thanks for fleshing that out, I hear ya. The ‘Realists’ are, often, too early (:

though it does delineate the difference in ‘Asset Classes’, there were ‘Bears’ suggesting that “Paper” was out, and “Things” were in c. 2000.

the boys at http://www.lemetropolecafe.com and http://www.financialsense.com come, readily, to mind..

though, the “Market”, as always, is a Wild Beast, maybe to be ridden, never tamed..

The name that immediately jumps to mind is “Fleckenstein.” And it should be said up front that he specifically tells his readers that his comments are NOT to be construed as investment advice. But let’s be realistic….it’s clear that many of his readers place bets based on his comments.

It’s well-known that gold (and gold stocks) have not done what the gold bugs believed it would do if the S&P went down 50%. Four months ago NEM was down 70% from its ‘06 high!

Housing was clearly in a bubble at least as far back as ‘03. But housing stock bears got hammered over and over again from ‘03-’06 as the stocks kept rocketing.

Fleck was warning about Fannie May since at least early in this decade, yet it wasn’t until Oct’07 that it finally broke. By the time it (and dozens of other financials) broke, the shorts had taken such a beating that there’s no way that more than a tiny fraction of the bears had the conviction to ride these things all the way down.

Tech stocks…same story. I can’t remember how many times i heard warnings about Intel going to single digits, only to then watch it go from 20 to 30.

I’m not really blaming anyone for bad advice, i’m just claiming that it was impossible to know which bearish advice to follow and when to follow it. It’s very easy in retrospect to say the bears were right, but trying to make money on their advice was/is a whole different matter. I’m not really interested in analyzing markets as a philosophical exercise. The entire reason i do this is to make money, and the one thing i know for sure is that it takes way more than a cogent philosophy.

The typical 3-year-old car is worth $2,250 less than a similarly aged vehicle last year, Clark said, while the values of SUVs and big trucks have tumbled even more. A 3-year-old Toyota Tundra last year would have been worth nearly 60% of its original sticker price, but that resale value has since fallen to 40% for a 2006 version.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/InsureYourCar/CloseTheGapInYourCarInsurance.aspx

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Is this car wreck being tracked and captured in declining household net worth. The gap between the loan amount and underlying value of the second largest household purchase has widened in the past year along with housing.

Stewart should start issuing challenges to public officials.

Clem Stone is right in that many of the bears including BR predicted the market collapse but the markets held on longer than they anticipated- obviously if you were long you could have made money all the way to the top of the market and then go short- however isn’t that what everyone wants. It’s always easier looking back on it all.

as used to be said in the Journalism business: “Names names.”

w/this: “Lots of money was lost by following their advice before Oct’07.”

it’s simple, give an example, or three..

You should define “seems a bit unscathed” when discussing Capital One.

That balance sheet has been decimated, they are in trouble, and not to mention to stock is down 80% or so from the peak.”

Aware of that, but why are they still around? Yeah they cut their dividend by 80% or so…. Next target for the Zeroes?