Because there is only like 3 prototypes to bring to TPF.
With corona, the move to Chicago, parts shortages to come. Be lucky to see JJP lines rolling by xmas.

M. Stewart sold stock before some bad news on her company was made public. She was the CEO of the company and privy to all of the inside info. of company issues. That's insider trading. And she lied to the FBI so they got her for that, too.

These shyster politicians are doing dirty but I would argue against what they did as being insider trading. White collar crime, maybe? They should be hung by their big toes and people get to have at them like they are pinatas.

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Admiral shares of VTSAX via Vanguard

this whole thread is devastating https://twitter.com/tjbnz/status/1240890303415902208
One of those things that reminds us that certain classes of people don't have laws apply to them because they help write them.

Truth, she didn't go down for insider trading.
And Al Capone didn't go down for murder.
It all depends on a prosecutor's willingness to put the work in, I guess.

Chartwork

Some people here are asking when it is time to buy. I have no clue when it time to buy. But looking at historical charts might give to some idea for good entry points.

( Here comes the disclaimers: No chart will you what will happen beyond the present. They are not crystal balls. And like that TV show a fews back, they are not Tomorrow's News Today. We can only wish. When you look at a chart and you see where a bottom or top formed, it is so easy to say, "look see here, if you would have bought. That is hind site and it includes the word "if". When you are looking at the Hard Right Edge all you can do is hope what happened 5 years ago happens again. Maybe you get lucky. Maybe you don't).

I found a website that has charts of the Dow Jones all the way back. I mean all the way back.

Here is the link. You can take screen shots and enlarge them to see them better if you need.
===================================================================================
1989-2016

The first chart starts at 1989 and runs to 2016 and does not show any data for the current administration. That will have to come from some other website.

If you look carefully, the 2008 crash happened late in the move. The long slide started at the top that was formed in 2007. It was not until August/Sept. 2008 that the crash that made the headlines that had our leaders running around like their hair was on fire happened. There were 4-5 more months of downside action. The market finally bottomed in March of 2009. There is a saying that the market climbs a wall of worry. And this is the first time I really saw this kind of action. Once bottom hit in March 2009, it was all up all the way to 2016, everybody was constantly worrying about the bad things in the economy and worrying that the market was going to crash again but the market kept going up.

At the change in presidential administrations in 2016-2017 many thought the market was going to go down. For reasons that cannot be mentioned here, the market kept going up. Until 4 weeks ago. Suffice it to say that the market has given back all of its gains and it is like 2016-2020 never happened.

Screen Shot 2020-03-21 at 10.43.21 AM (resized).png

===============================================

1960-1990

The next chart encompasses the years 1960-1990. Over to the right hand side you see a long red free fall line. That was Black Monday, October 19,1987. I was on the road when that happened and missed a lot of it. The catalyst for that 22% drop was something to do with Alan Greenspan and interest rates moving up; I'm fuzzy on the history of it now. But you can see it was over fast. There was the heart stopping one day drop and for the next couple of months the market bounced around before recovering. We were terrified and thought this move would auger in another Great Depression. I knew a guy who was a heavy retail options trader; He took out around $450,000.00 on Black Monday. But he could not shift gears, kept buying puts and with in 30 days he gave all of his winnings back.

Now, go farther to the left. You will see a bottom formation in 1973-1974. You will also see that the slide into the 1974- 1975 bottom actually started in 1972. At this time was a young dumb sailor in the Navy. I was partying hard and having a good time. I knew nothing about economics. I did not get knowledgeable about this market stuff until market crashed in 1973. That was the first oil shock when Saudi Arabia cut off the oil in October 1973. The next few months people were sitting in long gas lines to get maybe 10 gallons of gas. All of the other dumb sailors like me, all of us, were bowled over by this action. Jobs dried up for civilians and we were glad we had the security of a Govt. paycheck every two weeks. People were hurting.

And then for reasons I forget, the market bottomed in 1975. The point is that if you bought the market in 1970 you would have waited until 1972-1973 to break even. and if you did not get out then, you found yourself waiting until 1977 to get close to even. And you did not get a good solid breakout until late 1982 when Henry Kaufman called the bottom ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kaufman). So, basically, if you bought in 1970 and held, it took you 12 years to get your money back.

Keep in mind that the Saudi Oil Shock is what kicked these substandard years off. Oil prices went up. From 40 cents per gallon to 80 cents per gallon. Minimum wage was $2.00 per hour. Lives were disrupted. Inflation was running rampant because the govt. kept printing money. Lots of it. WE joked about smoking $20.p00 cigars. The economy could not find its footing. We struggled with crappy paying jobs. And then in 1978, houses doubled in price over night. I was looking at houses in 1977 but could not make it happen. In 1979, I was able to buy my house. I had to pay $34,000.00 for something I could have bought for $15,000.00 two years previous.

I almost forgot, that long slow slide in 1976 to the bottom in 1978 was the 2nd Saudi Arabia Oil Shock. This is the oil shock that brought Detroit to its knees. The big Cadillacs and the Lincolns were put on a diet. The cars got smaller. This was the era of what we called Econo-boxes; Small underpowered cars. They were transportation only. Some were like overpowered go-karts and fun to tool around in but generally cars of that era were abysmal.

Screen Shot 2020-03-21 at 10.43.43 AM (resized).png

==========================================================================
1929-1960

I was born in 1952. I can offer little commentary. Look at that top that ended in October 1929. You did not hit bottom until 1932. That's 3 years of you wishing that you did not keep buying stocks all the way down. And if you bought the top in 1929 it took you until 1965 to get your money back. But you had 30 years of inflation to live through so even if you got back to even you lost money in terms of real living i.e. lost buying power.

Screen Shot 2020-03-21 at 10.43.55 AM (resized).png
==============================================
1917-1940

And the last chart. This chart also includes the move from the 1929 high into 1940 and just before Pearl Harbor was hit one year later.

On the left you see 1917. The 1918 flu started in the fall of 1918 and did not last too long and then summer came. But you can see the move in 1919 when the flu came back for the 2nd wave that wiped out all of the millions of people. And that slide lasted until 1922.

So, from 1919 to 1922, you had a 3 year wait for the bottom.

Screen Shot 2020-03-21 at 10.44.11 AM (resized).png

The entire point of this post is to advise some of you that while the charts will not tell you what is going to happen tomorrow, they also suggest, with the exception of 1987, if you are looking for long term buys, that you can probably relax and wait awhile before buying in all at once.

Stagger your buys. Buy 20% now. Maybe 20% later. Or maybe break it down to making your buys 10% of your capital.

Whatever you do, realize that for awhile that you are most likely to see a choppy market more suited to day traders and position players. I predict you will have more time to buy. Lots more.

If this gives anybody some insight to which direction you think you will go, then the time it took to write this up will have been worthwhile for me.

It is to give you a very basic picture of charts. It is not investment advise.

These guys that dumped these stocks will be the first people I use as toilet paper when the shit hits the fan

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Thank you. I thought insider trading was part of her game.

https://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/why-did-martha-stewart-go-to-jail.html

"Martha Stewart was not convicted for criminal insider trading charges,"

Thanks to all you folks at Pinside,

Alicia C Did not know the benefits of Admiral Shares I will continue to research those, looks like a great benefit.

Zablon VIG and VYM do look like good options that will be a good fit for me

DBLM I have just rolled CD's for years. Easy no brainer, have been a bit leery with the brokers. I will research the differences between them and fiduciaries. "getting toasted right now" would suck, thanks for those words of wisdom, proceed with much caution and some good advise. S&P 2350 start looking, got it.

Cottonm4 I have a little FOMO looking at Exxon at 10%+ dividend, Chevron about the same etc. Thanks for the the advise to really take my time and not be in the FOMO mindset. Still looks like some rough seas ahead. My wife's parents live in Inman they do a few thousand acres of wheat and cattle. When the Coronavirus is all behind us maybe we can met in Wichita for a little pinball. Hopefully soon!

Again thanks to all you great pinsiders it is wonderful to part of this community especially at times like these.

Don't chase dividends. They can be cut.

Inman is 60 miles/ 100 km from me. Send me a PM. We do have one real nice place to play some pinball. And then you can bang on my Sterns.

I remember when the Dow trudged around the 2000 mark for almost ten years.

At the end of that ten year period is certainly the time to buy.

Price of oil right now is roughly $29 a barrel, thanks to the Saudis flooding the market to pester the Russian market. Anything below $30-35 a barrel, the oil companies will be losing money daily. Solid ground starts above $50.

Any company heavily dependent on petroleum feedstock (plastics, tires...) is going to enjoy low materials costs for a while.

Like say, nitrile glove manufacturers? Asking for a friend.

Except how many tires are you going to sell when no one is driving anywhere?

Low oil prices crush oil producers. High oil prices crush consumers. And when oil companies go bankrupt all that commercial paper used to fund operations will be marked to zero and nuke the banks holding it. The shale boom that benefited so much of the middle of America will move full speed in reverse.

The Saudi's wanted Russia to go along and cut production to keep prices up with this unprecedented decline in demand. Russia is tired of the high-debt, high cost U.S. shale producers taking market share and did want cut its own production. S.A. said screw it to Russia and the U.S, and went big time for market share. The question is how much pain can SA itself take; The answer is probably a lot more than the analysts think.

We, the US, were really bragging about how we were putting a cap on the crude market when we started exporting shale oil. And in one fell swoop, Saudi Arabia showed the world who is boss in the crude game. SA is loaded up with all of that light sweet crude and can, essentially, just turn on the tap. North Dakota cannot compete. I have not read anything about Midland-Odessa, yet. It had been booming but I would not be surprised id M-O went bust again. And I also imagine the Keystone pipeline that caused so much angst could go the way of the goose, too.

Venezuela has lots of oil, but it is sour crude that needs lots of refining.

It is sort of like Spain with its Mercury mines. All other countries have to work at refining their Mercury. Spain could refine Mercury easily in comparison. When prices of Mercury would go up and all of these other mines would be pulled out of mothballs, Spain would crank up production and take the price down and the other mines would have to close shop. And then prices would go back up. Eventually, the other mines would fire back up, and then Spain would slam the door, again.

Will the dow be up or down atbthe end of the week? I am predicting sub 17k.

Since lots of shutdowns are being extended another 2 weeks already... I'd say down. Honestly at this point, who is buying? Gambling addicts? I'd actually like to see what someone like Iceman is doing simply because he was so positive about everything. Is he still buying? Or did he finally decide to wait?

I'd just go by what he said 7 days ago.

Well he was right about one thing. We are experiencing massive growth.

It must be tough to be right all the time.

Me!

Disney, Bank of America, and whatever else is good. I'm not buying too much but a few hundred$$$$ worth a week. Let em all drop. I've got 40 years left in the market.

Buy and never sell!

My guy has about 250M under management. He said a few people like myself have rotated to cash, most have hunkered down, but some are beginning to nibble at these levels. He does have a variety of folks that doing options and said most people have rotated out of bonds.

How low does the market have to go before reality really starts setting in?

DOW at 15,000, 10,000, 5,000, 2,000?

I am guessing the bottom will come once a credible treatment or vaccine comes out.

Well, they have a treatment, but videos and pictures of bunches of Americans in large rooms hooked up to ventilators may not play very well on a lot of people's psyche.

We're not there...yet.

Does the US Govt have enough money to bail out everybody?

I dunno, you dunno, Wall Street dunno

What we do know. Cruise Lines with no cruises are worth zero , Airlines with no passengers are worth zero, restaurants with no patrons are worth zero, I doubt many people are buying cars, boats, 2nd homes right now. So there's that.

The one safe bet is the line of CEOs asking for handouts will make Hands Across America look like the express lane at your local grocery.

Not sure about cars I've had 3 clients buy new vehicles this last week. Mercedes Sprinter, Volvo xc 90 and Ford Transit Connect.

Cruise ships can go straight to hell! Don't care of they go under.

The airlines will get a bailout package. Many of the restaurant owners I talked to won't make it two months shutdown. I think alot of restaurants will go under. Support your local Mom and Pop places!

I made myself a little cheat sheet for the S&P 500. I have no strategy yet for buying into this.

2200 (~35% drop)
2030 (~40% drop)
1860 (~45% drop)
1700 (~50% drop)
1500 (~57% drop)

We dropped 57% in ‘09. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether we’ll get that low.

If you do the opposite of what I do you’ll probably come out ahead. I bought in when we were only down 10%.

Is it possible for the entire World Economy as we know it to fall apart?

It's possible. Then all that matters is gold and raw materials.

Fall apart, hopefully not.
Take a huge blow... yes.

Gold yes!
Crude oil not so much... as well as any raw material needed for the industry. Supply and demand.

Panic and hysteria create the headlines, but the folks that get wealthy understand that long term, this will pass. Maintain your risk tolerance and rebalance if necessary. Dollar cost averaging is your friend. Ex: Purchased 20,000 shares of DIS at $17/share in the late nineties and have reinvested dividends and enjoyed the ride over the last ~23 years. Bought Apple in mid 2000's and enjoyed their reverse 7 to 1 split a few years ago. The key is to have a long term strategy and the backbone to ride out tough times like this; always extract the emotion from your decision making process.

Agreed on cruise ships, those have always been a breeding ground for disease. I don't think they will ever recover to where they were.

As far as comparing this to 07 to 09? Completely different animal. That took two years to reach bottom. We are on less than two weeks of this mess and there is far greater economic/lifestyle disruption, especially globally.

why would gold matter if the world economy crumbles?

Watch Australia stocks tomorrow bloodbath!!!

Gold and precious metals are a hedge against runaway inflation and easily accepted as currency.

I originally thought the market would lose 35% of its value, I am now pretty confident we will lose 50%+. This is an an event unlike any other the world has ever seen in our modern economy. The entire economy is grinding to a halt..........never happened before. A great deal of the economy is service related and the govt does not have the money to bail out all industry. The more we quarantine ourselves the greater the economic impact.

I think I can repost this again

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Maybe. I'd personally rather be diversified and ready for anything. History is a good teacher.

Yep. I bought a chunk of Vanguard VFIAX on 2/27, pulled it back out on 3/19 at a 19% loss. I’m not going in again until the S&P is down 40%, and it will be smaller bites this time.

Not disagreeing. In my case, cash give me the greatest flexibility.

I read the other day Goldman Sachs said there market will go down another 16%. That proclamation was flooded by there will be a big rally. If Goldy was not in the biz selling of selling financials I might give credence to what they said.

You all know how the pundits will say "we are in uncharted territory", now we are really in uncharted territory.

If the world does not blow up there will be another day. Out there----somewhere. 6 months? A year? 2 years?

Maybe this summer will be time to play. But in the fall? With the possibility of a 2nd wave?

The Feds are getting ready to give everybody money to try and tide things over. A working man is supposed to get $1200.00. A couple is to get $2400.00. Someone like me, retired and drawing SS is to get $600.00. I don't need the money. I will be OK.

But how long is this huge govt. package supposed to last? I know some people with huge mortgages. And a house next door to me just turned into rental property. The new renters tell me the rent is $850.00 per month.

I really appreciate what the government is trying to do, but what happens after one month when all of this money is gone? $1200 will not go very far. Will there be a 2nd round? A 3rd?

The only true answer is that it is going to get interesting. If it gets real interesting guns will be of more value than gold, IMO. And I don't own a gun.

Hello, Mr. Buffet. It is nice to meet you

Hey, about these 4 senators that sold stock when they head about this virus and then hid the truth. What is that called? Is it called insider trading? I say what they did does not meet the classification of insider trading. But I don't what it would be called.

Thanks

I'm not really looking for bottom. I'm looking to buy quality brand named companies. If someone was paying $140 for Disney three weeks ago, I buy it for 87$ then $64 then $32. It's a win win win for me. Nothing has really changed. Disney will be fine.

Also I have cash in my 401k, & IRA. I'll buy S&P and individual brands. Then two years from now I'll have cash cash to invest in my fun account. I'll buy more of the same.

That's my plan and I'm dumb enough to stick to it.

Question, did they ever change the law to stop this? Up until, I believe a few years ago this was totally legal and abused by alot of Congress.

They should lose their jobs. The intelligence committee & DOJ should be up their ass. Not to mention the SEC

What is the STOCK Act?

In particular Burr himself was instrumental in trying to block a law attempting to reform the very activity he is in hot water for.

My understanding is that as long as he maintains the fig leaf of “i operated on public knowledge and not my congressional knowledge” and there isn’t documented proof to say otherwise, he is in the clear legally.

So not criminal, not insider trading...maybe we should make a new phrase and call it pulling a Burr?

Yeah he was just one of 5 (in both the Senate and House) that voted against the "Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge" (STOCK) Act of 2012.

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00014

-Passed the Senate on February 2, 2012 (96–3)
-Passed the House on February 9, 2012 (417–2) with amendment