyMac had $32.01 billion in assets as of March 31.

Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bancorp Inc., the holding company for IndyMac Bank, has been struggling to raise capital as the housing slump deepens.

A spokesman for the lender did not immediately return an e-mail request for comment.

The banking regulator said it closed IndyMac after customers began a run on the lender following the June 26 release of a letter by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., urging several bank regulatory agencies that they take steps to prevent IndyMac's collapse.

In the 11 days that followed the letter's release, depositors took out more than $1.3 billion, regulators said.

The FDIC planned to reopen the bank on Monday as IndyMac Federal Bank, FSB.

Crap.... Monday is going to be ugly! Want a trade? Buy SKF. Do your homework and find out why. Its a financial services inverse.

Bank capitulation mode!

I got out of bank stocks - it's going to be a blood bath.