September Stock Discussion

Good point.

I DO credit Obama for using some of the TARP money to give loans and grants for alt energy and the like, that is more than I can say for what Bush would have done..all of it to Haliburton and Lockheed if he were in charge.

Hints of things to come...



https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aINN4BM6Fy5w

 

What I'd recommend for any inexperienced investors who want in the game is, get an account at Fidelity Investments.

They have one of the best research departments in the industry.

Thay also will rank funds as a "Fidelity Fund Pick", which means they do all the work for you, just go in to these funds.

These are no-load funds, meaning no sales fee to get in, and have a $2500 minimum.

I'd get into a good number of funds to diversify into a number of sectors.

I'd stay with the domestic equity funds which invest in a number of different sectors untill you gain experience.

Dividend Growth fund

Independence fund

large cap stock

mid cap stock

growth strategies 

small cap stock

small cap growth

these are all rated as a "Fidelity Fund Pick", you can find these rated funds on the website.

After investing the majority in domestic equity funds you might consider one of these international funds.

china region , emerging markets, latin america

international funds can produce much larger returns than domestic funds but can go down just as quickly. I've double my money in 2 years with these and 3 years is common when they go up.

There is also select funds, which invest in specific sectors, like energy or automotive or banking, these can produce huge returns when the sector does well but can also lag the market even losing money when the overall market does well and the specific sector does poorly.

There are a number of funds which are rated "Fidelity Fund Picks".

Again I'd invest the majority in domestic equity funds then dabble a little here for now if desired.

If you've been following the smart phones, they're selling like hot cakes, consumers can't get enough of them, this sector is exploding, and not just in the US, but worldwide, and has the potential to be very profitable over the next 1 or 2 years or more.

This is one reason we're seeing Apple's stock doing well as the iphone is one of the hottest and they just got it into china.

supposedly google is now coming out with it's own smart phone.

An excellent way to play this is the "select wireless portfolio fund".

There's a number of ways to play this sector, buying the isp's is one way to play it.  at&t (T) and verizon (VZ) could be worth a buy, at&t has the apple iphone and verizon has the blackberry. suppossedly at&t reported subscribers signing up for the wireless internet is strong.

another interesting sector fund to consider is "Real Estate Investment Portfolio", again a "Fidelity Fund Pick". 

I got into this fund on august 10th and am up 15.2% last I checked, kind of puts your 21% since feb. in perspective.

and incredible as it sounds, this fund was up 16% in 3 days just the week "before" I got in.

this fund has tremendous upside, but can go down big as well,  a small investment could be well rewarded.

 

I love these arm chair leaders.

Had the FED/UST not stepped into the abyss to assist not only the US, but the world in crisis, such peons like Russia and even China would have been screwed, same goes for GB and Europe in general.

If we had done nothing, the domino would have fallen and the weaker could have crumbled completely.

Very ungrateful and snooty if I might say.

CC,

We added liquidity to the world and that helped MANY foreign countries, aside from the bailouts to the US.

Well that was crisis time, not normal activities..plus our currency is a GLOBAL currency, so all they did was help the USD in foreign markets.

You are quite the optimist , Claycourt... And to be more accurate, I believe you mean letting the financial system collapse.  (a much different dilemma then letting the economy collapse).  There was genuine fear on the part of the Fed, and had the financial system completely failed, you can forget about the strong surviving..... because there wouldn't have been any survivors.
 Imagine for a minute that there had been a run on every national bank out there (Chase, Wells,  BofA, etc.)  ....  the Fed had no choice but to react by pumping billions of dollars into the system.    The time to complain about Fed actions occurred previous to Ben Bernanke (a la Alan Greenspan).  His easy money policy , combined with a lack of Fed oversight of banks,  was a serious blunder with unbelievable consequences.
So where does this leave us.   Well,  the Fed has decided to tradeoff future economic growth in the years ahead (in the forms of inflation, higher taxes), instead of the complete failure we were staring at nearly one year ago.

https://www.hussman.net/wmc/wmc090928.htm

and the gist from the above:

Forbearance only works, however, if you're buying time to do something to restructure debt. Instead, we've celebrated bailouts and the easing of reporting requirements as if they are a substitute for restructuring. In my view, this is a mistake that will haunt us.

As Resolution Trust chairman William Siedman once noted in regard to the U.S. savings and loan crisis, “Sometimes forbearance is the right way to go, and sometimes it is not. In the S&L industry, all rules and standards were conveniently overlooked to avoid a financial collapse and the intense local political pressure that such a collapse would have generated. But in this case there was not a visible plan for a recovery, so the result of this winking at standards was, as we know, a national financial disaster. On the other hand, in the case of Latin American loans, forbearance gave the lending banks time to make new arrangements with their debtors and meanwhile acquire enough capital so that losses on Latin American loans would not be fatal.”

Our response to the recent crisis has thus far repeated the mistakes made during the Japanese and S&L debacles.

I know it is the vogue thing to compare this to Japan, I just dont see it like that for many previously made comments.

Japan had several financial tsunamis hit them all at once, we are lucky not to have that in this case. If the .com bust, the RE implosion and the financial leveraging AND an even worse general investor leverage happened all at once, THAT is what hit Japan, all at once.

Also, keep in mind that a good chunk of what the FED tossed out there to the banks has been returned and money made off said loans, and other loans made are sitting in good position, so these loans and decisions arent money tossed into the wind, they have been INVESTMENTS, and some have been very good investments.

I dont think we end up being a decade plus long mess that Japan has been.

 I hope not, but I am not so sure...it will take years to recover from the damage done, and I do not think the American consumer will be there to once again be the main engine of world trade. Those days are over, and it will take years to replace it.Just as projected American military power will be replaced in its decline, so will American economic power, but you are talking many years...

You think you would like it.  Are you sure? 

CIT running today.  Up to $2.08 now. 

Wonder why anyone is surprised by a lack of consumer confidence? Just more evidence of the disconnect between the market and main street to me. Anyone here living in an area that is experiencing visible signs of consumer recovery? Nothing  doing here, far from it, although one does have to count the increasing militarisation (growth in military bases in this region)....

Down 40% today..

YIKES

CIT shareholders are done.