Historically the stock market leads the economy by about 6 months. I think we're at a bottom on the Dow, and the economy will rebound next year.
I could be wrong though.
Nevertheless, I've been buying into this downturn, now hung out to dry, and if the Dow goes to 7500 I'm jumping out the window like they did in '29. Luckily my house is a single story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIpNKO1W4eU

Things are too complicated but this sheds some light to the market anxieny.

I sincerely hope you are right. I think the Dow falling off the cliff will hurt a lot of people, particularly middle class folk who have a high fraction of wealth in equities. Most of my neighbors have no idea about what's going on and they just continue to invest in routine fashion. It would hit them like a ton of bricks.

The european banks and press are much gloomier than the U.S. press. Socgen and several other major euro banks are predicting as low as Dow in the 4000s. Barclays also predicts ugliness. So the real question is, who do we believe? The euros or the U.S. media?

Who do we believe?

Neither - but let the doom and gloom hit us. What makes you think the US pop press isn't gloomy anyway? You would almost forget the ruling party in the house and senate, they are so gloomy! All polls do show the common man quite gloomy. Near or at sweater chat days.

Enough of that. We need more dive action. I want to pull the trigger on some 2X long funds and then ignore the market for awhile.

Didn't say the U.S. is not gloomy. I said the Euros are more gloomy.

The Americans are gloomy. 11,000 on the dow is a ton gloomy when compared to predictions a month ago. But Euros blow that out of the water.

On a positive note, Lehman and UBS are projecting an 18% rise in the S&P 500 by January.

So place your bets.

Looks like that closer a financial institution to bankruptcy, more often it becomes a fairy-tale teller.

BTW, an interesting info on China: Oil price shock means China is at risk of blowing up

No bias there! Wow - please no politics in this thread.

U.S. hating isn't necessarily politics. It's sport in most parts of the world.

Americans should be happy to be relevant.

Be interesting to see if Iran can keep up enough war rhetoric to keep up the price of oil. Its pretty obvious and I think a lot of traders know it. Still it seems to be a winning strategy.
http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQtO4FgNzxZE&refer=home

Sometimes I cannot understand why most of the world hates the US.

What, seriously, what would they do without all of our giving to the poor in other countries?

We spend enormous Billions of dollars on giving and taking the lead in helping other countries and their people, way more than other countries. I give to world charities, a lot, way over and above what the government gives out. But continue to be trashed.

Reading Material

Dudes - I be buying right here.

Time to go??