and most of the leaders have been taken out and shot. it will be interesting for energy stocks if we have another bad hurricane season for the gulf.
SP500 currently is about 1225. A 15% drop implies the high was 1440. Was I sleeping when the SP500 broke 1400 this year?
I was holding out hoping for a rebound, but even some of my stable, "sure" stocks are sitting in the toilet. I'm watching tomorrow and am getting out. The stock market experiment has come to a close....(for the time being ) Of course, paying commission to sell adds to the pain.
Global equity meltdown costs investors $2 trillion Tuesday June 13, 5:27 PM EDT By Chris Sanders NEW YORK (Reuters) - The month-long slide in global stocks has wiped out at least $2 trillion in wealth, leaving investors few alternatives to preserve their holdings aside from bonds and money markets. Investors have been dumping stocks, commodities and emerging market assets on growing concerns that economic growth will suffer from higher inflation and interest rates. "It is essentially one consistent story worldwide, starting here in the U.S. There is a fear that the Fed's repeated commitment to limiting inflation demonstrates a willingness to risk economic activity," said Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York. Stock markets have been punished since the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates for 16th time in a row on May 10 and issued a hawkish statement saying it may need to do so again to fight inflation. Investors had expected some sign of an end to the tightening cycle. Global markets have suffered since, and strategists show little agreement about how deep and how long the sell-off will go. Bonds have been the most direct beneficiary of the equities route, with benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasuries staging their longest rally of the year since mid-May. MARKETS FALL INTO THE RED ON THE YEAR The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> is off 8.2 percent since mid-May and as of Tuesday's close had erased its gain for the year. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> is off 12.75 percent from its high for the year on April 19 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> has fallen by nearly 8 percent from its May peaks. On Tuesday, Tokyo's Nikkei average booked its biggest one-day percentage fall in two years, tumbling 4.14 percent, wiping out more than 16.56 trillion yen ($145 billion) in market value from the Tokyo Stock Exchange's first section. It was the biggest one-day point drop since immediately after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. In Europe, the FTSEurofirst 300 <.FTEU3> index of top European shares has fallen about 11 percent since May 11. The index finished at 1,238.5 points on Tuesday, its lowest closing level since November 30. Since its year high hit in early May, the MSCI World Index <.MSCIWO> of global stocks has lost $1.9 trillion in market capitalization, nearly 12 percent of its value and more than the economic output of the United Kingdom. The index compiled by MSCI Barra does not account for all global stocks, meaning the total amount of lost wealth is greater still. As global central banks in Europe and United States have raised interest rates to cool inflation, investors are aggressively slashing their exposure to emerging markets as well. OUTFLOWS FROM EQUITIES Investors pulled out about $8.5 billion from emerging equities in the three weeks ending June 8, according to data from EmergingPortfolio.com Funds research. The benchmark MSCI emerging market stock index <.MSCIEF> has lost about 24 percent since May 10. "We've seen a lot of panic selling by people who have gotten into emerging markets and commodities later in the game -- pessimism is high," said Scott Wren, a senior equity strategist with A.G. Edwards & Sons. "People are sitting on a lot of cash and are afraid to get back in the market." Given the drop-off markets, analysts said investors should now seek quality. Tom McManus, chief investment strategist with Banc of America Securities said investors should look at "the bonds of the stock market. Steady companies with strong earnings and geographic diversification." These shares have been out of favor since about 1998, he added, and are the kind of companies Warren Buffett has been known to own -- companies with top-quality balance sheets and diversified earnings streams. Shares held by Buffett include Coca Cola Co. (KO), American Express Co. (AXP), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and Anheuser-Busch (BUD). Each of these has retained their gains even as the S&P 500 has erased its advance and now stands 2 percent lower on the year. The global sell-off, however, is not over and may only be just starting, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s global equity strategist Abhijit Chakrabortti. "This is nothing compared with what we may see late in the summer and early October -- once slower growth finally sinks in and expectations for higher benchmark rates, at 6 percent or even more, come out," Chakrabortti told the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York. "Sectors most dependent on growth and the companies most dependent on volume and price declines, which also includes tech companies, should be avoided," he said. "We like the big telecom providers such as Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T), as well as Colgate (CL)," he added. All three have soundly outperformed the market this year, gaining 4.75 percent, 10.3 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Among U.S. mutual funds, investors pulled only $1.9 billion out of equity funds in the week that ended June 7, not a huge amount compared with outflows of $7.1 billion during the previous week, research firm TrimTabs reported late last week. At Boston-based Fidelity Investments, the world's biggest mutual fund company, "we have not noticed unusual activity during the past several days but we had strong money market inflows in May," said Vincent Loporchio, a spokesman. (Additional reporting by Ros Krasny, Vivianne Rodrigues, Chris Reese and Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston)
not trying to sound rude but that's a pretty good contrarian indicator to me. reminds me that I need to check specialist to public short sale ratio down here.
Unless you need the money, I would advise against this. How many positions are you in? Here's the best advice I can give: Talk to an advisor. Get a sound diversified portfolio. Then invest in these positions every month until you retire. And don't watch your portfolio. Most people's emotions cause them to buy high and sell low, even though everyone knows they should do the opposite.
Unless you're already retired (or is a trader), why does anyone worry about this daily? I get quarterly Vanguard statements, look at them for 5 minutes and file it away. It's like people who are obsessed with the real estate market even though they aren't moving for several years. People who can't stand to lose money should be in CD's. And people who can't stand risk and yet complain about CD rates, need to find a real job so they can stop whining. The average American with thousands $ of non-deductible high interest credit card debt worrying about their 401k and the stock market. No wonder this country is all screwed up.
The market could rebound but a short up move could just be a dead cat bounce. (more expert analysis, I just like to say dead cat bounce) The retail brokers are happy to have you sell or to buy the dip, they make money either way. The only thing they don't like is low volume so they will be pumping up the noise. If you've bought good intermational companies that actually earn money and pay dividends AND you investment horizon is years out in the future you can just quit listening to the hype and quit looking at your porfolio report every day. If you were speculating in cash burning growth stocks and can't stand losing a significant percentage of your portfolio, bite the bullet and bail. We could be on the top of the roller coaster. Listen to Lance Roberts on AM 700....he's on right now, I guarantee you he will give you good information. He's sort of the Antibroker, looking out for you rather than Wall Street.
Let us know when you get back in. More curious than anything else about what would trigger your bullishness ...
I've got about 3k that I'm waiting to drop in my IRA this year, and I think I'm going to wait for the Dow to hit around 10200-10300 before I invest this. I know IRA's are long term investments so it doesn't matter but I'm still looking for the best time to put it in to maximize value.
I'm no expert, but I agree with this. My 401K has taken a beating the last few months. I check it online every morning. But I don't plan on retiring for another, oh say 35 years, so who cares? I'm just going to keep maxing it out like normal.
I'm looking for the market to close up today, and then a flat day- I will be entering long in that case either on Friday or early next week for a swing trade.
I checked my IRA today. The downturn whacked my equities out of balanace, so I did a rebalance from my fixed investments. Thus, I was never out, but I am now futher in
