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From today’s [url=http://www.sovereignman.com/finance/top-of-the-market-meet-the-1-billion-company-that-has-zero-revenue-14665/]Sovereign Man[/url] – Meet the $1 BILLION company that has zero revenue…
“Case in point– CYNK Technology Corp, a listed company that as of this morning has a market capitalization in excess of $1 BILLION.
According to official filings, the social media development company had one employee, no website, no revenue, no product, and no assets.”
WTFF?
Is it time to exit the stock market, do you think?
Sounds a lot like the DOT COM bubble all over…. companies putting out their IPOs… having a 500 million dollar market cap over night…. only to find they were nothing more than a “concept” involving a bunch of double talk run by two 23 year olds that used the word synergy an awful lot! Today most of those same folks are asking if you want fries with your order!
The stock market today is nothing more than a PONZI SCHEME with side betting. When the music stops it’s going to be nasty. Unfortunately with the current interest rate environment a lot of folks are dabbling in waters that they have no idea how deep and dangerous they have become!
[quote=”Imxploring”]Sounds a lot like the DOT COM bubble all over…. companies putting out their IPOs… having a 500 million dollar market cap over night…. only to find they were nothing more than a “concept” involving a bunch of double talk run by two 23 year olds that used the word synergy an awful lot! Today most of those same folks are asking if you want fries with your order!
The stock market today is nothing more than a PONZI SCHEME with side betting. When the music stops it’s going to be nasty. Unfortunately with the current interest rate environment a lot of folks are dabbling in waters that they have no idea how deep and dangerous they have become!
[/quote]Agreed! It’s a massive “pump and dump” program. High speed program trading makes up a RIDICULOUS amount of the volume and I personally exited the stock market in 1999 when I moved to Costa Rica.
The stock and derivative markets are all rigged and are not appropriate for any kind of investing. The only use they have right now is as a gambling venue for day trading..and even that is rigged.
Market volume has been down for quite a while yet large, massive influxes of corporate and government money keep stock prices inflated. Corporations are using their profits and and buying up their own stock as a protection measure against hedge funds which are always looking for a company to buy and bust. Quantitative easing in the billions contributes to this game as well.
I got out of this mess intact six years ago.Most often, those that constantly complain the most about the market (equities) being “rigged”…”unfair”…blah…blah…blah…are those that really don’t understand markets albeit they [b]THINK[/b] they do and consequently wind up losing money or making money but not as much as the next guy.
Investing in [b]ANY[/b] market involves risk, some more than others. They are [b]NO GUARANTEES[/b] and before investors invest it is [b]THEIR[/b] job to educate themselves to the extent that they understand those risks along with what realistic expectations may be for returns.
Do larger and more sophisticated investors have advantages? Absolutely Yes.
Can the “average” person do well with a well thought out plan and strategy” Absolutely Yes.
The problem is too many investors, both large and small, are too motivated by [b]GREED[/b] and the motivation to invest is driven by their greed rather than remaining focused and developing long-term plan that can reasonably be expected to meet their goals.
I don’t know anything about this Dopey company that Scott originally referenced but there are boatloads of alternatives using well developed plans applying, for example, the use of ETF’s, Index Funds, Mutual Fund, Outside Money Managers that have long-term solid track records, can be as conservative or as risky as the investor wants them to be.
Too many people think investing should be a “risk-free” proposition. They all want to participate in the satisfaction when prices are rising but are the first to complain when prices are falling.
People/Investors, in general, need to become Financially more Literate. Otherwise, consider “[b]investing[/b]” their money in their little CD’s and sleep well at night.
Bogino,
you are merely parroting the sales pitch the brokers use to convince retail investors to put money into this big scheme.
The only relatively safe way to make money is to get in and out quickly (day trade) with sophisticated trading software backed by years of experience. This is basically gambling with a slight edge. It is timing the market in minutes and seconds. Timing markets over months, years and decades is a fool’s game unless you are connected to the inside club of thieves.Anyone who currently has money sitting in the market, expecting a normal bull and bear cycle is going to get a really good but costly education pretty soon. I wish I knew exactly when.
[quote=”sprite”]The only relatively safe way to make money is to get in and out quickly (day trade) with sophisticated trading software backed by years of experience.[/quote]
HAHA!! I have to admit: This has to be the most amateurish bunch of [b]BALONEY[/b] I have ever heard, however, I can understand your anger nd frustration since you “[b]got out[/b]” of the market 6 years ago.
You see: In July of 2008 (that’s 6 years ago), the S & P 500 index closed at 1,260. Today, that index stands at 1,967 for a roughly [b]56%[/b][u][/u] increase or approximately [b]9.25%[/b][u][/u] average increase over that 6 year period that [b]YOU[/b] have been out of the market.
You could have done something as basic and simple as investing 100 shares into the S&P ETF Spider Index (SPY) at a cost of bout [b]$12,384[/b]. That ETF was trading around 123.75 in July of 2008. Today SPY is priced at 196.50 for an increase of [b]57%[/b][u][/u] (essentially emulating the performance of the S&P Index). Your initial investment of $12,384 would today be worth about [b]$19,650[/b][u][/u]. You could have bought 100 or 1000 or 10,000 shares through a Schwab or other discount brokerage for $8.95 or something like that….put the position to bed and simply done nothing. No worries about “day trading”, expenses and so on.
Now….I don’t know what you’ve been doing with your money over the past 6 years but if I had missed that boat I would be [b]Pissed Off[/b] and [b]Angry[/b] too as a result of my own financial ineptitude.
Everybody who is not controlling the market is trying to time entries and exits. It is a fixed zero sum game and since there have to be losers in order for there to be winners, if you are not part of the group fixing the game, guess which group you fall into?
Good luck, Bogino. If I were you, I would listen to Scott.[quote=”sprite”]Everybody who is not controlling the market is trying to time entries and exits. It is a fixed zero sum game and since there have to be losers in order for there to be winners, if you are not part of the group fixing the game, guess which group you fall into?
Good luck, Bogino. If I were you, I would listen to Scott.[/quote]As I mentioned previously. Investing INVOLVES RISK. “If you can’t stand the heat: [b]GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN[/b]”
[quote=”bogino”][quote=”sprite”]Everybody who is not controlling the market is trying to time entries and exits. It is a fixed zero sum game and since there have to be losers in order for there to be winners, if you are not part of the group fixing the game, guess which group you fall into?
Good luck, Bogino. If I were you, I would listen to Scott.[/quote]As I mentioned previously. Investing INVOLVES RISK. “If you can’t stand the heat: [b]GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN[/b]”[/quote]
I am day trader. That means that I am in the hot “kitchen” nearly every day from 8 am to noon. It took me years to learn how to deal with the anxiety and stress and how to extract a few bucks from the derivative markets. Trading from minute to minute is a very difficult challenge but trying to buy and hold and make money over years is impossible. Do that long enough in today’s markets and you lose.
[quote=”sweikert925″]Bogino and sprite, you’re both somewhat right. As bogino rightly says, investing in anything comes with risks and it is silly to pretend that there is a risk-free way to invest your assets. Sprite – yes, there is a chance that some large economic event could put any investments at severe risk. We only need to think back to 2008 to remind ourselves of that.
But to answer the question posed as the topic thread – No, I don’t think it’s time to exit the stock market, at least no more so than usual. There are disturbing trends that should give an investor pause – but then there always are. There are also trends that point to a positive future – just as there always are. How you balance those conflicting trends is always a subjective decision.
My 401K is invested in various stock funds and for 5 more years I will allow that to continue. What will happen over that 5 years? Who knows? But I do have some idea based on what has happened to my investments over the recent past. Here is a annual change to my 401K balance for the past 9 years based on investment returns:
2006 +3.7%
2007 +2.2%
2008 -6.9%
2009 +3.2%
2010 +5.1%
2011 -0.4%
2012 +2.9%
2013 +4.0%
2014 +3.6% (Jan-Jun)I would certainly hope that the average over the next 5 years is closer to 2010’s than to 2008’s, and that is the bet I am making by leaving my savings invested in the stock market. In 5 years I will be able to tell you for certain whether that was a good or a bad bet.
[/quote]Well Put.
[quote=”sweikert925″]Thank you.[/quote]
I managed my own 401k and at the end of 2007, the portfolio had increased 31 percent year to year. For the several years prior to that, the average was around 15 percent.
But in July of 2008, I saw something coming and I got out entirely. Scott saw it coming in December of 2007 and posted it here. By the end of 2008, the market would have removed 60 percent of my money had I not exited.
Now the market has reached record highs but it is a different world today. There are far more reasons to get out now than there were in 2007.
The point is, timing the market in terms of years is impossible to do. It is a huge gamble. I wish you all luck because luck is the only operating mechanism in this game when your exit strategy is in terms of years, not minutes.[quote=”sweikert925″][quote=”sprite”]There are far more reasons to get out now than there were in 2007.[/quote]
Perhaps you’re right and perhaps not. We shall see.[/quote]should really be interesting to see what happens with the FIAT currency and people that hold all their assets in dollars..
scary indeed.. well not for me 😉
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