"fundamentals rarely count in today’s financial markets and in most cases do not work as anticipated"
This is exactly why I hardly pay any attention to anybody's recommendations and why I have so little interest in finding that next great company/investment (except PMs of course). I think in 6-10 years, investing based on fundamentals will still be out of vogue but will stealthily become the best long term strategy once again. By that time, the stock markets will have bounced along some bottom for a couple or five years and nobody will want anything to do with them, dividends (of the surviving few) will be much more attractive, a gargantuan amount of garbage will have been flushed out the system with possibly several massive shocks (financial, war, mother nature), the real estate bubble will have withered for years, social patterns will have changed dramatically (smaller homes, renting, economical cars, higher unemployment, far higher savings rate, at least one if not two administrations and their crooks thrown out of office). Ultimately, I think the collapse of the consumer society will provide a great deal of social unrest -- I really can't visualize what that transformation will look like but the demise of the one hobby of millions of Americans will leave a gaping void.
The sad thing to me my belief that the propagation of the bubble(s) has virtually guaranteed no buffer for these United States -- manufacturing base has been gutted and consumers are debt laden. Where will the impetus come from to restore our vitality? Look only to the aftermath of busts in Central and South America to see how difficult it will be, or perhaps the UK, because we'll be trying to restart our engines at the same time they've been fine tuning them in Asia for 20 years running. |
