Back in the old days the stock market was based on fairly unambiguous financial tenets, which I had to memorize in college. This link is informative:
http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/financialratio/Financial_Ratios.htm
Investments
were based largely on these principles. There were, of course, exceptions.
A lot changed in the '80's and 90's, most of it detailed in two Michael Lewis books, 'Liar's Poker' and 'The Real Price of Everything'.
I frankly do not recognize the market today compared to the days when I was 12 and my Dad would invest half my savings into a stock (say $100.00) that I would track with him in the
newspaper when he got home. Those days are over: healthy companies with all the right numbers detailed in the link above fall victim to the most spurious of data (unemployment figures for example) that have little or nothing to do with the companies market or business position.
Ponzi scheme? Not really but I won't be re-entering the market in any manner other than investing a specific, grossly undervalued asset with the knowledge that hookers and blow may have been a better, more enjoyable pursuit.
I have been extremely lucky in the market, not from a financial gain standpoint but from avoiding losses.
In 1987 I left on my second cruise with the Navy in July for six months. In those days there was little to no connectivity at sea so I decided to pull all my stock portfolio into a six month CD while I was underway. By luck I missed Black Monday, October 19th, 1987.
Due to acquisition rules governing DoD Program managers of large projects, I had to pull all active stocks into a blind, very low risk fund during my tenure as PM, which started in 2004 and ended when I retired in September of this year. I left everything in place because by then the wobble had begun. Again, luck.
Dottore, keep the financial postings coming, they have been informative and apolitical. Plus I think the more folks read about the mechanisms of investing the more attractive the old, tried and true methods of building wealth become.