Bit of Good News

[FreightTrain]

The stockmarket closed up 6.1 percent for the week and for the first time in 2 months it closed above 9k. Anyone taking bets that we've seen the bottom and maybe just maybe be on the way back up. Since Nov 20th the Dow is up 16.2 percent and has consistently shaken off bad news. I personally am still betting that the Holiday Sales Season will show an increase in holiday sales and that might give the market a swift kick in the right direction. We'll find out next week what the actual holiday sales where and than we will get to listen to all the talking heads that projected huge declines back peddle as fast as they can. I can already bet they will claim Huge discounts brought consumers out in droves, even though I personally didn't see many deals on things that I wanted, and that the only reason Americans were able to afford any gifts at all was because they were saving $30 a week in gas. :rolleyes:


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/02/business/main4695897.shtml

[Sgt Beavis]

Nope, the we've still got another hat to drop on mortgages.

Also, I fully expect one of the big three to fail. If it is Chrysler, we'll be ok. If it is GM, we've got problems...

[AL P]

Its a lot more complicated than it appears. You have a potential wave of retailer bankruptices coming. How many go under is anyone's guess. You've also got to see how the new year influences the credit markets, a good number of lenders allocate how much they want to lend in specific types of loans at the beginning of the year. That could change credit availability.

Personally my hunch is that we are in for a huge stock market rally in the short term. Again because of allocations. You've got huge institutions with trillions of dollars that have deflated portfolios. Part of those portfolios are real estate. That has been killed in the last 3 months. I think they'll allocate money away from real estate and get into equities.

[FreightTrain]

Nope, the we've still got another hat to drop on mortgages.

Also, I fully expect one of the big three to fail. If it is Chrysler, we'll be ok. If it is GM, we've got problems...


I'm kind of on the fence with the mortgage issues. On one side you do have the largest percentage of sub prime defaults this country has every seen, but on the other side you have historically low rates for folks with good credit. With housing prices way down and rates extremely low I can see two things happening soon. First off folks that currently have a home and have good credit will be able to refinance and lower their rates which will either give them equity in their homes or will lower their payments and thus give them more money to spend each month. The second thing that will happen is alot of first time home buyers that have been sitting on the fence will start buying houses because of the low prices and low interest rate. This will clear out some of the surplus housing supply due to sub prime defaults and we all know when supply is low prices go up.

[White trash wagon]

8500 seems to be the bottom, in all the ups & downs over the last 3 months, it always would ended up around 8500. But I think the recovery will be SLOW.....whenever it starts.

Middle class incomes have been stagnant for years, and now they've fallen a bit, and many are tapped out on credit & can't pull it out of thier homes anymore. So spending money to stimulate retail sales will remain at a trickle for a good long time.

The job market likely won't improve untill at least the third quarter, and I expect it will be second quarter 2010 before it gets much better. Buckle up and hold on.

Scott

[thesource]

I just need a decent drop this coming week so I can make some money on my Jan 09 $105.00 call option in SKF .

[kangol]

I personally am still betting that the Holiday Sales Season will show an increase in holiday sales and that might give the market a swift kick in the right direction. We'll find out next week what the actual holiday sales where and than we will get to listen to all the talking heads that projected huge declines back peddle as fast as they can.

I wish you were right, but you will see this was a rotten holiday season for most retailers.

[TexasDevilDog]

I would not count the holiday trading days as an indicator. With low volume it is easy to goose the indexs one way or another. Plus it was end of the month, quarter and year for mutal funds that need to do window dressing for their portfolios. The under lying fundementals of the economy are still bad.