Five Bear Market Maxims

Every person who writes about this market talks about a bottom, whether it has happened already or is just around the corner or may not come for a few months or even a few years. But everybody says there was or will be a bottom. This makes an implicit assumption, that there will be good times again, and the long-term 300 year up trend in the USA is still in place. What if you are wrong? What if 14,000 was the all-time top which will never be seen again? What then?

chisltletoe1: If 14,000 was the all-time top, never to be seen again, none of this matters.

In order for that to happen, chistletoe, our GDP would have to stop growing permanently. We would have to remain completely stagnant in terms of growth relative to the rest of the world. In a global economy where everything is as intertwined as it currently is, with a trend to become even moreso, with emerging markets like China and India to bolster the upward trend... there will always be growth. It may not be at the same pace, but it will be there, and those who are poised to take advantage will reap the rewards as always has been the case.

yeah what if it's the end of the world? after all the dow has being done in the last 6 months, why should it stop in the next 300 years? :-)

Let's get back to essentials. Quit running with the wild screaming hunters and start calmly gathering. The stock market wasn't suppose to be about one day millionaires and next day busts. It is a bucket for slow and steady OVERALL growth. Pick and choose. Select and hold. Grow and manage. If you want instant millionaires and are willing to gamble go to the horse race but get out of the market. Is the up trend "over"? Only if you want it to be. Think about it. It wasn't there when it started. Make a new move. Make a smarter move. Make a planned move. Just MOVE people.

Chistletoe1. Will the sun come up tommorrow? Who knows? It's up to the you and me to keep the American free-enterprise free. If we do that the market will take care of itself. If we fall into the socialist traps of Europe your fear may become reality. We do need to clean out the slime and criminals on Wall Street and the SEC, FTC, etc. need to start doing their jobs but it is time for Americans to cinch their belts and do what America is famous for.......get ur done. Andy is right. In a recession (bear market) it is about preservation of capital and being ready. The future will take care of itself.

Chistletoe1 Will the sun come up tommorrow? Who knows? It's up to the you and me to keep the American free-enterprise free. If we do that the market will take care of itself. If we fall into the socialist traps of Europe your fear may become reality. We do need to clean out the slime and criminals on Wall Street and the SEC, FTC, etc. need to start doing their jobs but it is time for Americans to cinch their belts and do what America is famous for.......get ur done. Andy is right. In a recession (bear market) it is about preservation of capital and being ready. The future will take care of itself.

Suggest you take a basic course in econ...

Of course the Dow and our economy must keep going up. The future must reflect the past. Always up, never down. Just look at the past to see the future. It's so easy isn't it? The future is just another boom. We're leaving the roaring 2000's, entering the roaring 2010's. Here comes the future.

The dow wants to go up, Any excuse and up it goes. Doesn't matter how bad things are, fundamentally.

No doubt about going up to the sky!!! Until the end of this year.

Returning to the basics isn't a cake walk. Sound dollar an absolute must for USA. Citizen thrift, making do, and setting aside plus priority shift to sound education of young people must replace the consumerism of past "growth" on plastic and other credit all of which enslave the debtor. Tough but true.

Wow, there is so much bullishness and optimism out there where our future is concerned. That alone is scary. We seem to turn a blind eye to the fact that we have plunged our self into debt (public and private) like never before in the history of this nation as measured by any metric. We will have to pay it back and in my opinion it will be through monetization which will result in hyper-inflation which will be more painful than the depression. When we look around and see prosperity and economic growth just know one thing, we borrowed it from the future. I don't consider myself a pessimist. I consider myself a realist.

Chistletoe, just a final note based on my real life experience. I remember in 1983 in a terrible market (about like now) looking at Exxon at $30 share and paying a 10% dividend......largest corporation in the world at the time....minimum risk IMO. I had no money and 3 small children. That $30 stock is worth $704 today plus all the compounded dividends since then. I recently bought some BT paying 10% dividend. Morningstar rates it as one of their top growth stock picks for Europe. Who knows but is discounted 45% from 52 week high paying 10% with minimum risk IMO...I'll take some of that for the time being and if the market takes off I am still liquid.

It's a damn good question and no one has the answer. Is it possible, yes. Is it probable, unlikely (I hope).

Buy when others are fearful and sell when others are giddy. (something like this was said by Buffett)

if there is money why not put and buy put option.simple as that but thing are evry hard too.

The entire premise of long-term growth in the overall markets is, in my opinion, based on an impossibility. My thesis is relatively simple: 1) GDP must show overall growth year after year forever (with possibly a few hiccups due to relatively brief recessions). 2) Since all economic activity consumes resources (directly as in the case of oil exploration and production or indirectly, by virtue of the resources consumed by service workers), resource consumption must also grow year over year essentially forever. 3) Resources are, by and large, finite. We're running out of oil, fish, water, places to grow food, etc. 4) If resources are constrained, then long-term infinite growth is also constrained Conclusion: Growth cannot continue forever. Increases in efficiency can delay , but not prevent, this from occurring, chiefly because they are constrained (no conservation effort can reduce use to zero, at least for a commodity group like energy or food), while growth in consumption is (at least in theory) not constrained. Consider the trends. 3% annual growth leads to a doubling every 25 years or so. Really? We're going to be producing, and consuming, _twice_ as much as we are now in 25 years? Where's all that stuff going to come from? Global population is thought to be growing at about 1.14%... meaning something like 9 billion people on earth in the 2nd half of this century. Where are all these people going to live? What are they going to eat, or drink? Are these teeming billions going to sit around patiently in squalor and vicariously enjoy the massive overconsumption of a privilaged few, or go quietly when the resources run out? I predict not. So, confronted with the fundamental fallacy at the heart of our financial and economic system, what do we do now?

Buy stocks for the long run...but not necessarily the Dow. America's time is over. This is a global sea change. Emerging markets will drive growth. China India, Brazil Russia...these are the americas of the 21st century...What we are witnessing is the decline of the North American empire. But there are new "americas" all over the world, and their population is 2.5 billion..

the wealth of the wicked is for the the just.Biblical....Is there are many unjust law in the United States or ther are many wicked on the stock market. it will not happen if the just control it not a greedy one. Be just and you will win!