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Global demand is revving up profits at big U.S. manufacturers, and investors are jumping on for the ride, shrugging off high oil prices and concerns about Japan.
Manufacturing output, which has bounced back much faster than consumer demand over the past year, grew more than four times as fast in the first quarter as the estimated rate for the overall U.S. economy. A series of surprisingly strong earnings reports this week have underscored that momentum.
4x?
Not bad for a country that doesn't make anything anymore.
My stocks have been performing quite well lately. Meanwhile, a few people in my office bought physical gold recently and I explained to them the risks of holding physical asset like gold when it is already at record prices and increasingly rising in a parabolic, bubblish fashion. After I was done I got the deer in the headlights look. I hope they know what they have gotten themselves into and weighed the risks instead of just knee-jerk purchasing. At least with stocks you can set a stop-loss.
My stocks have been performing quite well lately. Meanwhile, a few people in my office bought physical gold recently and I explained to them the risks of holding physical asset like gold when it is already at record prices and increasingly rising in a parabolic, bubblish fashion. After I was done I got the deer in the headlights look. I hope they know what they have gotten themselves into and weighed the risks instead of just knee-jerk purchasing. At least with stocks you can set a stop-loss.
You know, it amazes me how little most people really understand even basic finance. I seriously know people who jerked all of their investments out of the stock market when it hit bottom in 2009. Meanwhile my stocks have been doing great. Nothing exciting. Mostly run-of-the-mill stuff. Yet its up significantly YOY. Its not about investing in whatever latest-greatest scheme. Just let the market do its work.
I seriously know people who jerked all of their investments out of the stock market when it hit bottom in 2009.
I do too, in fact one was our HR manager at the time who was the unofficial 401k advisor type role in the company. I kept telling her she was being stupid but she said she couldn't take it anymore and wanted to preserve what she had left.
If you've been able to maintain an income stream (which granted could have been a challenge) and continue investing regularly the last couple years have been an outstanding opportunity for wealth building even for the non savvy investor like me. Our net worth hit it's all-time high yesterday and then again today, that has happened at least a dozen times since late summer last year.
Not bad for a country that doesn't make anything anymore.
i read a story a year or two ago about how the U.S.A manufactures a lot more than people give credit for. Still, we need to strengthen that sector of the economy, but it's not as horrible as people like to say.
You know, it amazes me how little most people really understand even basic finance. I seriously know people who jerked all of their investments out of the stock market when it hit bottom in 2009. Meanwhile my stocks have been doing great. Nothing exciting. Mostly run-of-the-mill stuff. Yet its up significantly YOY. Its not about investing in whatever latest-greatest scheme. Just let the market do its work.
very true! i bought GE stock when it was hammered down in the early parts of this downturn. Also bought Citi Bank. Pfizer was added not long ago (people are getting old and need more drugs, that's just plain and simple). I threw my hat into Bank of America also. Then I have some BP stock, which ended up being not a great choice, but it's working out ok, and an Electric Utility stock that pays a fabulous dividend. This is my "play" money though. I am nicely diversified with a few mutual funds in my retirement accounts, and i'm going to start getting a little bit more of my non-retirement money into different funds as well.
I do too, in fact one was our HR manager at the time who was the unofficial 401k advisor type role in the company. I kept telling her she was being stupid but she said she couldn't take it anymore and wanted to preserve what she had left.
If you've been able to maintain an income stream (which granted could have been a challenge) and continue investing regularly the last couple years have been an outstanding opportunity for wealth building even for the non savvy investor like me. Our net worth hit it's all-time high yesterday and then again today, that has happened at least a dozen times since late summer last year.
i upped my 401k contribution more and more as the market kept falling. these are assets i will own for 40+ years. likely, as cheap, or close to as cheap, as the will ever be. just keep dollar-cost-averaging in and if you're holding for a long time...it's been a great time for a young investor.
now, as things get better, we'll just have to become more sophisticated in our investing for shorter-term goals.
Honestly, I learned a good lesson this recession. I'll admit I thought the financial world was coming to an end in 2009 when the DOW was down to almost 6,000. I decided to leave all of my investments alone. I didn't touch them. They were down almost 50% at one point. I had actually put a lot of money in the market in late 2007- right before things went to hell in a hand basket. Long story short all of those investments are back to their original levels and actually gaining as we speak. The cycle lasted about a year and a half. Some of the people I know who took out all of their stocks at the dip turned around and bought real estate thinking that was a safer move. Guess they were wrong because real estate hasn't moved in years and in the meantime stocks have gone right back up to where they were.
The lesson I learned was that if this happens again- buy like hell. I bought some, but should have bought more during the dip. Those stocks are up more than 50%.
i upped my 401k contribution more and more as the market kept falling. these are assets i will own for 40+ years. likely, as cheap, or close to as cheap, as the will ever be. just keep dollar-cost-averaging in and if you're holding for a long time...it's been a great time for a young investor.
It has? Unless you have a time machine how could you determine that?
I find it funny how on one hand people stress the long-term, yet speak as if they've some how realized short-term swings in the market.
How good the market is for young investors depends on the markets performance over the next 2-3 decades, not the performance over the last 1-2 years.
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