TOPIC: The Economy

Oh by the way, I wanted to say I like your idea about watching employment and paper.  It sounds like it would be a good indicator. 

In your experience of watching these two items, how good of a predictive indicator is it?  I would think paper would be more of a volatile lag indicator.  You know, say like the housing market crashes and everyone stops getting loans, so loan companies stop buying paper....  I would think that indicator would show more of an immediate economic conditions (and for everyone else that reads this, its good to know your current financial and economic situations).  And the employment would show a longer more subtle trend.  Is that your experience with these two indicators?  Is it good at predicting future market conditions?  Predicting the future is worth its weight in gold my good man!  lol

I don't know how "predictive" it is.  It is probably more a current than lagging indicator.  I just look at it to see what is going on at the moment.  Trucking, along with them, says a lot too.

I noticed over the weekend that they interviewed Warren Buffet.  He said pretty much what I said in the first post - that greed and fear run the market.  He is as contrarian as I was suggesting we should be.  His quote, pretty close, "When the market is  greedy I am fearful and when the market is fearful I am greedy."  That pretty much says it all!  I noticed he buys when things are going down (bargain shopping) and the other day, when the market soared for one day, he absolutely stopped.

Like was said before, buy in the trough...  it's not too late to get in!  It might go down further too!  Keep a sharp eye!

Man I missed that.  I wanted to watch Warren Buffet.  Oh well, to late now.   :-\

I just thought I would share something with you.  It is from a market analysis service that I pay big bucks for, but don't think it an ethical problem if I share this small thing with you.  They counted down the top 10 things (starting at 10, going to 1) we should do to prepare for the coming "apocalypse," tongue in cheek all except the last, which is #1.  I share #1 with you:

" 1. Buy some cheap stocks!
If you decide not to capitulate, then you should probably go ahead and buy some cheap stocks. There's a good chance that during this crisis, you'll see businesses trading at prices lower than you may ever see again. Look for inexpensive companies that are throwing off cash, have rock-solid balance sheets with no short-term debt maturities or cash needs, and have excellent competitive positions.

Don't worry about buying at the exact bottom, because the bottom is impossible to predict. Just buy at prices that are almost certain to provide long-term investors with amazing future returns. "

The "capitulate," or give up, was #2.  Again, tongue in cheek.  But #1 sounds just a bit like what I have been saying for some time now on this thread.  Hmmm....