After the initial, exhilarating plunge on October 10, bears have struggled for every dime of additional gains. The herky-jerky downtrend since, far from being a collapse, has been a yawner that will have instilled precious little fear on Wall Street or elsewhere. The current mood of traders is nicely captured in a think-piece by my colleague Wolf Richter. As he notes, the buy-the-dip mentality and corporate share buybacks seem ample to keep stocks buoyant more or less indefinitely. When we start entertaining such thoughts seriously, it’s a good time to recall the observation for which Prof. Irving Fisher will always be remembered — i.e., that stocks, in early September 1929, had reached “a permanently high plateau.” Such thoughts will never go completely out of style, even if the treacherous currents of history have swept investors who believed them onto the rocks time and again.
Would-Be Market Collapse Has Turned into a Yawner
- October 29, 2018, 4:05 pm
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October 29, 2018, 10:44 am
LOL!
On October 24th of 1929 J P Morgan and some pals tried to stem the crash by buying stocks with a flourish! To no avail!
Today, the level of market intervention would stun ol’ J P!
The market is many things, but out of control is not one of them!
Japan has led the way,they have buying stocks and government bonds openly for decades.
Hell, they invented ZIRP!
All the rest of the CBs said, “Great idea, why didn’t we think of that!”
The rest is history!
If the markets “Crash” it has been orchestrated and front run to the max!
LOL! -
October 28, 2018, 7:35 pm
The stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression cost Fisher much of his personal wealth and academic reputation.
Another 2 important members of the ‘bust team’ where Graham and Dodd as they coined the term margin of safety in Security Analysis.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 (Black Tuesday) almost wiped out Graham, who had started teaching the year before at his alma mater, Columbia. The crash inspired Graham to search for a more conservative, safer way to invest. Graham agreed to teach with the stipulation that someone take notes. Dodd, then a young instructor at Columbia, volunteered. Those transcriptions served as the basis for a 1934 book Security Analysis, which galvanized the concept of value investing. It is the longest running investment text ever published.
The business of investing and speculating in markets has have more ‘investments’ in a industry than any other in human history to discover and predict future price movements.
None have never ever worked with sustainable results.
Have a great day tomorrow Rick.
A ha!
It looks like the wind blew down a telephone wire across J P Morgan’s grave at 12:45 PM Pacific Time, and he phoned in some HUGE buy orders across the board!
Just like that old Twilight Zone episode!
He’s still got it!
LOL!