The History Lesson of the Stock Market Crash

Prior to the crash people were receiving higher incomes. With more income average people invested in the stock market driving prices up.  With an unbelievable amount of prosperity there looming in the background, was the thought of a stock market crash.

Then it happened.

Economist had warned of a crash, a bubble bursting, but it fell on deaf ears.  So then the tragedy began, the bottom fell out and everyone scrambled to keep from losing everything.

The world was succumbing to a global economical crash and a wide spread fear of a faulty recovery.

The banks began failing one by one, occasionally four or more at a time.

And don’t get me started on the whole immigration thing.

When reading this article please keep in mind the title, the history lesson of the stock market crash.

If history has taught us nothing but one thing, in time everything repeats its cycle.

The previous stated lesson is from the crash of the 1920’s the last quarter of 1929, October 24^th to be exact.

Back then a group of bankers pooled their money to buy stocks to convince others to stop selling their stocks, while in this century we experienced the Goldman- Sachs scandal, a legal pump and dump.

An Unethical confidence game.

Although there were rumors the bankers were secretly selling their stocks after the pooling and buying.  This would still be a legal pump and dump.

Unethical.

In the stock market crash of 1929 the bottom was not finally felt until July 8, 1932, an approximate time period of two years, nine months, and two weeks and two days.

Even today economist are looking at the stock market crash of 1929, comparing it with our current economy.  The global economy at that time was bleak, but not too long after, the healing did begin.

We started a new cycle of growth.

Our new cycle of growth is going to be small hops (as stated in a previous post) which will total one big leap when we look back a year from now.

A recovery is not an overnight fix.

At this time we should take advantage of the downturn before the upswing and invest in the one tangible asset that will appreciate in the very near future.

Commercial real estate is seeing more foreclosures and is due for even more, making the prices unbelievably low.  This low will not last more than two to two and half years.

The residential housing industry is also going to experience another down turn before its appreciation upswing.

As far as the stock market, well picking stocks like Warren Buffett is better than Jack Rabbit investing any day.  The Jack Rabbits seem to go broke while Warren is still making gains.

So think about where you would like to be in five years.

Would you like to be thinking about how you shoulda, woulda, coulda (sown) invested to (reap) profit, or will you be thinking about all that you are reaping because you realized it was time to invest.

Cutbacks, Down Stocks and other Economical Tragedies: Sunday Morning Thoughts 4 July 2010

This week in retrospect has seen many changes.  The banking Reform Bill has made its way to the house for final approval.  California State workers wages have been rolled back to minimum wage, $8 an hour, with a promise to have withheld wages paid retroactively when the budget is balanced.

With hiring in the private sector being weak, this shows the recovery is still going at slow speed.

The oil spill does not look as though it will be cleaned up any time soon.

The close of Wall Street on Friday was the worst week in the past two months.  The S & P 500 (click the link to read about the impending “death cross), NASDAQ, and the DOW all fell before the start of this holiday weekend.   The DOW fell below 10,000 again, but as time has shown it will rise this coming week.

One thing that has been noticed is the real estate sector.  With a housing glut and more to come from single family homes to commercial property, the market will probably experience another down turn making even more people upside down on their mortgages.

Although on the horizon will be the Reform Bill for banks.  The bill will tighten the rules for being able to extend credit.  This will in turn cause higher interest rates and lower available credit to consumers.  This action is a double edge sword.

This action of banks having to have more money in the bank to be able to lend means, the outstanding credit banks currently have will have to be reevaluated.  The banks may respond with more charge offs and higher interest rates, which will cause a possible decline in the economy.

The power to give people lower interest rates will cut into profits for the banks, but the alternative of increase interest rates is actually a worse option.

A Slow Steady Economic Recovery: Sunday Morning Thoughts 20 June 2010

First let’s start with a few tidbits that do not seem to have a reason in this posting.  But, these same tidbits will come back in future postings as their influences progresses in our economy.

Everyone seems to be welcoming the newly proposed flexibility of China’s Yuan exchange rate.  This will help lessen trade barriers with China.  At this point it is unknown whether this new flexibility will make the Yuan weaker or stronger than the US dollar; stronger is what Washington wants.

With May housing starts home building plunges but this is to be expected with the current housing glut.  With fewer new constructions starting this would help balance the current glut instead of making an even bigger issue of empty properties.  On the upside, there has been a rise in mortgage purchase applications last week, although it is too early to really tell the future impact.

The feds may keep interest rates low.  With the interest rates low more people will be able to qualify to purchase houses, even when the new reform bill passes the House and Senate.  Although it will be harder to acquire large lines of credit, the overall future impact will make it better for the economy.

One of the factors causing our current housing issues was caused by the average homeowner receiving interest only loans.  Interest only loans were for investors when they wanted to only hold a property for three to five years.  The loan was not suitable for families to purchase their dream home, because the reset of the mortgage payment would be greater than income, or they would not be able to keep up with the payments if the debts were too great.

The pace of the recovery may not be as fast as we all may have wanted, but slow and steady is better than fast as a rocket.  A rocket recovery would be unstable, going up fast and strong and plummeting faster and even stronger which in the short term would and only cause more problems such as a stock market crash.

A slow steady recovery will be a lasting solution to our current down economy.  While our economy is in a stabilization phase tangible assets are more attractive to investors.

Gold at this time is one of the most attractive tangible assets, but real estate should also be considered.

Why should real estate be considered if there is a current housing glut?

If nothing else time has proven real estate to be one of the best appreciating assets.  A down market is truly a buyers market; more houses are going into foreclosure, along with commercial properties, many of which are positive income producing commercial properties.