.....it might not be a bad time to think about getting out. I've been watching the DJI drop like a gut shot turkey in real time, -1202 points since peaking on July 22....scary! To quote our former half-wit president, (as opposed to our current half-wit president) "This suckers going down!"

* Last updated by: Kruz on 8/4/2011 @ 1:13 PM *

I is probably a terrible time to get out, unless you don't care about losing 40% of your equity.

I don't need my very large number of Lowes (LOW) shares now, or in the near future, so I'll wait for it to eventually get into the high 20s and then roll it over into my State pension fund which is isolated from the market.

But if I divest today, I'd be giving away at least $60,000 of lost equity, possibly as much as $90,000.

* Last updated by: privateer on 8/4/2011 @ 3:37 PM *

I nvested about a month before 9-11. Now that was a crappy time ---and even crappier to leave it in. I sold out after I got past the back end fee period and ended up losing about 33%

Oh well --------you don't invest money if you can't afford to loose it. Still hurts.

The DOW is headed for about 3000...there is a complete disconnect between Wall Street and what's happening on Main Street. Phoney baloney stimulus money pumped up the stock market post September 2008 it's headed for a crash. Look at the Dow between October 1929 and 1932, we're repeating the same cycle, we're a long way from the bottom. If you bought stock in GM in 1929, you would have broke even in 1952 if you bought and held, that's not good investing.

The DOW will not go down to 3,000, even though it was in free fall a couple times this past week. I've been investing in the stock market for a very long time, and trust me, it might go down to 9,000 but not 3,000.

The people advertising gold on TV are telling you it will go to 3,000 because they want you to invest in gold. Heh.

Just take my example of owning LOW (Lowes Companies). Its rolling around in the very low 20s. It might sink to 18 or 19. But if I sold it now I'd cripple myself. But if I ride it out, it will get back to the low 30s over the next 5 years (especially if Republicans take the Senate and White House - just saying, its a fact how the market reacts) and I'll sell it then and double my money.

Besides, the market has been through deep loss cycles 3 times in my lifetime, its not like we haven't seen it before. I remember the last time it dropped 1,000+ points. Five years later it was at the highest point in history.

Cycles. No reason to panic.

Just take my example of owning LOW (Lowes Companies). Its rolling around in the very low 20s. It might sink to 18 or 19. But if I sold it now I'd cripple myself. But if I ride it out, it will get back to the low 30s over the next 5 years

AND THEY MAY BE BELLY UP IN 5 YEARS

this might be better than an oil thread!

Unlikely, based on performance and financial information.

Anything is possible, of course, but apparently you have not researched the home repair, commercial maintenance, and construction markets that Home Depot and Lowes sell into enough to know what is affecting their stock prices now and in the future.

Edgecrusher wrote:

this might be better than an oil thread!

At least in the oil thread people actually used the oils they talked about.

Its not that simple, Hub. In Microeconomics (well, in Macro too but from a different viewpoint) we learned why companies don't live or die depending on their management except during the first 2 years of operation.

Once a company becomes large enough (assets, cash, inventory, etc., not measuring number of employees) the sheer intertia will carry it through moderately hard times.

Take IBM for instance. In 1992 when the mainframe computer market tanked (can only sell so many mainframes before the glass houses get full) IBM didn't have anything else to fall back on. They had just previously lost their financial asses in the personal computer market by giving Bill Gates the ranch and the clone makers a level playing field. But because they had massive MVS/OS and DB2 lease revenues, they survived quite well until they could refocus 5 years later. Inertia carried them despite the shortsightedness of senior management.

Lowes in specific is tied to a) home contruction, and b) home sales. When those industry segments are depressed, Lowes will be depressed. Will this cause it to go under? Very unlikely, given their cash flow, investment in the future, and continued good reputation with consumers. Will Home Depot buy them? Unlikely, despite being the "smaller upstart", the price to buy Lowes exceeds HomeDepot's ten year revenue figures. When will Lowes stock climb above $30? When house construction starts reach 2005 levels, and home sales do the same. Will this happen? Of course it will, these cycles have been repeated many times, and the situation now is not unique.

I have several old 401k plans that have ridden out financial storms as bad, or worse, than what we have now, and come back to be worth far more than before the recession just past. In fact, just recently I rolled one into my pension plan and it made me about 6% which is nothing to sneeze at. I expect the same of the current market, because there is nothing different about what is happening now than from what happened when Jimmy Carter was President, and several times before him.

My Lowes stock will be worth more than $30 a share within 5 years. Which is just about when I want to roll it over.

Give it up, Hub. You aren't making any sense just throwing out general facts everyone knows.

I'm not going to debate it with you, I know what I have to do to get to where I want to be in 7-8 years, and I'll get there.

You do what you want, and we'll see whos got it made in 10 years.

News flash, S&P just downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history. For almost 100 years we've enjoyed a AAA+ rating. They waited until the stock market closed this afternoon to drop the bomb for fear of a crash. I can't wait to see how the market reacts come Monday morning. Good luck everybody.

* Last updated by: Kruz on 8/5/2011 @ 9:23 PM *

The economy sux! The world is coming to an end. So what else is new? I don't think i have lived in a time where doomsday wasn't less than 2 years away since i was 9 or 10. It's noteworthy and prolly will impact the maket no doubt--no more than 50 -60 other major events in the past 20 years.

Go to sleep, get up and go to your job if you have one and don't fret. nothing unusual.

I am staying in, now is actually a great opportunity, your buying LOW, dividens add up quick, I don't need to touch my 401 money for another 30 years. What are you gonna do with your money, take it out and buy gold at an all time high and sit on it? The market will rise and fall dramatically until the election, everytime this asshole in the whitehouse now opens his mouth, I lose about 15K.

What are you gonna do with your money, take it out and buy gold at an all time high and sit on it?

hmmmmmm I wish I would have done just that. 6000 a ounce as the worlds economies fail Sound impossible ?

Peter Schiff told the world GOLD would be over a thousand when it was at 600, also said when,,,(creepy). He he was laughed off CNN.

This guy Tells it like it is. Amazing Track Record. Crystal Ball.

Don't try and time the market, just stick to a strategy that which you are comfortable with. If you're a conservative investor, you shouldn't have very much of your retirement tied up in securities, but regardless, reacting to the stock market swings is the worst thing you can do. Dollar cost average into the market, that way you're buying more shares on sale when the market is low, and you're buying fewer shares when prices are inflated. And whatever you do, don't listen to the idiots telling you to BUY GOLD!
Get this, from 1986-2005, the stock market averaged 11.9% per year during a time in which the average inflation per year was 3.5%. Guess what the average investor did........ 3.9%...... What does it all mean???? First, don't try and time the market. Investing out of fear or greed will kill you (look at the last statistic if you don't believe me). Second, find a strategy that matches your risk tolerance and STICK WITH IT! Third, find an advisor that will tell you the truth, and lastly, invest in products that don't kill you with fee's.
I'm an advisor, and I work with people on a daily basis educating them about the markets. Our natural intuition tells us to get out and put it somewhere "safe." But what is safe???? Your money must be working for you, and retirement strategies are LONG TERM, not short term. There are 2 types of investment risk, and you HAVE to choose 1.

1.) Market risk (which we've seen in the past 3 years). This is the risk that you take on when you invest in the market. Your money (in most products) has no guarantee's about performance or a future value. Your money can go up, or down in value depending on how the markets perform. Depending on what statistics you look at, markets average between 10-11.7% per year (historically).

2.) Inflation risk. This is the risk you assume when you unplug your money from an investment that can beat inflation. Historically, inflation is about 3.7% per year. If you're not getting AT LEAST that amount AFTER TAXES, then you're losing money.

Please don't sell your position. Instead of thinking of your retirement assets as low right now, change your perspective, buy now and think of it as you're buying assets on sale right now.

Last thing..... gold..... you want a crystal ball? How about this? Gold is at an all time high, correct, but what that (stupid) gold salesperson isn't telling you is this....

Gold doesn't pay a dividend
It costs half to mine what it's selling for now
It's only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it

If you don't believe me, look at the FACTS!!! Historically, gold has done NOTHING but track inflation. People get scared about the economy, inflation, markets, etc, and they buy gold. After all the craziness, the markets come back (they always do), and people are left looking like idiots stuck with an asset they paid too much for, and they're too attached with to sell. Then gold is flat for a decade, and you missed yet another opportunity to let your money work for you. After all, who would ever buy gold when the stock market is going up? I will never own gold, it's not an investment, it's and inflation hedge AT BEST. Mark my words. Over the next 10 years, gold will do NOTHING. Buying gold right now (at the height of the frenzy) is like buying overly inflated homes in 2005/2006. How many realtors did you hear saying, it's real estate, it won't ever go down in value! Don't get me wrong, real estate can be a great investment, as you can get income from it, but gold will never pay a dividend.

I didn't mean to get so long winded, but I guess I hear too many idiots in the media and it just builds inside of me. I don't know everything, but at least I'm smart enough to do some research about how wealth is created. Good luck everyone!

Jorgen Gilbertson, FIC, Registered Representative and Investment Advisor with Thrivent Financial for Lutherans

Who cares about the stock market? I'm invested in the mod market.

Haha.... the mod market. Get a Roth, you'll thank me later. After all, who doesn't love tax free money in retirement?

Hah! I wish I had stock in the "mod market".

My deal with the stock market, is over the next five years my stock will recover to the price is was after the 2 for 1 split a couple years ago, and then gain maybe 5 bucks a share. Thats all I'm counting on, though it has historically done much better after a recession.

So if all it does is recover to the post-split price, I have doubled my money, and then I'll put it in a safer place.

If I took it out now, I'd lose close to US$100,000 and that would not be a good thing. Whereas, with a little patience, I can avoid taking a loss, and possibly make a ton of money.

After living through many of these recessions, some worse than we have now, I'm prepared to wait it out.

I'm right about the good stock funds, like my Lowe's stock, of course.

But then, I've only been doing this for almost half a century.

Take Lowe's stock (LOW) as an example. It split several years ago 2:1 and landed at $29-something a share after the split.

It went down when the housing bubble burst, of course, home improvement being the core of their business.

It has stayed down all during the severe despression the idiotic policies of the President and Congress have prolonged.

But it is showing life now. Trading today close to $22 a share, so still $7 off its highest value ever. Which in this economy is not too shabby.

Will it go down some, and go up more than this, and then back down, several times a month until the Republicans sweep the White House and Congress (both Houses) ? Sure, that is the nature of a market and economy in recession.

But once housing recovers (it will, this cycle has happened 3 or 4 times in my investing life), and investors quit being scared to death European financial woes will cause further recession here, Lowe's stock will steadily rise until it exceeds the post-split price, and I will have made a quarter of a million dollars as a result of not being a sissy and running scared when the market went to hell.

All those who threw away tons of equity because they were short-sighted, I feel sorry for them.

By the way, what is true of Lowe's stock is true of most sound stocks in the Dow Jones and NASDAQ. Cyclic lows and highs are all part of the game. Some lows are prolonged, just as some highs are (e.g., Reagan years).

We'll see it all again, the trick is knowing what you are looking at, and doing the smart thing.

Now if we can just get some people running the government elected who understand that small government and small taxation generates huge growth and increased tax revenues, the economy will come back and we will be able to pay the debt down. Continuing to spend is not the answer. Obviously.

All of you who think you know something about the stock market, do some research. Most of whats been written above has no basis in neither fact, nor micro-economics, nor macro-economics.

Didn't study those in grad school? I did, at University of Santa Clara, in the MBA program.

For one, use Google Finance, and look at the Dow Jones over the last 10 or 15 years. See the cycles?

Man, as bad as the recession is, and as bad as the housing market is, it is all self correcting if the frigging Congress stays out of it. That includes the President, who is totally unqualified and it shows.

We've been there, we've done that. We seen it all self correct dozens of times since the great depression. It was a Democrat who caused the great depression to last longer than it needed to. No matter how kind or good their programs and policies sound, they are really hurting the little people, not helping.

I predict that by December 2012, Lowe's stock will be trading at $26 a share or more. At that point, I will be up $175,000 over the cost of the stock I own.

I predict that by December 2013, it will be over $40 a share. I'll be up a quarter of a million dollars. At that point, I'll roll it into insured funds depending on if I still work for the State or what.

Any of you who have been invested in the market for more than 10 years, and actually own enough stock in something to matter, want to bet against me?

If you don't own enough stock to matter, you can't play.

Now if we can just get some people running the government elected who understand that small government and small taxation generates huge growth and increased tax revenues, the economy will come back and we will be able to pay the debt down. Continuing to spend is not the answer. Obviously.

Privateer, that is one of the big issues as I see it. It's also the reason I believe that this is no ordinary, garden variety recession like we have seen over the last 70-80 years.

If the polls are to be believed, 48% of Americans would vote right now to re-elect President Obummer. If this is true, it represents a sea change in the attitude of the public in what they want and expect in the way of governance. Half of us apparently want to buy in to the presidents vision of a socialistic, big government based economy. Command driven much like the Soviet 5 year plans, it will have the same effect....poverty, misery and hopelessness for most Americans with an elite few, all friends of the president of course, enjoying the good life.

Look at the idiotic Occupy Wall Street movement. It's all about wealth re-distrubution and class warfare. If you work hard and invest wisely you should be able to reep the fruits of your labor, I have no claim to what you've worked for.
Am I wrong here. My Bible tells me I will earn my daily sustenance by the sweat of my brow, not my neighbor's brow.

Privateer, I understand you have a lot of investing knowledge and I sincerely hope you do well; but this is not a recession in the classic sense of something we will eventually recover from. We are undergoing a permanent reset of the entire economy to a lower level. The concept of growing GDP as we've known over the last century is done.

In a world of increasingly scarce natural resources, especially oil upon which our entire modern economy is based, we are not going to "recover" to where we were even a few years ago. What would we recover too, an economy based on the pedaling of fraudulent investment devices by Wall Street gangsters?

Kruz, it will work itself out if free enterprise is allowed to work its magic.

Though I do agree, if the American voters re-elect Obama and/or don't clean both Houses of Congress out and put real conservatives in, all my knowledge and education will be worthless.

I set the impact of the current U.S. debt crisis to zero only so long as the 2012 election brings in a conservative president (no pretenders, please) and the Congressional elections give him/her a super-majority.

Obama had a super-majority for 2 years, and it all but removed any chance of economic recovery. The debt service payments have just in the last few weeks passed our GNP. Are you kidding me? This is all its about.

Its not about housing. People are underwater because they lost their jobs or they are not making enough. I know what this is like, more than once I had to take a pay cut just to keep my job at all. There is no housing crisis. It is a debt crisis which makes even those with money to pay cash for housing unwilling to, because they are scared to death the freaking progressive liberals will retain enough control to permanently bankrupt the U.S.A.

We need another Ronald Reagan. His supply-side economics ushered in the microprocessor industry (investment in the billions) and restarted the stalled GNP growth engine.

So you are right, Kruz, if we don't fix the immense damage the progressive liberals have done by spending us into oblivion, this recession will only become worse, and no longer be a recession, but a malaise.

Still, I am optimistic. I don't think Americans are stupid. I think they will put people in office who will cut the size of the Federal government, encourage the States to cut theirs too, repeal everything Obama got passed, sponsor a Constitutional balanced-budget amendment, encourage a Supreme Court challenge of ALL past commerce clause based legislation, institute a national flat rate income tax and disband the IRS, and start over.

* Last updated by: privateer on 10/28/2011 @ 10:30 AM *

Hub wrote:

LOW = 21.59 - 1.41% @ 12 noon.
EBAY = 33.00 + 2.2%
COST = 84.37 - 1.00%

Whats your point?

Go to Google Finance, put in NYSE:LOW and then on the chart it displays, select ALL for the time period. Ok, now select 10 or 15 Years for the time period.

Now what is your point?

I own eBay stock too, but no CostCo (sigh). I got most of my eBay stock when it was $10 / share.

Privateer, I agree with everything you are saying, we are on the same page so to speak.