Nastiest bear since great depressionSmartinmoneyCompare to the most severe markets in the past, the current bear market look extremely cruel and only can be rivaled by the Great Depression bear maket. First After 17 months of rollercoaster journey, the current bear market is getting worse as the S&P 500 index suffered 56 percent loss from its most recent peak when it plunged to the 12-year low on Mar. 9. On the same day, the blue chips Dow Jones Industrial Average index slipped to its new low marking 53.8 percent loss in this bear market. Continue reading How Young Investors Can Get StartedBy Ben Steverman, BusinessWeek Two 22-year-olds are just starting their careers and beginning to save and invest. One devotes half his salary to quickly paying off student loans, with the goal of saving money to travel the world. The other dabbles in stocks, while planning to buy a home. Which one is starting out on the right foot? Neither? Both? Learning to invest is hard enough. Now try doing it during the worst recession in a generation and the biggest financial crisis in a lifetime. If you're a young person with money to invest, however, you can consider yourself lucky. You have income at a time when the jobless rate is rising rapidly. If you're just starting out, you avoided—so far—huge losses of the sort that drastically changed the retirement plans of many baby boomer parents. But even entry-level investors can benefit from planning for
retirement, as far-off as that seems. A good start to saving and
investing makes building a substantial nest egg for late in life much
less daunting. Continue reading Bear keeps ruling, U.S. Stock at 12-year lowSmartInMoney.comU.S. major stock indexes sunk further and ended another unforgiving month of February with a steep loss that left the Dow Jones industrial average at less than half its record high and the S&P 500 at its 12-year low. The Dow Jones Industrial Average index declined 4.1 percent for the last week of February after breaking through its November lows previous week. The blue chips index was down 11.7 percent for February to 7,062.93. The loss is the worst since 1933, when it fell 15.6 percent, and its sixth straight monthly drop. The Dow is now at its lowest close since May 1, 1997 after it is down 50.1 percent from its record high of 14,164.53 reached in October 2007. It came within 34 points of 7,000, a level it hasn't fallen below since October 1997. Continue reading New Second Biggest Bear S&P sank to 1997 low, lost 52 percent from the 2007 peak
U.S. stocks nose-dived yet again on Thursday, as investors' deepening economic fears drove the S&P 500 index crashing through its 2002 bear-market low to its lowest level in more than 11 years, since April 14, 1997. The closing low of the S&P last bear market was 776 on October 9, 2002. The drop completed the removal of more than a decade of stock market gains. The S&P 500 Index lost 6.71 percent to 752.44. This level is more than 52 percent below its October 9, 2007 all-time closing high, making the current bear market the second biggest on record. The current decline is exceeded only by the 83 percent drop between 1930 and 1932. The S&P 500 had not lost more than 50 percent of its value in a bear market since 1937. | From MyVoiceOfLife.Blogspot.com: Google News Finance, Investment, & Economics Links: SmartInMoney Myvoiceoflife Unrealty.livejournal Greatcreation.Vox Greatcreation.multiply Dollar Community Personalfinance Worst economic contraction since 1982MyvoiceoflifeJust a month ago the U.S. economic contraction measured by gross domestic product for the fourth quarter of 2008 had been estimated at 3.8 percent. Then the Commerce Department revised the GDP contraction to an astonishing 6.2 percent Friday, Feb. 27 on the ground of sharp declines in consumer spending, investment and exports. Both the new and the old fourth-quarter figures marked the weakest quarterly showing since an annualized drop of 6.4 percent in the first quarter of 1982, when the country was suffering through an intense recession. Continue reading 6 Deadly Investing MistakesThese are scary times for anyone trying to build or preserve their retirement accounts. Today's roller coaster ride of economic ups and downs is enough to churn stomachs in all but the most steely nerved passengers.Is this simply another predictable, even healthy, correction in a long-term bull market? Or are we poised for an investor meltdown? No one knows for sure, of course. Even a modern-day Nostradamus couldn't tell us what's going to happen tomorrow. But no matter what, avoiding these six costly investment mistakes will help you to keep your head above today's troubled waters. Read full article Economic Indicators and InvestingMacroeconomic measures are either gathered by governments or
volunteered by businesses. How the information is used and what
influence it has are determined by the data itself as well as when and
how it was gathered and distributed. Some measures are altered. Some
come and go in terms of influence. Others are consistent benchmarks. Read full article Understanding Cycles - The Key To Market Timing We’ve all heard of market bubbles and many of us know someone who's been caught in one. (To read about history’s greatest market crashes, check out The Greatest Market Crashes.) But although there are plenty of lessons to be learned from past bubbles, market participants still get sucked in each time a new one comes around. A bubble is only one part of an important phase in markets, so if you want to avoid being caught off guard, it is essential to know what the different phases are. An understanding of how markets work and a good grasp of technical analysis can help you recognize market cycles. Read full article |
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