"The "bargains" can wait. "
Of course, that is my position as well. Even Buffet has only "invested" about 20% of the cash he had a couple months ago.
For the record, I'm not opposed to dipping a toe in the markets now, but I've got 10 toes, two feet, two legs - and other assorted appendages, so a toe is insigificant. what I'm opposed to is using the dufus rational which infers the DOW will always go up over time. Forget about the period from 1929 to (pick the decade). The DOW today is LESS than it was 10 years and 7 months ago (3-20-98, 8,906.43)... and that's even after an 1100 point gain off the Friday lows of week before last. It's been dead money for over a decade even as we speak.
Even three of the biggest bubbles in history (tech, housing, commodities) can't keep it from being below where it was 127 months ago! No doubt DOW stock dividends minimize the pain slightly, but when you consider how many ba$illions have been siphoned off during the last 10 years by savy investors, scam artists, massive CEO pay, insider trading, financial industry overhead, etc, there is zero doubt in my mind that the "average" person has lost money - even dividend seekers - and our stocks don't even pay those.
Every low is a "great" time to buy... until it isn't. The fact is that nobody has the faintest idea where the bottom is and it could be miles below where it is today. What's more, nobody who is perpetually optimistic about the markets can buy anyway, because they have continuously been fully invested.
When the average person is hemorrhaging - meaning scared to death of losing their job (if they have one), and when people are selling anything they can of value to scrape by, and when nobody can expect to go to the store and find the things they used to always see, and when there is massive political and social unrest, and when 3 loaves and two fish are worth more than a TV... THEN there will be blood in the streets and it will be time to buy. Until then, it is just wildly praying for a bottom. I just hope it doesn't break 7,773 before the end of the year because that's what I predicted. But, after January 1st, let the chips fall where they may.
Len
Warren Buffet (2003) "Derivatives...
are financial weapons of mass destruction... represent mega-catastrophic risk... can trigger serious systemic problems... are the result of huge-scale fraud... are like hell, easy to enter and impossible to exit"
Warren Buffet: 5 minutes and 17 seconds of pure, unadulterated, bulletproof, flawless logic.
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