Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Value of Perfect Information -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Q8 who wrote (136)	11/22/2008 5:04:32 PM
From: Gold Beach	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 262

It is interesting to compare our current market drop to the Great Depression. The results may ultimately be the same but the time frame is greatly compressed because of better communications and trading tools that allow us to do our own trading and other things such as ETF's that allow us to buy and sell vast quantities of stocks. 1. Only information sources during the Great Depression were the telephone, radio and newspapers. Now we have TV with dedicated channels such as CNBC, CNN, FOX and others that focus on market news. We also have PC's and other devices where we can zero in on market news and items as we wish. And as individual investors, we can email each other as we are doing here and can send whole articles regarding the market to each other. 2. Back then we had to buy and sell stocks through brokers and it took days to transact. Now we have our own accounts on line where we can buy and sell real time. We also see instantaneously our trades, how much money we have, etc. 3. Broker fees were much higher back then--$40/trade or so. I think the high cost resulted in fewer trades. And remember back then, the dollar was worth much more. 4. No ETF's and other means to rapidly buy and sell large quantities of stocks. That includes ultra shorts and longs, options and other things. As I recall, during the Depression they experienced a large sell-off initially followed by a recovery of 50% of the indices. I think it took a year or several years for that to happen. Then the stock market took a huge gut wrenching drop. The point of the above comparison is that what took a year or years back then to occur will now be compressed into months or less because of the vastly improved communications and ETF's and other ways of buying and selling vast amounts of stock. So the market can now turn much more rapidly one way or the other compared to the Great Depression era. Don