Stock Market Today - Online Investors not Trading Enough
After all the talk of a death cross and the Hindenburg Omen over the summer, the stock market today, as it has been over the last few weeks was boringly resilient. Today the DOW rose 22 points to 10,594 and the S&P finished close to 1,124 its highest since June. So was all the talk about the next stock market crash just so much nonsense ? Unfortunately we may never know. There are still some who see a major sell-off and there are others who think like Warren Buffett that things will just keep on keeping on and slowly improving.Stocks have been mostly on the up since September started. In fact the stock market today seems about the sanest place on this planet which appears more and more as if the lunatics have finally taken over the asylum (you know who you are !). I am tempted to go on a rant but this is a financial blog and although I don't give a rat's assets about what people think of my ranting about madmen in dark places, the almighty Google prefers a financial blog to about finance and the stock market, investing, and mortgages etc... not about philosophical musings about just who is running this lunar waste management service, or how it got here or where it's going. In fact where could it go given that the universe, unlike the stock market and the home loan number crunchers, is made of infinite golden silence and how can infinity go anywhere? Assuming that any of these things actually exist.
The S&P, however, it seems is near the high end of its recent trading range and so it is quite possible that we will see a pull-back as stock traders and assorted online investors hesitate and decide to take profits rather than risk any more of their hard earned cash. That's the trading theory at least, although just why I called it 'hard earned' cash I'm not sure. I am old enough to remember the dot com boom when cash was anything but hard earned and your portolio of carefully picked monkey bottom assets could easily double in value in a week ! Or even a day ! Those were indeed the days. Pity about the crash that followed, when the DOW was falling 700 points a day. And all those lovely stocks and shares ended up worth 1% of what they were worth a year earlier - ouch ! And ouch again ! Some of them didn't even manage to hang on to their 1% theoretical stockholder value.
Then we discovered that CEOs were in fact idiots. Was it the CEO of Monticello who said "I'm an idiot" just a few months after his stock price had collapsed into dust ? Or was that someone else ? The CEO of Baltimore also made a few choice statements I seem to recall. And let us not forget Henry Blodget.
Well those days are long gone on the stock market. Stock trading today is positively like watching a foul wind from your mortgage provider's rear end drift slowly by. Nothing happens, at least nothing ridiculous. Except the flash crash of course, that was certainly a shock to the system and I saw it live on CNBC - lol - bang DOW down 200 points - bang make that 300 points ! Oops sorry it's now 500 points,or was it 700 - did it just hit 1000 points down !? Lol all in about 5 minutes - it was like being in a time warp - only happened once though and they still don't know why. Still, life goes on. Investors, online stock traders and mortgage and insurance brokers are condemned to try and grind out a living on a stock market that only ever moves in double digits. It could be the calm before the storm of course, it certainly feels that way. And another piece of dysfunctional behavior from the mentally-challenged could once more set the fat cat amongst the pigeon pie charts and send the whole financial world crashing down again. Just who is in charge we wonder ? I demand to speak to the manager !
Somebody should do something, but they won't of course.
The DOW on the other hand has done something, not, it has risen 10 of the last 12 days, but is still 5.5% below its 2010 closing high of April 26. The Nasdaq composite moved up at a snail's slimy pace 0.08%, to 2,303.25 !
Consolidated volume on the NYSE was low at 3.5 billion shares. Trading volume continues to be very low as many investors stay in bed or sit on the sidelines depending on their proclivites. "That could leave the market vulnerable if sentiment suddenly worsens." said one analyst wag, who clearly gets paid for spouting financial platitudes as if there were no tomorrow, which of course there isn't. You will never ever see tomorrow not even if you buy yourself an ACME time machine.
Wall Street was mixed despite some encouraging economic news. First-time claims for unemployment benefits fell to a 2 month low to 450,000. Still well below levels that suggest economic growth. I would venture to suggest that there won't be any economic growth until people get some more money. Letting people have access to loans rather than paying them a decent living wage is not sound finance. It is just called getting rich on somebody else's back. So anybody reading this wondering if they should take out a credit card loan - the answer is NO ! Owing money is not the way to get anywhere, unfortunately they probably aren't paying you enough for you to manage your finances without a loan. Here is one secret bit of financial wisdom - they do it on purpose ! They need lots of people in lots of debt in order to do all the jobs that nobody in their right mind would do. You need a constant supply of poor people at the bottom of the pile to do the menial jobs that the rich have no intention of doing. So your only way out is to get rich yourself ! Stop wasting your life and make some real money ! You are unlikely to make any real money working for the 'man'. So get a proper job - working for yourself and set your own wages. It may take a bit more effort but it may also allow you to stop working altogether in a few years time and get poor poeple to run your finances for you ! Like that rich woman who gave her financial advisor $20 million to invest just after the above-mentioned dotcom bubble burst and said financial genius managed her assets so well that by the time he had finished she only had $60,000 left ! Lol ! She was not pleased of course, but I doubt she got any of her money back, it had been well and truly redistributed !
"Bottom line, everybody is worried the economy is in terrible shape," said a senior portfolio manager whose name I can't remember "But it's not getting any worse." Hooray, that's nice to know.
"Prices at the wholesale level rose more than expected last month, easing concerns about deflation." Good. I feel better.
"The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 2.76% from 2.72% late Wednesday. Its yield is used to help set interest rates on mortgages and other consumer loans." I never did understand anything about bonds.
"I'm not sure the deflation theory is completely debunked, but it's pretty close," said someone.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, FedEx shares dropped $3.22, or 3.8%, to $82.72. The stocks of competitor UPS Inc. also fell in sympathy 94 cents to $66.72.
So there it is, another day of tedium for stock investors and online stock traders around the world in the global financial markets. This may be the time of course to start getting back into real estate and property. Real estate domain names are an easy way of investing in real estate without actually getting your hands dirty ! Take a look at this - chosen almost at random from DNJournal - dirt.com sold last week for $100,000 !Lol - well done that man who had the foresight to invest in dirt.com a few years back ! If you like the dogs of the DOW what about this - GoldenRetrievers.com sold for $21,000 actually lower than I would have thought. That site has got to be a fine investment and a guaranteed money-spinner, more so than dirt.com everybody loves their dogs and spend oodles of cash cleaning up their mess and stuffing their faces.
Both of these investments, however, are feed for the chickens compared to this year's top sale so far - Slots.com at $5.5 million ! As this blog is a financial blog I can't tell you what Slots is all about, as I mentioned above the big G issues cyber slaps if I start waffling on about slots - but let me simply say that slots is devoted to people who like to invest their money with reckless abandon and refuse to analyze the particular investment vehicle into which they are placing their coins other than to wonder if this is the day they will get a share in the fruits of someone else's ridiculous and totally random labor.
So invest in domain names if you have a few dollars to splash about, as a long-term investment it could prove quite profitable if you pick the right names. Two-word dotcoms are probably the best bet but you also will have a very hard time trying to find any that other investors have not alread snapped up. Still it can be an interesting exercise and in many ways is actually more interesting and less hazardous than the stock market or forex 'investments'.
After the stock market today what about the stock market tomorrow ? Well that is the big question of course, my prediction for the stock markets tomorrow is that they will go up, down or sideways. I don't think I've ever seen a day when the stock markets actually went nowhere - 0 points movement, and I doubt if I ever will. Good night -gold is forming a bubble by the way, I'm convinced of that at least. Gold bars in vending machines ! Absolutey ridiculous !
0 comments:
Post a Comment