Nastiest bear since great depression

Smartinmoney

Compare 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

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How Young Investors Can Get Started

By 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

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Bear keeps ruling, U.S. Stock at 12-year low

SmartInMoney.com

U.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

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Understanding Cycles - The Key To Market Timing

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New Second Biggest Bear Market

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. Continue Reading