Comments on: 30 Years of Time Magazine Covers & the Stock Market

By: howard432

howard432 — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:52:10 +0000

Long time commodities guy: one of the first seminars I went to that was conducted by a tried and true trader who “taught” me this one: “If a sack of sugar is on the cover of Time Magazine it’s time to get out of sugar.” I get from this that the opposite is also true. I was also trained for a few weeks by Zwieg (Zwieg-Davis) when he was the hottest of the hot and he told us that the best market indicator for him were the ads in Barrons; if all were long it was over, if all were negative the bottom had past. Your commenters that are observing the ten year rule are correct, another way of saying that it all depends on when you got in. If you measure from after the real crash in ‘31 you made money, but God help you if you got in the day before the market crashed.

By: LB

LB — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:04:39 +0000

I wish is someone could present the Japanese version of this… That will be a something like a black swan.

By: Jojo99

Jojo99 — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:14:30 +0000

Clearly, this is just something from someone who was trying to push stock buying. Probably some financial firm trying to pump their sales in a down environment. How about looking at bullish ocvers and related follow-on performance?

As Barry says, what you read in the MSM press is after-the-fact and indicates nothing.

By: larrysalzman

larrysalzman — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:29:15 +0000

This appears to be the same material Weston Wellington at DFA has been using for some time…maybe he’s copied it from somewhere else, but that’s my guess as to the source.

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:31:34 +0000

SPY
1998 : $125 || 2008 : $85

10 years is a long time – nobody can predict what will happen by then.

By: DL

DL — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:26:53 +0000

Sure, it’s highly probable that in nominal terms, the S&P will be higher in ten years.

If I had to “buy and hold” something for ten years, I’d probably rather go with a 1:1 mix of GLD and USO, than to go with SPY.

(However, my views as to what will happen in ten years have nothing whatsoever to do with my investment stance today).

By: KidDynamite

KidDynamite — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:54:50 +0000

this is pretty weak – i mean, wasn’t it a law, up until this year, that the market was ALWAYS higher 10 years later? kinda like how the S&P ratings analysts couldn’t put a negative number in their models for change in housing prices…

alas, this “ten years later the market was higher” crap won’t work anymore…

By: Jim Dandy

Jim Dandy — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:54:53 +0000

I think it is a nice idea, however the ‘market returns’ data, especially for the ’70s, should include some caveat about inflation. Most of doubling of market value from the early ’70s to ’80s was probably just inflation (at 10% it takes 7 years). It makes the performance in the mid ’80s and ’90s even more impressive too.

By: Stav

Stav — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:36:51 +0000

This was done by a mutual funds company. The Hartford does one just like this in paper form.

By: dead hobo

dead hobo — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:22:55 +0000

BR wrote:

My goal here isn’t to bash the Press (that stuff is silly). Rather, it is to show you that the media is not telling you what is most probably going to happen next.
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Reply: On one level you are correct, bashing the press is like complaining that water is wet. No matter what you say, nothing will change the characteristics of either.

On the other hand, a little fact based ridicule can’t hurt and might help make the press a little less corrupt and/or aggressively stupid for a while. Press relations is a common tool of common manipulators. The press obliges and goes along if it can be made into a story that attracts eyeballs and advertisers. The public is mostly ignorant and intellectually lazy and still believes what it reads on the internet, or in the paper, or sees on television. Thinking is for losers.

The TARP will beget scams of legendary proportion, I am sure. The press will accept any sad story uncritically and tacitly support the fraudsters. Or they will add credibility to a fraudster by asking some dunce to politely tell another side of the story, treating scamster as credible instead of as a thief.

Well, I plan to use the incompetence of the press to scare hedge fund investors into selling out NOW before the market goes EVEN LOWER! If people with money are stupid, then I plan to help with their education. SELL OR DIE! THE MARKET IS GOING to 5000. TODAY!