Let’s wait for October.
Aren’t we all forgetting that past performance is no indication of future performance. What relevance do historical P/E ratios have, they certainly haven’t been relevant in the bull market of the last five years. I’ve only seen two ways of making money in the market, getting in and holding your position for a long time, such as 7-8 years, or having so much capital at your disposal that you can speculate and move very quickly, such as in and out of a position in a matter of weeks.
Thanks Hemlock!
Great post, cynic. It made me shiver.
However, whats up with the 19 year and 16 year numbers? I thought that the market always historically went up over time periods that long. That (again historically speaking) if you had a greater than 15 year time period, you never lost with stocks.
Well, I am going in. I have some liquid right now, and if I buy stocks that are only trading at a couple of times earnings I should get some bargains. I am also going into the nasdaq qqq index some more because I bet it is nearer the bottom (P/E ratio wise) than the Dow.
I found an interesting page on the
Here is a quote:
**
If two years is a longer bear market, I doubt the validity of a 16 year bear market in the 1960’s.
The data I provided only covers long-term bear markets, which are usually referred to as “secular” bear markets.
And in a recent interview, Warren Buffett mentioned that the stock market, as measured by the DJIA, made almost no progress (except dividends) for the period 17-year period 1965-1982.
Damn. I have a degree in Finance and I had no idea that was the case.
now i started a thread about worldcom but it seems to have disappeared.
personally i think the stock market concept is absurd but it exists so we deal with it. the Jan 30, 99 issue of THE ECONOMISTS had a cover story about internet stocks falling to earth. two years early. can’t be sure a bubble is a bubble until it bursts.
so worldcom is an internet stock and they did something wierd with $4 billion and are now in bankruptcy. an audit is starting and will take months. the boobs on the tube say worldcom has $107 billion in assets, $30 billion in debt, 61,000 employees, 20 million MCI customers. on july 23 the stock was $0.20 but it had gone as low as $0.02 and $0.08, with 2 billion shares outstanding the company had gone down to a value of $40 million. how can a company with 61,000 be worth that little. the market is panicked.
$100 could turn into $5000 if the stock gets back up to $10. who can’t afford the risk of loosing $100?
Dal Timgar
What I know about investing and the stock market could be stuffed into a thimble and still leave room for a marble. For years I had all the money in my Thrift Savings Plan in the safe but low-yield government fund. For years I had been seeing the stock fund showing higher yields, and kept telling myself that I really should take the chance & move some of it. Finally I overcame my inertia and over the course of six months transferred almost all of it to the stock fund and shifted my deductions to buy into the stock fund.
A month later the market started to drop; I rode it out, following the theory that I was now “buying low” and would eventually come out way ahead. Instead, the value of my TSP kept dropping. I kept thinking that the upswing was just around the corner.
Two weeks ago I finally gave up and transferred everything into the government and bond funds, although I left the deductions still being invested in the stock fund.
So of course things are now going up. :rolleyes:
I’m starting to think I should arrange to have somebody pay me to stay out of the stock market to keep it from going back down.
dal_timgar, I (among others) responded to your WorldCom thread. No disappearance.