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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (9434)	9/16/2001 1:24:40 AM
From: smolejv@gmx.net	Respond to of 74559

>>Is it a better idea to listen to people who are disinterested and have no stake?<< This is autism, the answer is of course not. >>I don't have an easy answer.<< I'm still formulating the question (sg). It goes (sort of) in the direction of "what are the (Jay's) road-forks to take so that down the road (5 years?) we all dont have a gigantic hang-over or (worse) graveyard". dj

To: Ilaine who wrote (9434)	9/16/2001 1:52:29 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi CB, Just observations: <<"Shorting the market is unAmerican. Because I am long." ... Is it a better idea to listen to people who are disinterested and have no stake?>> No easy answers, you are right. There are no disinterested people on what has happened and will soon happen. There were lots of ill informed people on what had been happening all along, myself included. On Monday, let's see, a guess, and it does not look pretty ... (a) the insurance companies need to sell bonds to pay claims, so long term interest rate will rise (b) people will believe the governments all must 'print' money, so long term interest rate will rise again globally (c) mutual funds will need to sell, if only to prepare for redemptions down the various forks of the many roads, and so will sell bonds and stocks (d) the real esate lending engine will grind to a halt, and so asset backed securities will be sold, raising interest rate some more (e) but foreigners will determine that the US is no longer the place to invest or to park money, and so will sell ... in fact all money will go back to their natural home because investment interest will collapse everywhere (f) US and global consumers will simply stop buying, and so turning off the trade deficit engines of all countries, with US having the largest engine, short circuiting the capital flows back to the US from net exporting nations (g) companies will finally conclude that recovery is not around the corner or the next block, and so will put in contingency plans, cutting people and investment budgets (h) short rate will be cut by FED, by, say, 100 basis points (i) currencies, harder to guess at, so lets just say "volatile" (i) all little guys are encouraged to allow the big boys a clean exit from their positions, for the good of the nations (j) security related non-productive cost will rise, productivity will decline, and oil price will rise all possibly resulting in deflationary stagflation, or the Perfect Storm. I do not know if Soros is still coming to HK this Wednesday to receive the faithful, and even if he is, I am not sure I want to go any more, given that HK is an open society and we may have many enemies in our midst. Just an admittedly politically-incorrect guess. Chugs, Jay

To: Ilaine who wrote (9434)	9/16/2001 2:32:04 AM
From: Mark Adams	Respond to of 74559

FWIW- consider my posts in the context that I was 25% long, thinking in terms of a recovery on the horizon. Prior to the markets being shut for four days. During those four days, I looked for possible panic plays, for additional long exposure. (I seem to have a taste for punishment, as long as it's not physical. <g>) Now- I'm thinking risk premiums must ratchet up, but a decent decline and improving fundamentals may provide that. Truth is, we have always lived in a potentially dangerous environment, we just prefer not to think about it much. And with the disaster de jour in egypt or yemen, it's easier for the press to move on to the latest story about who is sleeping with whom. Our press is very poor in terms of global coverage- very poor in terms of depth of coverage. The internet should be a potential solution for that, allowing additional content for those interested layered below the 8th grade level sensationalist blurbs. We just aren't quite there yet. When I listen to the chinese press, it's quite obvious how the material is gathered and selected for presentation to support a particular way of thinking. The US press, perhaps unknowingly, does the same thing with perhaps a bit more subtlety and elegance. Oh- I've strayed from my topic... Times have changed- and the world is not a linear place where understanding of calculus gives you the magic to understand how things will turn out. Perhaps non-linear equations, which I didn't take, or chaos based mathematics. So like yourself, my math is of little help in these days. I know where I am, have some ideas of the range of things that could be 'really' happening, some of the potential outcomes, and the picture isn't as pretty as it was a mere week ago. Yet it is still possible that things will turn out ok, that future technology advances will allow us to produce more with less, enriching the world while lessening our impact on the ecosystem. It is such a future that I need to hold as the vision, the ultimate desired outcome, despite the current turmoil. I do like to stray... One more comment- there's a piece of advice that suggests not betting on end of the world outcomes- as they usually only occur once. Well, Tuesday 00 showed up on the ole roulette wheel. Probably not end of the world, but not to be ignored either. This lends support to Mr Shannons mention of using probabilities to guide decisions, a person I've found quite brilliant in recent postings, as are many of those who post on this thread. Unfortunately for me, I'm not to sophisticated in thinking in terms of probabilities yet. Well enough of this late night brain dump- I hope the future finds us all well.