I was reading a column in Forbes and found the following statements on the stock market:
Considering the stock market, it’s pretty much where it was in a nominal sense twelve years ago; the difference now that the dollar is greatly reduced in value. Put plainly, not only is the real economy going nowhere, but since 2001 the stock market has essentially gone in reverse.
It seems to me that news stories (at least in Obama Economy) always tout how great Obama has been for the market but it seems to me that these stories always measure the market from its absolute low to its absolute high. It only matters when you buy and when you sell. If you bought certain stocks 5 ago (as I did), you are basically where you were 5 years ago, or even 12 years ago. So why do people always act as if the market is a great place to invest?
You’re not one of the Obama privileged elites.
I worked for a number of years for Investment Managers, who handled major accounts. Not a one of them invested in the Stock Market.
That is all.
What did they invest in?
The markets, overall, have been flat since about the start of the great Internet bubble circa 1998. There have been some ups and downs. But what it means is that the average investor has made nothing for about fourteen years, certainly not enough to make up for inflation and/or devaluation of the dollar.
This *is* pretty much the first time this has been true, for the most part investments in the market over any twenty year period in the twentieth century, made market returns which were positive over inflation.
Also, IF you were in a position to put money into the markets during 2009, then you have made a very nice increase since. Now, at least half of that is Bernankebucks, the other half is market snapback/timing. But since it coincides with the change in administration, many Obamatons will claim that the increase came from the wise rule of the regime of the Obamanation. Pure puffery, but that’s what we’ve got these days. On a good day.
Anyone, anyone? Spengler?
For some years, beginning with the Eisenhower Interlude, you could have done quite well with a timely in-and-out. With Ike’s successor we began Going To A Go-Go. And here we are.
I haven’t lost a penny since 2007. In fact, I’ve made about the same ROI as the good years. I’m not even a financial guru; just a commoner who has invested losts of time studying and controlling my own investments — something most americans don’t find important enough to invest in.
Then you should go on margin and take out second mortgages.
Making money investing is easy for you, you have the secret sauce, so do more of it.
Thanks for your recommendations but I’m doing just fine on my own course.
Economists blab in the nominal value of the dollar, not its real purchasing power. So, if prices inflate nominally, really I lose purchasing power or real dollar worth, i.e., the dollar deflates really. In 1985 I lived on $20,000 with a wife and 4 children in a three story house with two cars and money saved each month. That standard of living is not possible re the purchasing power of the 2012 dollar. REAL monetary worth has had a “deflation” though an economist might speak of “inflation”. Let me get to the moral of the story. The values of companies, etc. in the stock market are, of course, measured nominally and also their earnings. A 1980 dollar invested and recuperated NOMINALLY in 2012, even in the context of a NOMINAL profit, would mean a considerable REAL loss for that dollar in 2012 and possibly the profit might not cover real loss of monetary worth. So, the language of economics, although of worth for abstract theory, is misleading, particularly in the hands of politicians. This fact leads to the propaganda that the market has been befriended by Obama. Dr. Helen should compare REAL purchasing power, say, with 2009 and 2012 for any invested dollar and she could well have a REAL loss with a NOMINAL profit. Investors know this fact of monetary life too. Finally, the “friendly” stimulator of the market is not Obama, rather Barnanke with his arbitrary, non-market setting of interest rates. I will not go into probable mis-investments that has caused. One thing is to be noted. If an investor invests in a company that yields about nothing, he will receive profits of about nothing.