Thanks for that Gregg. You have no doubt been away assuaging your clients' bear terrors. Welcome back. It is precipitous collapses which worry me most as there is little time for people to adjust their thinking or portfolios, margins, housing, jobs. It even takes time for the really desperate to find space on a high window ledge with a good view.
With AlanG's soothing comments, the economic strength of USA within its own borders and North American markets and a bit of time, it seems that the prospect of one of those free falling collapses is remote. Too much steam has been released from the pressure cooker.
I hadn't lost any confidence at all in Qualcomm or Globalstar. I had lost confidence in my grip on the two! With my margin rising like a bloody tsunami relative to market capitalisation, I wondered whether the crowds of imprudent, greedy, margin gamblers involuntarily turfed overboard at a panicked bottom would be joined by another venerable Kiwi. So far, so good. AZ GSTRF prices really made me think of the Schitt family.
What about the Samsung handset? Hot stuff. Since Korea has been removed from the map, I wonder where they produce them. Those will sell very well. The Q news continues well. With Q/Ericy have a little, discrete, ANFE in France while Irwin was over there in regard to cdma2000 as a global standard.
Meanwhile, I've done some scientific research on bear markets back to 1927. Since these indices are measured in money, which was earlier in the century attached to a gold standard, but now is a free-floating, unattached, abstract metric related more to the speed of its movement than the quantity of it, we need to bear in mind that these indices are, to some extent, a load of bull. [Jon's mind just went blank - Ed.]
To summarize. There have been few bear markets this century. [Ed - There have previously been centuries, but they were inhabited by troglodytes and farmers so don't matter]
The bear markets were, measuring them from the top before the drop to the time when the top was regained:
1929 - 1955 = 26 years.
1966 - 1983 = 17 years
1938 - 1946 = 8 years [occurring within the first one]
1946 - 1951 = 5 years [also within the first one]
1987 - 1989 = 2 years.
The rest of history is one huge, enormous, continuing and a fact of life bull market.
If we look at each of these bear markets, we see that there were some substantial bad things happening. The biggie was the depression and war. Those who think war economically productive should think about their reasoning and explain the correlation of WWII and Vietnam with bear markets.
The reasons for the great depression are fairly well documented. Blowing up the world is also self-evidently not good for production.
The 1966 - 1983 long flat Dow was largely due to oil hitting $40 per barrel. Endemic socialism, taxes and stuff, Vietnam and drug intoxication were biting in the late sixties then the oil crisis arrived in 1974.
1987 resulted from bad loans, speculation, overemphasis on property and hordes of neophytes loose in the markets. Corrected very quickly! Though not in NZ where we had gone financially berserk [me not included].
1946 to 1951 I don't know about - maybe overexcitement as the war came to an end. It wasn't much of a bear.
So, this scientifically proves that bear markets don't exist. There are just dips in one huge bull. Unless you get real mayhem like the events after 1929 through to the end of WWII. None of which look likely.
Mqurice
Dow 16000 Feb 2002 [maybe with me still on board - yippee]
Go Q.com. Maybe $80 by 30 September after all. |
