<p>“Have you studied Dow Theory?”</p>
<p>What about it? It doesn’t change the history or the facts about how the market has done in the last 10 years.</p>
<p>"The Nsdq is down since the end of 1999 huge… down since the end of 2000.
"The s&p closed at 1469 at the end of 1999.
"Closed at 1320 at the end of 2000
"The S&P is 1291 as of this writing.</p>
<p>Well, it’s all about time frames. We certainly had the best growth
during the Clinton years. I guess we don’t like that kind of growth.</p>
<p>“The stock market has not had large growth for a long time.”</p>
<p>It depends on what you consider a long time. Lets go back to the fall of
2002. That’s at least a 50% gain on the $INDU, at least a 100% gain on
the $COMPQ and more than 50% on the $SPX. Too bad we didn’t have the QLDs
back then.</p>
<p>"I didn’t think anybody said it has.</p>
<p>"Right now, on CNBC, the last decade is being called the lost decade
for the stock market. Approximately 11:43 on the P Coast.</p>
<p>"The S&P with dividends is up 21% in the last 10 years, 5% percent
without.</p>
<p>"I don’t know too many people calling the last 7 years a high growth
period for the economy as a whole or the stock market.</p>
<p>Why is this a surprise and why is it unexpected? I’m not a follower of
Dow Theory but the concept of cyclical and secular markets is a pretty
simple one.</p>
<p>“What about it? It doesn’t change the history or the facts about how the market has done in the last 10 years.”</p>
<p>We had a secular bull market from 1982 to 2000. What follows a secular bull market?</p>
<p>BCEagle91, I actually don’t haev time to argue nonsensse.</p>
<p>You stated there was high growth until 2007. That was factually false.</p>
<p>re #23 A religious bull market?</p>
<p>“You stated there was a boom until 2007. That was factually false.”</p>
<p>If you’re going to lie about something, at least do it in a way that someone can’t find out easily about it. Here’s what I wrote:</p>
<p>[The high growth period from the mid-1990s to 2007 (excluding 2001/2002) are an abnormality.]</p>
<p>“A religious bull market?”</p>
<p>From Wikipedia:</p>
<p>A secular market trend is a long-term trend that usually lasts 5 to 25 years (but whose distribution is more or less bell shaped around 17 years, in the stock market), and consists of sequential ‘primary’ trends. In a secular bull market the ‘primary’ bear markets have in the past almost always been shorter and less punishing than the ‘primary’ bull markets were rewarding. Each bear market has rarely (if ever) wiped out the real (inflation adjusted) gains of the previous bull market, and the succeeding bull market has usually made up for the real losses of any bear market. In a secular bear market, the ‘primary’ bull markets are sometimes shorter than the ‘primary’ bear markets (not often in the stock market), but rarely wipe out the real losses of the ‘primary’ bear markets during the cycle.</p>
<p>In the 1966 - 82 secular bear market in stocks, there was hardly any nominal loss, But, in real terms the loss was devastating. (In the past, most ‘housing recessions’ were of this slow nature — allowing inflation to keep housing prices steady)</p>
<p>An example of a secular bear market was seen in gold over the period between January 1980 to June 1999, over which the nominal gold price fell from a high of $850/oz to a low of $253/oz,[7] which formed part of the Great Commodities Depression. The S&P 500 experienced a secular bull market over a similar time period (~1982 - 2000).[8]</p>
<p>I just hate it when people refute posters emotional, histrionic rants with logical, fact-based arguments;)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“especially when I can’t keep up with facts…”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>hahahaha - thanks for the humor in this otherwise boring day!:)</p>
<p>“[The high growth period from the mid-1990s to 2007 (excluding 2001/2002) are an abnormality.]”</p>
<p>Ok I reread what you wrote. You took out a couple of the down years of the 2000s. Interesting way of looking at things. </p>
<p>I don’t consider the 2000 decade a high growth decade but if you take out 2001 and 2002 it certainly looks better.</p>
<p>The late 90’s craziness left a LONG hangover. Anyone who points to the stock “values” looking at the tech/dotcom peak was looking at fool’s gold. It was not real nor what it appeared to be. It was tulips with a twist. Vegas/Miami condos have more intrinisic value than Pets.com or Homegrocer.com ever did. And I mean 1 condo.</p>
<p>“Anyone who points to the stock “values” looking at the tech/dotcom peak was looking at fool’s gold. It was not real nor what it appeared to be.”</p>
<p>Believe me, it was very, very real if you sold it at the right time.</p>
<p>It’s funny that you mention gold. Because selling your tech stocks in 2000 (which I did) and then buying gold mining shares in 2001 worked out very, very well. There was a secular bear market in gold where it went from the $800s to about $250 and the timing was about right (about 18 or 20 years) for the bottom.</p>
<p>I’ve run into many that sold their houses from 2004 to 2006 and then rented pocketing their gains and funding their retirements off of others that gave them ridiculous amounts of money for their houses. That money was very real for those that bought and sold. Of course buyers’ remorse set in afterwards.</p>
<p>This century has made for a nice trading environment. The worst is when there is little to no movement. We’ve had lots of volatility and some decent trending markets, both up and down providing lots of trading and investing opportunities.</p>
<p>*“Our family is not unusual & at least we are still able to work & I am
working on talking my H into making the garage living space to rent
out. ( what is it about men and garages- you know how many years it
has been since we got a car in there?”</p>
<p>I don’t know. We don’t have a garage. We opted for a finished basement.*</p>
<p>converting the garage would not only be less expensive than converting our basement to living space ( we would have to add separate entrance, jack up the house so the ceiling height would meet code etc), but safer
[Dangers</a> of basement living often overlooked](<a href=“http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/298015_basement02.html]Dangers”>http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/298015_basement02.html)</p>
<p>“converting the garage would not only be less expensive than converting our basement to living space ( we would have to add separate entrance, jack up the house so the ceiling height would meet code etc), but safer”</p>
<p>I guess that applies if your building is out of code but why would you buy a home that’s out of code and not intend to fix it. Our basement has a door leading up to the first floor, and it’s a walk-out basement. There is a door to the outside and a sliding window to the outside. There is a massive catchment basin 300 feet away and we live at the top of a hill.</p>
<p>Hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes are rare. I think that we average two per year and I don’t think that we’ve had any in 20 years in our part of the state as the geography would make formation difficult. We’re quite far inland so that any hurricanes coming up the coast usually fizzle out by the time they get here.</p>
<p>The only difficult thing that we have is cold winters.</p>
<p>Well, most people did not sell at the right time as most are not active traders. The point remains those values were not sustainable and based on analysis as faulty as the same folks who sold mortgage backed securities the last few years. Did you buy because you saw real value or you believed firmly in the greater fool theory?</p>
<p>“Well, most people did not sell at the right time as most are not active traders.”</p>
<p>I did not start actively trading until late 2000/early 2001. Before that it was mutual funds and company stock. Two advisers suggested raising cash. They gave different reasons but they made their case to me and I went to cash. It took six months to do as it was difficult exiting stocks that I had held for many years. And it resulted in a monster of a tax bill.</p>
<p>“The point remains those values were not sustainable and based on analysis as faulty as the same folks who sold mortgage backed securities the last few years. Did you buy because you saw real value or you believed firmly in the greater fool theory?”</p>
<p>I bought because things were going up. I did not have an exit plan.</p>
<p>Things are a lot easier with a knowledge of technical analysis and the resurrection of a bunch of finance and accounting knowledge from long ago.</p>
<p>Europe would love a growth rate of 3.3% and unemployment of 5.7%. The economy in the US is not weak. It has weathered a credit crunch and high oil prices without going into recession. Our economy will continue to improve as the dollar strengthens. Oil will drop under $100/bbl barring the outbreak of new hostilities in the Middle East.</p>