Comments on: Individual Investor Stock Allocations

By: netsmith

netsmith — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:13:54 +0000

I wonder if this might not be a good moment for a change in policy relative to Social Security. After all the hoopla during 2005-6, with the attempt to sabotage the system, there was a lot of skepticism about all aspects of the proposed changes. (The sabotage was in trying to get the benefits based on CPI vs. Wages.) The whole question of investing in equities got lost in the (rightful) outrage over the proposal to carve out the investments into personal accounts.

But there is something to be said for having the system itself invest in equities. If ever there was a time to do it, it’s now (or soon will be). There are lots of ramifications, but it does seem like the government is investing in all sorts of depressed “assets” in order to shore up their price. Diverting the payroll tax surplus to this purpose could help now, mostly by increasing the supply of Treasury bonds (needed to fund the general account deficits).

By: ben22

ben22 — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 21:53:45 +0000

leftback -

I’m building in TLT, bought a lot on Thursday. I was early on DUG but that worked our real well, this will probably be the same.

By: leftback

leftback — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 04:33:15 +0000

jakester – i doubt if many shorts covered. they may become more nervous next week, as I suspect we are about to see a new round of intervention, this time from our new administration. Some kind of cash injection/rescue packages for F, GM and C would really stick it to the shorts. Uptick rule? Maybe.

Lots and lots of money in SKF, I would hate to see people lose all their hard earned cash. In addition there is absolutely tons of money in the long bonds and all the panic birds who flew in there on Thursday are already underwater after today. A bit more selling and that yield is really going to blow out. This kind of set-up is what classic squeezes are made of.

By: jakester

jakester — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:22:30 +0000

now that the majority of nervous shorts covered today, we will see lower lows next week.

“the well informed will always stay well positioned”

By: VoiceFromTheWilderness

VoiceFromTheWilderness — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:33:11 +0000

if there’s no money in the stock market then there’s no money on the sidelines either and the whole issue is a word game. Actually, I’m fairly sure the whole thing is a word game designed to puzzle, and effective in countering arguments one doesn’t like. That would explain why Mish pumps it endlessly. What do you believe your bank account has actual cash in it? Maybe all the ‘money you have in your house’ is upstairs in the attic. Better go check. Oh, you’ve decided that euphemisms don’t mean anything because the overt content doesn’t match the actual meaning? Like I said, word game for time wasters.

By: harold hecuba

harold hecuba — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:19:28 +0000

good lord!!! i’m sorry the data is even WORSE than i thought. it only goes back to 1987. PLEASE IGNORE THIS RUBBISH

By: harold hecuba

harold hecuba — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:17:50 +0000

i’m absolutely disgusted at the rubbish that is circulated to the public. this crap is a fine example of uselessness and is why the dumb lobotomized retail gets itself into these predicaments. this latest crap from aaii should be completely ignored. some of the most prestigious hedge fund guys i know are updating their models to this unprecedented period. models that are created out of 30-40 years of data are obsolete in this environment yet aaii chooses to point out the period of greatest lunacy in the histopry of financial markets. what scum of the earth

By: harold hecuba

harold hecuba — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:06:42 +0000

what absolute rubbish. is this more data mining to justify that stocks are somehow grossly undervalued. aaii is worthless i read it simply to see what conventional wisdom is thinking. some great calls from the past few months were to PILE into the euro at 160 and pile into the swiss franc at obscene levels. conventional wisdom was calling for the dollar to collpase and a rise in equities due to falling oile prices. i had the opposite side in each of these situations particularly the dollar. in addtional what moronic time frames to choose this garbage. 1980’s to 2005-2006 were fuled by the greenspan and bernanke lunacy. the wall street model is more than comical. stocks are not savings but highly risky investment. earnings over the past few years were credit and debt enduced rendering them borderline useless. wall street is nothing but a gigantic sales machine that is wrong every point of the way. they should be given zero credence in any situation. quite frankly i can’t stop laughing, the wall street allocation model good god my sides are cramping and i am tearing from laughing so hard.

By: bdg123

bdg123 — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:57:24 +0000

I was out most of the day but re your remark, three data points. 1. A late October/early November WSJ survey by either CS or UBS that showed 86% of all S&P 500 pension managers were at least 50% exposed to equities. 70% were at least 60% exposed. I wrote down the stats because I was going to post it on my blog but never finished the post. But, I need to dig up the article if you want the specifics. That’s insane asset allocation by professionals. Two, I have a good friend who runs a substantial amount of money for a primary dealer. He told me last week that all of the professionals in his organization were 60%+ allocated to equity. And, third, the Richard Bernstein quoted MLIM?? survey was still at 55% a few months ago. There is no way it has dropped any appreciable amount. I haven’t looked but I don’t need to because institutional money because more bullish in October so that number surely hasn’t changed.

Wall Street is holding the bag. And, that is relatively unusual. They usually like to dish their garbage to everyone else. But, this time they weren’t able to. That’s why Wall Street is never going to be the same.

By: I-Man

I-Man — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:20:57 +0000

BKM:

“Dread Market”… Ya mon.

I like the sound of that. If I-Man ever starts a blog… it might have to be called that.