Searching for Ourselves

A MATTER OF CONFIDENCE

admin — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:54:33 +0000

It was quite a ride up yesterday.
Never in my time doing online stock trading has there been anything like it. Of course, it was a record increase, so it’s all history.
It is really a matter of confidence. If most of us believe that the markets have been stabilized, then stocks will con-tinue to perform to the upside. If not, then this will only be a temporary rise. The panic has not reached the retail level yet, but last week it was close. Perhaps last week was the bottom.
Now, for anyone involved in online stock trading, there is the question of what stocks and opportunities are out there. Some companies have suffered real losses, and even if the stock market indices ratchet upward, there is no guarantee that the businesses that have lost so much capital can recover and prosper.
I pulled out my research from last week and looked through it. I had looked into a number of market sectors, with the idea that sooner or later a bottom would be reached, and that there were solid investments to make.
I looked again at the financial sector. Now that the US government is going to be buying stocks in large banks, some of those might prove interesting. My focus, however, will be on those banks that were never in any danger of folding, because they had not been involved in making or holding any sub prime paper. There are a few of those.
This kind of makes for a strange situation. Should I buy into the well managed banks, which were never in trouble, and most likely won’t be in trouble. Or do I buy into the larger banks that will be partially owned by the govern-ment? Will the “government” banks actually be unfair competition to the ones left in the free market? That could be. And if so, their stock prices will remain depressed.
It was quite a ride up for the markets, and it will probably go up again today. I just wonder how long the upside will be sustained, given that a plan of some sort has to eventually show results. I guess there is that window where the confidence will remain high due to a grace period, but if it becomes clear that confidence is still low, things will begin to sell off again.
Only time will tell on this. We are in totally uncharted territory. Some fortunes have already been made, and more will be made. It’s just going to take paying attention to a lot of detail.

COOKED THE BOOKS

admin — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:15:01 +0000

Jack and Maria decided to go ahead. One morning I got a call. They were in Merrillville filing bankruptcy. I was very sad about this. I had talked with them at length, and went over what John Winston had advised me, and they were not going to go this route. Why, I don't know. They had expanded their business at a rapid clip by buying some competitors. The competitors business was not all it was supposed to be. One business had cooked the books, and the money that was supposed to be there was not. They were suckered. Jack and Maria had hired a lawyer, John Winston, who tried to save them, but they didn't seem to be interested. I went to visit Jack and Maria one week later and they didn't show up at the restaurant. I went to their house, and it was dark. Their business never reopened. Later, some of their creditors showed up in town looking for them. They owed them money big time. In fact, Jack and Maria owned everybody money. The sheriff got involved, and eventually we all found out that Jack and Maria had been stealing money from their own business. They had disappeared.

HELPFUL AND POLITE

admin — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:07:03 +0000

I had someone knocking on my door last evening, and wondered which neighbor needed to borrow some tea or some lunch bags, or maybe I was getting my vacuum cleaner back. But it was Charlie, one of the nephews of my neighbor Emily. He is the helpful one and very polite. He looked his old charming self, but something was different about him. When he reached up to scratch his head, I saw it…he did not have on his favorite thing in the world; that Los Angeles Lakers cap his Dad gave him. He told me why he was visiting so late. He was on a mission to find his cap. He couldn’t remember what happened to it. Since he always wears that cap, I know he was puzzled about what he did with it. He reminisced about his day, all the places he had gone and could think of no place where he would have taken off his cap, except either here in my place or at his Auntie’s place. Since he did come over and helped me rearrange the cans in my walk-in pantry, that where I sent him, and where he found the cap on top of the canned tomatoes.