[taoster]

i too feel the pain.. i feel like i am back to square one.

 

[nec]

Quote:

Originally posted by jopi the stock market has outperformed in the long term any other type of investment in the history of mankind

That's true if you believe the first man appeared 60 years ago...

 

[mbriant]

Quote:

easy come, easy go!

That pretty much sums it up.

Nobody complained much while stocks (particularly tech/dot com companies) were heading north at ridiculous rates and all sorts of "paper profits" were being generated.

We somehow thought it normal that a large number of relatively young people were becoming overnight millionaires/billionaires.... not from years of hard work or having proven themselves in business....but from unproven ideas.

And we didn't bat an eye when these instant CEOs were spending investor's money like drunken sailors .... before they'd even generated a nickel in real income.

Now even proven entities are paying for this folly.

I'm happy to say I saw this one coming. How you ask? Because a few years ago I experienced a similar bubble burst. But my losses were in real estate. I, like most people, thought prices would somehow keep going up and up and up.

Now we know.

 

[kelly]

mbriant
I wouldn't say that no one complained.

I saw a lot of great companies fail during the "dot com explosion" because investor funds were diverted from good ideas and exections to flashy web-based ideas.

I also saw a volatile market. I saw changes in political policy that dramatically increased the number of work Visas allowed to fulfill what was, in my mind, a temporary shortage. (And, by the way--the numbers were not brought back down after the market crashed.)

No... I wouldn't say no one complained when the stocks were going higher.

 

[andrzejpw]

Lol, of course not! I remember a stock market game we did at school. . . from $100000 we made over 200000!

We're going through a MAJOR shakeout now. It will end, imho. When? Who knows? Roll some dice. Those will give you a better estimate than I can.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally posted by andrzejpw Lol, of course not! I remember a stock market game we did at school. . . from $100000 we made over 200000! We're going through a MAJOR shakeout now. It will end, imho. When? Who knows? Roll some dice. Those will give you a better estimate than I can.

I think thats what all those ceo's were doing...rolling the dice to figure out what to do next...

 

[ai0tron]

Well, I think the stock market is ********. Some numbers go twidle on a big screen in wal-street, and BAM your ****ed. Just like that. No questions asked, no way to stop it, just BAM, you are suddenly royaly ****ed. Luckily, I'm to poor to invest. However I must say with how low tech stocks are now I should probably buy some.

 

[kelly]

Quote:

Originally posted by ai0tron Well, I think the stock market is ********. Some numbers go twidle on a big screen in wal-street, and BAM your ****ed. Just like that. No questions asked, no way to stop it, just BAM, you are suddenly royaly ****ed. Luckily, I'm to poor to invest. However I must say with how low tech stocks are now I should probably buy some.

aiotron
The numbers on the screens that twiddle represent real world businesses that have succeeded or failed in meeting their profit expectations and lost or gained confidence with people who wish to financially support or decline financial support to them.

I'd also like to point out that your first sentence declares that this process is ******** while your last expresses interest in participating.

It's one thing to be disagreeable and nonmainstream, but I sometimes wonder if you have any views at all.

 

[Audio Redneck]

Quote:

Originally posted by kelly .....I saw a lot of great companies fail during the "dot com explosion" because investor funds were diverted from good ideas and exections to flashy web-based ideas....

Boy! is that the truth! What amazes me is that it lasted as long as it did. Amazon, for example kept losing money by the boat load and its stock kept going up and up. Have they yet turned a profit?

While Micro$oft still turns a profit and has, last I heard, a cash reserve "bigger than Texas", not to mention hard assets.

Oh well. So much for being a millionare this year

 

[BDA_ABAT]

Psych!

Most of what the stock market is about is... perception. People in the late 1990's thought that everything about business that came before (you know, those pesky things like profits) was obsolete. They decided to forgo reality for a while. A herd mentality took over. Tech was THE way to go. The mantra was, "Invest soon, or you'll miss the opportunity!"... don't bother thinking about the idea or the technology... just throw money at it. Ooooops. Turns out this was not a sound business practice.

Now, the herd mentality is taking over, but in the opposite direction. Look at what happened Friday... J&J goes down 15% because of POSSIBLE problem at ONE of their plants. YIKES! This is a solid company that's well diversified (consumer health care products, prescription medicines, hospital products, etc), but they got taken down because of a skittish environment. Do people suddenly think that no one will need BandAids anymore? Will baby shampoo be taken off the market?? Come on! Same thing with the tech companies DarkAngel listed before... do people REALLY think things like computers and networks are going to go away? Should Cisco stock prices REALLY be at the same point they were 4 years ago?

For those folks here that are in for the long term, J&J is a bargain right now (41.85 close on Friday). For folks that are about to retire or have already retired, let's just hope that the mood of (the herd) investors changes quickly.

Bruce

 

[DarkAngel]

The problem is this bear market slaughter has decimated the biggest technology companies in the world, companies with real assets and earnings, these are not dot.coms:
-microsoft
-cisco
-intel
-applied materials
-oracle
-emc
-texas instruments
-nokia
-sun
and on and on, the losses are just staggering. The Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) which is the 100 largest companies in the Nasdaq (and in 4/00 had 3 of the 10 biggest comapnies in the world, INTC, MSFT, CSCO) has suffered a 80% decline from 4/00 high..........unbelieveable!

 

[MirandaX]

Quote:

Originally posted by DarkAngel The problem is this bear market slaughter has decimated the biggest companies in the world, companies with real assets and earnings...

The real problem is that many of the companies you mention never had any real earnings (Cisco, EMC, etc.). People say that Microsoft has more than 40 billion in cash, but much of that is accounting bullsh*t.

I don't understand why the press never pressed these companies on any of this... It's confusing, but the core issues are so, so simple...

Let's say I'm penniless today, but I convince the bank to lend me $1 million. I'm still penniless, since I have $1 mil but owe $1 mil. But if I convince my landlord to accept warrants to pay the rent on my new house, or convince someone to give me $1 mil in exchange for stock options, I've suddenly moved my loan off my balance sheet, and my net worth is now +$1 mil in cash. Great earnings news. But I haven't done anything! And worse, I may very well owe more than $1 million depending on what my warrants/options are worth in the future -- I now have unlimited liability.

MSFT, etc. have been playing these kinds of games for years. Had they accounted for options expenses, it's hard to say whether they would have been making any real money, even in the late '90's boom.

As always, buyer beware... I'll admit I got suckered by Microsoft, but there's no way I'll be suckered again.

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

Originally posted by MirandaX The real problem is that many of the companies you mention never had any real earnings (Cisco, EMC, etc.). People say that Microsoft has more than 40 billion in cash, but much of that is accounting bullsh*t. I don't understand why the press never pressed these companies on any of this... It's confusing, but the core issues are so, so simple... Let's say I'm penniless today, but I convince the bank to lend me $1 million. I'm still penniless, since I have $1 mil but owe $1 mil. But if I convince my landlord to accept warrants to pay the rent on my new house, or convince someone to give me $1 mil in exchange for stock options, I've suddenly moved my loan off my balance sheet, and my net worth is now +$1 mil in cash. Great earnings news. But I haven't done anything! And worse, I may very well owe more than $1 million depending on what my warrants/options are worth in the future -- I now have unlimited liability. MSFT, etc. have been playing these kinds of games for years. Had they accounted for options expenses, it's hard to say whether they would have been making any real money, even in the late '90's boom. As always, buyer beware... I'll admit I got suckered by Microsoft, but there's no way I'll be suckered again.

I would prefer that you not lump INTC in with these other's thank you. Intel has always been totally above board in accounting practices and has real earnings & assets, etc to show for it.

 

[DarkAngel]

KW
I assume that all the companies in my Nasdaq list have followed all acceptable accounting practices, and these comapnies are all leaders in their fields with some of the most admired management staffs in the world, and all make innovative products vital to the future of world economy, I own INTC stock and have felt the pain.........believe me!

Still the fact is in 2000 INTC sold for 76 and now 18, that is a 76% correction.............I feel the pain!

 

[MirandaX]

Quote:

Originally posted by kwkarth I would prefer that you not lump INTC in with these other's thank you. Intel has always been totally above board in accounting practices and has real earnings & assets, etc to show for it.

Intel isn't as bad as the rest of them, but it still smells. Any company that issues massive amounts of options needs to expense them, bottom line.

According to their 1999 annual report, Intel had nearly a billion dollars of exercisable options outstanding, in a year when they earned only 7 billion dollars. Not a cent of that liability was counted against earnings -- had it been, it would have reduced earnings by 14%, and that's not counting the three times larger liability they had in options that could not yet be exercised.