2012-2020 US Debt clock runs out of numbers

[328jet]

A big thanks K1, I really appreciate your posts and have learnt heaps.

In 2005 I went to see a financial advisor. Long story short, I walked out with stocks and a BT margin loan. It was 'only' geared upto 50% which was very conservative as you could go upto 75%. A gearing ratio of 50% was only using half my borrowing capacity compared to 75%, so borrowing only half of what I could also seemed conservative.

As the market rose, the gearing ratio crept upto 58%, still conservative my advisor told me. By mid 2007, I became more interested in the stock market (I wonder why) and started reading sharescene. I followed your posts as they were very well written, detailed and could see you'd been on the right track in the past.

When you posted in late 2007 that the marked had reached a long term top, I thought you'd got it wrong. EVERYONE was bullish from TV, newspapers, brokers, advisors, newsletters, forums. There was decoupling and the China boom, plenty more blue sky. About 2 months later I realised that you were spot on and got out at a reasonable level against the advice of my advisor. If it wasn't for your posts I would have remained in margin and been completely wiped out, absolutely no stop losses were in place.

I don't mention this to blame the financial advisor and exempt myself, just about everyone was bullish at the time. I bring this up as it is very difficult to get good, no conflict of interest advice. I've tried advisors, asked friends about their advisor, read books, the paper, tried many different newsletters, finance sites, forums and by a country mile the best I've found is K1's sharescene posts. Most the advice you see is so wishy washy its useless and the caller can't be wrong. Or, they make heaps of picks and forget the dud ones. I remember Roger Montgomery talking all the time about MCE and it being his number 1 pick. Never heard him mention it again as it went from $9 to $3.

I know a lot of people will say take a more active role yourself. I have been doing this, but if you have a more than full time job already, its not that easy. Not to mention that to become an expert at something takes thousands of hours.

Have you ever thought of doing a subscription email newsletter? I know there would be plenty of people prepared to pay for it. The problem with the SS medium for this sort of content is, the silent majority are readers but feel they have little to contribute whereas a small minority are a lot more vocal looking for attention. An email newsletter would be a lot more one-way and on topic. If you look at something like Eureka report, which I would of thought would be one of the better, more independent letters, they were advising readers to sell everything as the market bottomed late last year.

Good luck and a big thanks again.

[flower]

In Reply To: kahuna1's post @ May 5 2012, 10:22 AM

I suspect they think QE3 ... easing 3 will help in the US.

Am sure you are right K1, QE3 would only be temporary bandaid, but who cares with a Presidential election coming up. IMO nothing will be solved in the US until some really effective medicine is dished out by way of a positive effective interest rate structure that should turn the USD around and inject a smattering of respect into what was a great economy.

Don't quite know what has decided you to take the action you have planned, am sure it will be recieved with regret by many SS'ers

[kahuna1]

Hi,

Non farm payrolls ...

Weak and with the budget cuts of 2013 to come its suprising te market is holding its levels.

I suspect they think QE3 ... easing 3 will help in the US.

Here the budget set to cut deep and RBA actually does what it does.

Have had a week to think and leaving this time.

Each to their own and trying to express an opinion even when correct in the end ... tends to end up in tears.

I will just add, despite time and time again trying to get people to do it ... there are ONLY two times I believe you should get people to trade.

One should only add to a position in sheer panic of the market ... when everyone hates the market and no matter how scary it appears. BUY IT. If you have waited to the correct level you will be rewarded by being brave and entering a market when there are very few buyers.

If your stupid, and saldy many are, you wait till 3 days after the market collapses and then has recovered half the likely range until you buy. Even worse is the idiots who wait till everything is safe and the market appears to be going up and start buying then.

The Other side of the coin is when to sell ? Converse applies and the only time to exit is when everyone is in love with the market.
Again picking the peaks well will reward you.

It is an artform picking these levels and over the years I have been fortunate to share a lot with you here and actually have them closely hit. TOPs bottoms and in real time ... along with sharing where I thought it topped and likely bottomed. I will no longer be bothering sharing. Will leave it up to the experts.


If you wait till things look ok, the example I will use is banks ... one had a 33% range so far between the recent low and high and only maniacs got set on the lows !! Not maniacs, but the bank had exactly the same amount of customers one day as it did the next. profits were going to be the same one day as the next. The Bank fell over 10% in a week and if you waited ... on the day purchased everyone hated it ... it rallied 20% within a week. Over HALF the expected rally. If you waited to buy you may ... may have made 10% if you were lucky !!!

There is a VAST difference between acting when the market is in sheer terror and NOT .

Having tried to get others into positions on those days of terror, hard if not impossible.

I want you to read the RED and comments and think about them. I will not be posting here again. EVER.

Its a simple lesson ... only two times to trade ... even if you get one level wrong and it goes to the next, usually the bounce is well above your initial entry.

If your an IDIOT ... you fail to understand this and enter mid flight of a range and then wonder why you have a brush sticking out from some part of your body, then blame someone else.

Another thing ... EVERYTHING is for sale. EVERYTHING ... if you sit there like some monkey when a stock rallies you are stupid. Even more than stupid. Price is what reflects the value of a company. If a company is $3- and you think its worth $5- and it goes there and you DONT do anything ... your stupid. APA my pet I talked about it just a couple of times, TLS as well, price changes so does my view on the stock and what I am prepared to hold. SLX thread the early days a classic.

Stop being stupid and STOP blaming others for your problems. It is your money , your actions not someone elses, take control. And for gods sake DON'T try and trade between extreme's its a waste of time and money. Yes maybe reduce slowly into rallies but the only time to enter is the days of terror.

Take ownership of your actions and your fate.

All the best with everyones future

PS send me a PM if you need something :} ... whoops this site doesn't have PM's

[Dave_vic_ozz]

Folks,

Solving problems can be done so much more easily when everyone contributes sensibly.

If you disagree, fine. A measured approach often works well.

But I hope everyone keeps posting so we can all see the forest and the trees and the Fn great bushfire raging in the distance.

No "flaming" pun intended but lets work out this complex problem together so we keen keep our families wealth intact a little longer.

Have a good weekend.

BTW - this solves every argument.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfq_A8nXMsQ

[Mungo]

In Reply To: jacsar's post @ Apr 27 2012, 03:37 PM

Yes, someones a bit trigger happy, nothing wrong with criticism in small doses unless it's a constant battering as Flower has been coping. Christ half the share scene posts should be deleted if one was to be consistent.

[jacsar]

In Reply To: kahuna1's post @ Apr 27 2012, 08:03 AM

Was reading the argy bargy and went back to check a couple of comments and the posts were pulled..Tis a dangerous game when things get personal in a public forum..good luck kahuna1 and look forward to your future posts.....cheers

[kahuna1]

In Reply To: Petert20's post @ Apr 26 2012, 02:51 PM

Yep,

time will tell and good luck.

One never knows and certainly possible I am wrong ... did however play the banks game for last 3 years and 500 grey hairs.

I find the whole situation overseas disturbing. When you have companies making money hand over fist and a lot of it to do with inefficient goverment spending ... banks being lent funds at 1% and lending at 4% ... and then interest rates at historic lows making forward cashflows look distorted via unrealistic mark to market via these low rates ... nothing makes sense. the debt, the valautions. Cant argue overseas a lot of companies on paper look as though theya re doing well but with the banks they have put some of the really concerning debt to one side and are not marking it to market. Morgan Stanleys last reporting a classic if they actually included things that were bad and took out the good side they chose to include they didn't make any money. Big money centre banks in the US when you dig deeper need more capital and the profits being reported basically dwarfed by what overhangs as potential harmful things.

Maybe the US fed can and will hold it together. Here RBA I suspect does three cuts next few months maybe outside chance at 0.5% next meeting early May ..

I didn't mean to be rude but if you look at a chart ANZ has had a range of about $18- to $24- last 12 months and its where ? At $24- so its the top end of things. Does it go higher ? maybe with interest rates going down the fully franked dividends make it look more attractive ... but what I meant is ANZ is $24- not $22- or even $20- buying at $20 and below was and is my game letting it go as the more game buy it.

WBC and NAB yep have owned them and still own NAB in some ways ... but still same thing ... at the higher end of the range.

Its not going to be driven by internal domestic events or that which is worrying me but the overseas stuff longer term.

Who knows ...

US elections seem to be a two horse race totally now and Obama seems at this stage to be ahead.

I personally hope he gets in and takes some action but fear more than likely he might be President but lack the votes in govt to get much done. US budget and debt is a shocker and he if elected CANNOT run again as US presidents can only serve 2 terms and someone needs to make soe very serious and painful chnages to things. That as someone now 47 my life expectancy is 20 years MORE than when i was born and can expect to live till 84 vs around 64 .... the fact that pensions and health care benefits were made to last about 8 years back in the 1950's vs the drain of people lasting 20 years now ... things never ever will work and the US has turned a blind eye to this problem and much the same with the EU. The GFC has just added to the problem and bailing out things which should have been allowed to wither and die has only made the whole issue worse.

He in oz we changed the age you can get the pension and it hardly caused a ripple and suspect the pension actually goes up and by the time I am there in 20 years time those age 40 will not expect to get a pension till age 72 if not age 75.

All an aside ... this structural change which hasn't been made as its political suicide for an elected person is needed. As to the debt via GFC I suspect its 50 years till its paid off ... either that or like greece bond holders in many nations take a 50% haircut.

Happy happy happy ... but last place I really want to be is exposed to banks going forward.

Good luck

[Petert20]

In Reply To: kahuna1's post @ Apr 26 2012, 11:11 AM

"Suppose only time will tell and wish you luck ... I do prefer to buy low and sell high personally."
thanks kahuna... I'm only new at this game...

[kahuna1]

In Reply To: Petert20's post @ Apr 25 2012, 01:07 PM

Hmm


Well do wonder what you were doing when the banks were at their lows and I was bullish ... ANZ NAB WBC CBA right now about 40% higher than their lows 6 months ago.

Not being concerned about the bigger picture and thinking of buying around here basically the opposite of my own style and doctrine.

The time to add was then when no one liked them.

Adding here or 10% lower is basically buying in the top end of the range. It may of course prove correct they just continue higher ... then again the last 2 years have been sprinkled with these corrections.

Suppose only time will tell and wish you luck ... I do prefer to buy low and sell high personally.

[Petert20]

In Reply To: flower's post @ Apr 24 2012, 06:30 PM

I will be picking up the banks, particularly WBC and NAB on any pullbacks. Not too concerned about the "bigger picture".