Bad day at Black Rock...meltdown time.

[neilgin1]

0915 CST 18 August 2011, freefall time, Dow down 500 pts, over 4% SNP500, down 53 pts at 1140...WOE to all if the 500 cracks 1100.

this might be the start of the dreaded hell week, meaning NEXT week, all hell breaks lose.

i was gonna post that Ebay indicator is pointing silver higher, we went from 96,000 silver offers, which included only 342 Roll offerings, and of those 342, only two sellers offer anything REALLY worthwhile, the rest are ther usual "possible silver" scamsters, a hoard of regular folk over drawer scrapings and about a third offering the crazy priced BIN's...you know what i mean.....ASES offered at 1300 a roll, 90's offered at 44X.

you might say "silvers only up 30 cents".....GOOD! let it band up long and lean on the charts...thats goooood.

in the time i took to write this equities are finding momentary support, but oh it is dicey. hang on guys.

[Treetop]

geeez I thought a nuke plant had flooded or something...

[Rodebaugh]

I "think" most of the pain on WS is over for the day.

I am still watching it like a hawk.

[AGCoinHunter]

Its going to bounce back by the end of the day. Bernake forgot to send over last weeks fiat funny money printed under the gise of QE2. Once they get the helicopter up and start dumping the money out, the market will stablize out for the day.

[neilgin1]

due respect to Rodee and AG, and i do underline the word "respect"........it aint coming back for the day, the most it'll come back is Dow down 300. i think you're going to see 700 to 1,000 down in the last hour, the "pyschology" of the market just had yet another torpedo hit amidships, and thats the "unknown" of the euro mess.....these guys are terrified...thats just my read.

[Know Common Cents]

If no recovery during the last hour of trading today, then the real downdraft begins. Any rise back to or above even today is market manipulation and certainly not a major change in public (and worldwide) sentiment.

[theo]

If I remember correctly Friday is the most dangerous trading day when the market is this dodgy, especially in the last hour. Investors don't like to hold equities when just about anything could happen over the weekend.

[68Camaro]

due respect to Rodee and AG, and i do underline the word "respect"........it aint coming back for the day, the most it'll come back is Dow down 300. i think you're going to see 700 to 1,000 down in the last hour, the "pyschology" of the market just had yet another torpedo hit amidships, and thats the "unknown" of the euro mess.....these guys are terrified...thats just my read.

I'm surprised they aren't more terrified than they are, given the economic news of the morning...

[shinnosuke]

If no recovery during the last hour of trading today, then the real downdraft begins. Any rise back to or above even today is market manipulation and certainly not a major change in public (and worldwide) sentiment.

Nor has there been a change in the fundamentals which are forcing the market down and causing the sentiment you mention.

[neilgin1]

due respect to Rodee and AG, and i do underline the word "respect"........it aint coming back for the day, the most it'll come back is Dow down 300. i think you're going to see 700 to 1,000 down in the last hour, the "pyschology" of the market just had yet another torpedo hit amidships, and thats the "unknown" of the euro mess.....these guys are terrified...thats just my read.

I'm surprised they aren't more terrified than they are, given the economic news of the morning...

you know R-68, my brother, i find the days i stay away from the laptop, and tend to chores, my frames seem more stable, as opposed to when i watch the trainwreck....gonna turn this thing off, my neighbor just sold me his tractor on a handshake.

[mflugher]

I've been looking for a decent uptick to dump the remainder of my stocks in my IRA to cash, heavily invested in sivr and AGQ (60% total), about 37% in energy/energy servicefunds (held since 06-08) and 3% in cash, if we close at -350 or better I'm probably gonna dump my remainder today while I"m still ahead on it.

any feedback would be appreciated

[Rodebaugh]

I've been looking for a decent uptick to dump the remainder of my stocks in my IRA to cash, heavily invested in sivr and AGQ (60% total), about 37% in energy/energy servicefunds (held since 06-08) and 3% in cash, if we close at -350 or better I'm probably gonna dump my remainder today while I"m still ahead on it.

any feedback would be appreciated

I am not a financial advisor but I think you have a pretty good plan there.

[neilgin1]

noon CST....equities volume leaders....Bank of America, down and six and a half percent at 6.97 on vol of almost 200 million shares...gee whiz, in a lil bit, wonder what American mega bank we're going to seeing banners headlines about?

where there's smoke.........

[AGCoinHunter]

noon CST....equities volume leaders....Bank of America, down and six and a half percent at 6.97 on vol of almost 200 million shares...gee whiz, in a lil bit, wonder what American mega bank we're going to seeing banners headlines about?

where there's smoke.........

BOA is going down. Zerohedge has been touting that for weeks if not months now. Maybe a Friday night deal is in the works. Of course that will be after the Countrywide unit is spun off into the next QE3 to rape the taxpayers and the fat cat bonuses are safe.

[Oakair]

https://research.zecco.com/research/mar ... bol=%5EVIX

I wish I had known about this a few months ago

CBOE MKT VOLATILITY IDX ^VIX

[Hades12]

August is always down, just about ever year, I moved my 401K into Div Paying stocks 3 years ago and just don't worry about it anymore. Might be a good time to average down on a few of them.

[slickeast]

I am going to get a roller coaster car and strap that thing to the dow. We can start the ride on Friday of last week. It seats 4 if anyone wants to go for a ride.

PS, Don't eat before getting in the car.

[neilgin1]

August is always down, just about ever year, I moved my 401K into Div Paying stocks 3 years ago and just don't worry about it anymore. Might be a good time to average down on a few of them.

my dividend just walked by, clucking and cooing, trailing 3 baby turklets, not 15 feet from where i sit.

you prefer white meat or dark meat? the babies'll be raised on corn and bean meal, ready for Thanksgiving harvest 2011 harvest, when the Dow will be sitting at 5000.

its a hard ball world, a giant [shucks] sandwich and we're all going to have to take a bite.

i gotta go plucking.

[warthog]

If I remember correctly Friday is the most dangerous trading day when the market is this dodgy, especially in the last hour. Investors don't like to hold equities when just about anything could happen over the weekend.

Part of that historical Friday volatility is also due to the trade being "thin". Wall Street likes to treat itself to 3 day weekends particularly in the weeks leading up to the end of summer. Fewer players in the market exaggerates the ups and downs some (certainly not 400 points worth... but some). I bet a lot of weekend getaways in the Hamptons are being cancelled right now.

[SteelCityCopper]

Pretty crazy when 300 to 500 point drops become the norm. It's not too shocking anymore... and agree w/ Neil about the s--t sandwich... who's hungry?

[barrytrot]

I've been looking for a decent uptick to dump the remainder of my stocks in my IRA to cash, heavily invested in sivr and AGQ (60% total), about 37% in energy/energy servicefunds (held since 06-08) and 3% in cash, if we close at -350 or better I'm probably gonna dump my remainder today while I"m still ahead on it.

any feedback would be appreciated

How can you possibly think cash is better than something with value? Companies have REAL VALUE. They make a profit in something other than dollars in most cases (when looking at large companies).

The fact that the stock value goes up and down in the short term has very little bearing on the value of good companies in the long run.

I bought more today. And the only reason I had cash is I put more in when I make money as I sometimes do

[justj2k78]

I've been looking for a decent uptick to dump the remainder of my stocks in my IRA to cash, heavily invested in sivr and AGQ (60% total), about 37% in energy/energy servicefunds (held since 06-08) and 3% in cash, if we close at -350 or better I'm probably gonna dump my remainder today while I"m still ahead on it.

any feedback would be appreciated

I think you should have an investment plan, that calls for certain action (or inaction) in certain scenarios. Then execute that plan. Investing by the seat of you pants is a bad idea.

[Rodebaugh]

looks like we are going to get a bit yucky again today on WS w/ the DJIA trading down 1.23 before the bell.

[theo]

I've been looking for a decent uptick to dump the remainder of my stocks in my IRA to cash, heavily invested in sivr and AGQ (60% total), about 37% in energy/energy servicefunds (held since 06-08) and 3% in cash, if we close at -350 or better I'm probably gonna dump my remainder today while I"m still ahead on it.

any feedback would be appreciated

How can you possibly think cash is better than something with value? Companies have REAL VALUE. They make a profit in something other than dollars in most cases (when looking at large companies).

The fact that the stock value goes up and down in the short term has very little bearing on the value of good companies in the long run.

I bought more today. And the only reason I had cash is I put more in when I make money as I sometimes do

You are probably right in the long-term, but I think we have a ways to go before the dollar truly crashes. Even as we speak investors are running to treasuries. I think there is an increasing feeling that the U.S. economy is considerably over-valued and therefore U.S. stocks may be very risky in the short-term. One of bloggers over at ZH theorizes that the Fed is allowing this drop to justify QE 3. In short, there may some good deals in mining, energy and agriculture, but I'd stay away from pretty much everything else.

[barrytrot]

I've been looking for a decent uptick to dump the remainder of my stocks in my IRA to cash, heavily invested in sivr and AGQ (60% total), about 37% in energy/energy servicefunds (held since 06-08) and 3% in cash, if we close at -350 or better I'm probably gonna dump my remainder today while I"m still ahead on it.

any feedback would be appreciated

How can you possibly think cash is better than something with value? Companies have REAL VALUE. They make a profit in something other than dollars in most cases (when looking at large companies).

The fact that the stock value goes up and down in the short term has very little bearing on the value of good companies in the long run.

I bought more today. And the only reason I had cash is I put more in when I make money as I sometimes do

You are probably right in the long-term, but I think we have a ways to go before the dollar truly crashes. Even as we speak investors are running to treasuries. I think there is an increasing feeling that the U.S. economy is considerably over-valued and therefore U.S. stocks may be very risky in the short-term. One of bloggers over at ZH theorizes that the Fed is allowing this drop to justify QE 3. In short, there may some good deals in mining, energy and agriculture, but I'd stay away from pretty much everything else.

Here is the neat thing that happens when people are "running": Option premiums go up very nicely! Earning 2% to 3% per month off the premiums is very easy. Naturally the stock might go down 10%, but that doesn't actually reduce the value of the company and even at 10% back you can earn 0.5% to 1% per month on the options at the same strike price.

Earning 0.5% per month isn't great, but it's also not too bad!

If you think you will call the correct bottom and the correct top, you might. But then you might call it incorrectly. My experience is something like 1,000 and ZERO with the "ZERO" on the "correct" side

Buying and holding eliminates the risk of "mistiming" over the long term. And if you buy companies that are set for the semi-long term they will rebound. Check Apple's price history as an example of what good companies do during a recession. Not bad. Of course, that's a 1 in a million company, but there are 100 other examples that faired fine and including option premiums and in some cases dividends faired very well.

As a side note: Name one wealthy person that has ever used a strategy that could be called "running" to make money. I dare you, name just one! EDIT: I thought of 2: Carl Lewis and Usain Bolt. Unless you are running the 100 meter in under 10 seconds I'm pretty sure there aren't any others Also other running events, although sprinters make the big bucks and get the babes I'm sure Ok, just in case there is some wise guy: Wide receivers and other running sports guys. Anyway, unless you are a super athlete name one

Wealthy people or those that want to be wealthy follow a consistent long term plan and these minor and even major dips are worked through with lots of the "runners" money flowing to the wealthy. LOTS.