World markets gain on US economic data

OntarioVanMan · Mar 26, 2009

Some good news for once lets hope the US will " Keep Driving the Momentum"

Mar 26, 2009 - 06:45:11 CDT
By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ
HONG KONG - World stock markets gained Thursday, building on this month's rally as better-than-forecast economic data in the U.S. buoyed hopes that government stimulus measures are starting to heal the global economy.

Every major market across Asia advanced as investors took relief in figures showing orders at U.S. factories for cars, household appliances and other durable goods climbed 3.4 percent last month. Also, new home sales rose 4.7 percent in February. The figures _ better than the market's expectations _ lifted optimism that demand in the world's largest economy might bottom out in the coming months.

chefdennis · Mar 26, 2009

Yea there was a small uptick in the market lace and we will see that from time to time and maybe thats a good thing for "confidence", but I think it will be short lived, we have not seen the buttom yet.

New home sales up doesn't mean "new homes", it just means new loans on existing properties for the most part. Some were 1st time buyers buying foreclosures, some were banks dumping to speculators (my son inlaw has bids on 3 foreclosed properties right now, he is looking to rent them out to people that lost their homes to forclosurer others are others are "shrt sales and the banks eating the lost or the seller taking the lost...I heard 45% of the sales were foreclosurer property....

There is a glut of properties for sale all over the country, and the values are falling daily...and with the spending that barry is planning, and the green stuff the Fed is simply printing that has no value or anything to give it value, you can look for massive inflation as our dollar drops lower....

Nope, it is going to get worse, alot worse i fear before it gets better........

Have you talked to anyone that is making money in their 401k's lately?? Or taken a look at your own?? I uncle lost $73,000 in the last 9 months, and isn't alone and he can't do a thing about it because once your money is in that 401k, it is no longer yours......well not without a giant penalty...so the only thing you can do is figre out which is worse, the loss or the penalty and take it and run...........I read an article the other day that said most people are losing between 30-45% of their plans value...........

OntarioVanMan · Mar 26, 2009

Any uptick is a good uptick no matter....as far as 401's...as long as you are not 60-65 and have at least 10 yrs to go or more I think they rebound to get at least even....may not have the gain expected but at leats ya won't be in the lose column..

greg334 · Mar 27, 2009

First rule of investing -

If you want to play in the stock market, then you don't use money you can't lose. The stock market is a speculation market, it is not there for stable growth and is subject to changes that will cause you to lose everything.

If you want to gamble with money you can afford to lose, place Black Jack. Some really wise investor, Meyer Lansky, said that Black Jack was his game of choice because he could control thingsa a bit better than any other game.

I have heard "My 401k has lost X amount of money" and think TOO BAD. When we have a serious effort to prop up the stock market because of retirement investments, we will have serious problems later on which amazingly is what we have right now. When the government regulates an emotional market (the stock market is run on emotion more than logic), we have to control it so tightly that the government will have to start telling people how to invest and worst yet take over companies that are losing stock value.... oh that is what this guy wants, to take over companies that threaten the country when they may appear to possibly maybe fail in the future...

chefdennis · Mar 27, 2009

Greg wrote:

First rule of investing -

If you want to play in the stock market, then you don't use money you can't lose. The stock market is a speculation market, it is not there for stable growth and is subject to changes that will cause you to lose everything.

If you want to gamble with money you can afford to lose, place Black Jack. Some really wise investor, Meyer Lansky, said that Black Jack was his game of choice because he could control thingsa a bit better than any other game.

I have heard "My 401k has lost X amount of money" and think TOO BAD. When we have a serious effort to prop up the stock market because of retirement investments, we will have serious problems later on which amazingly is what we have right now. When the government regulates an emotional market (the stock market is run on emotion more than logic), we have to control it so tightly that the government will have to start telling people how to invest and worst yet take over companies that are losing stock value.... oh that is what this guy wants, to take over companies that threaten the country when they may appear to possibly maybe fail in the future...

LOL, not that you need it , but I 110% agree with you. While in yrs past I have invested in paper stocks as most people do, made some money, lost some money. Then got into Gov bonds, T notes and muni. bonds* (*triple tax free is always good

) Again making some miney losting some money.

Now before any of my "paper" investments every were a thought, at a time when i was still young and stupid and didn't think about investing and being a newlywed, i just spent. Then came the mid 70's collapse and the what was it maybe 76 we started to recover....well at that time i finally started listening to my old man. GOLD son, or at least Silver....So i started there and over time the "Hunt Brothers" kind of became my gauge, and i bought silver when they did, and mixed in some gold when i could afford it (mainly coinage, egales, double eagles , mapleleafs, pandas and such.....)

Over time i havemade money in paper and lost it, but one thing, which has proven out, you need to stay #1, and PM's for the most part will always be a good investment, to this day I still hold coins I bought from the late 70's and early 80's....

I never got into a 401k, as soon as I figured out it was simply a trust that as soon as i put my money , i wasn;'t getting it out again, no matter what the investment it was based on did, I had no control, and if i wanted my cash, it was taxed at the current rate of my income and then penalized........sorry, not for me, but most people have no idea of that and even worse they never looked into it, they simply bought what they were told was a good deal,,,bad bad bad....ALWAYS do your own leg work and know that you are investing in and how much control you have over your money....

So when Greg said "too bad" to those loses, yeap, if you did that to yourself, you have no one to blame, and alot of people are now finding that out....As for the "Company Retirement plan"...again, you invested in it, you made the decisions to give your money to someone else to let them manage it for you and gave up the control.....so while i feel for all of the Auto workers that paid into those plans, when the Gov has to take those plans over, and they will, and you get pennies and nickels on the dollar, you can blame the companies like most people do, but they didn't stick a gun to your head, you simply trusted them with your money.....

And if you think your 401k while probably losing money now is what it is and you have to live with it, wait until the government grabs it and gives you a "promisary note" or "IOU" for your funds and they invest it in SS or mix it in with the government funds that found the retirement plans they have to pay out from these BK companies..., then wait for the pizzing and moaning to statr!!! No grow, and you more then likely won't even get the cash value back on that "promisary note".....just what the government "Schedule" says you should get...........

letzrockexpress · Mar 27, 2009

chefdennis said:
New home sales up doesn't mean "new homes", it just means new loans on existing properties for the most part.

New home starts means just that: new home starts. Refi's, foreclosure purchases, etc. are separate

greg334 · Mar 27, 2009

Over time i have made money in paper and lost it - edited

Now you brought up a very important point, the average person doesn't get the idea what money is in the first place. They see the numbers on their check, see the withholding and then expect money back from their taxes at the end of the year... the problem is like the 401k debacle, people can't think about how money really works when there are too many things hidden from them.

I explain this when I talk to people about the fair tax, none of us know what it is like to be paid in cash that ended pretty much in 1943, and it is that single thing that moved us from a saving nation to a spending nation - we don't see the money, it is all numbers.
401k's are the same thing, we don't actually see how the investments work and the only one who is really making the money are the people who run the thing in the first place.

Compound interest, the backbone of our economy (it goes both ways). People use to save in safe investments, sometimes even having bank accounts (remember those?) and they got by better than we are today.

I have always been told that post tax investing is the best way to control retirement savings.

so while i feel for all of the Auto workers that paid into those plans

I can't... they don't contribute to their pensions, the consumer does through the price of the product. The auto workers are represented by the unions and some unions are smart, they run the pensions themselves and invest them accordingly but not the UAW. The UAW is coming to the party far too late and I can't feel sorry for the worker who allowed them to do what they have been doing. As the messiah has said, the us auto compaines can not continue to work as they do in this market, so it also applies to the UAW and Teamsters who refuse to change with the times.