NASDAQ near record high

[Vern Humphrey]

As of this morning, the NASDAQ was over 8,100 -- approaching an all time high. I hope you guys have your money invested!

In January, a financial "advisor" with his hair on fire tried to convince me to pull out of the market, prophesying a total collapse. This is why you should never listen to "advisors."

[S.A. Boggs]

Ask any "financial advisor" why they work for someone else and not for self. I believe it was President Truman who stated back in 1948 that if all economic advisors were laid end to end they would point in all directions!
Sam

[Roadkingtrax]

Corporate stock buybacks.

[RED]

I remember back in 2000, my Edward Jones "advisor," recommended GE stock and I bought 300 shares and it went almost straight up. Then I heard that the company's President, Jack Welch, was retiring so I called the guy and said I thought that we ought to sell and look elsewhere.

"Oh, no!" he said "His successor is handpicked and will be just great." About 1 year later GE had lost over 33%, down to $35 and today is down below $10.

[RED]

Corporate stock buybacks.

Great answer... Name one time in the past 120 years when business was booming that corporations did not buy back stocks? Ah, you are a genius! It's bad when corporations buy back stocks because it benefits their stockholders and you know in your Socialist heaven all stockholders are low life Capitalist SOB's, right?

[Roadkingtrax]

Great answer... Name one time in the past 120 years when business was booming that corporations did not buy back stocks? Ah, you are a genius! It's bad when corporations buy back stocks because it benefits their stockholders and you know in your Socialist heaven all stockholders are low life Capitalist SOB's, right?

I did not say good or bad about it you presumptive sh!t-gibbon.

It does add positive value to the Nasdaq, but corporate debt is at an all time high to match the all time record high of buybacks. There may be risk there if profits do not follow. I would not want the economy to stall and suffer from more short-sighted speculation.

How's that GE stock dippy?

[togor]

Great answer... Name one time in the past 120 years when business was booming that corporations did not buy back stocks? Ah, you are a genius! It's bad when corporations buy back stocks because it benefits their stockholders and you know in your Socialist heaven all stockholders are low life Capitalist SOB's, right?

Red, one thing that stock buybacks don't do is grow the business. It sort of reflects a "terminal mindset", which is to say that the company has reached its profitable plateau. R&D spending helps the economy because it tends to be more labor intensive, looking for new and different ways to do things, before finding the next "formula" and automating the bejeezus out of it. As a stock holder myself I don't mind seeing numbers go up, but people are not wrong when they say that buybacks are not the be-all-end-all use of corporate profits.

[dryheat]

I took 98% of my Ed Jones money out last month. Of course there's a little remorse but you can never get in at the bottom or get out at the top and it is foolish to cut it that close.

[dogtag]

Most unsophisticated dabblers in the Market usually
"get in" at the end and consequently buy High and
get stuck with having to sell Low.
The Market always scared me, but Real Estate didn't.

[Vern Humphrey]

I took 98% of my Ed Jones money out last month. Of course there's a little remorse but you can never get in at the bottom or get out at the top and it is foolish to cut it that close.

Edward Jones gives fair warming. They have a commercial about a fad for ridiculously tall stovepipe hats. The theme is that one hatmaker relied on Edward Jones, and they told him to have nothing to do with the fad. And when the fad ended, and people went back to regular hats, he prospered.

Say what!! If there's a fad, it means EVERYONE is buying them. Any hat maker with half a brain would jump on that and make all he could. And when the fad is over, where will the customers go -- to the hatmaker who sold them what they wanted last time, or to the guy who wouldn't?

The moral is clear -- follow Edward Jones and go bankrupt.

[dryheat]

The Market always scared me, but Real Estate didn't. -

I should be rich. I live in one of the fastest growing states in one of the fastest growing countries on the planet. I could have sold my place at the top of several real estate booms and replaced with low but I'm too lazy to move all my stuff. I like this place just fine. What I should have done during the Great Recession, when I was making the most money I ever did was pick up one of the distressed properties, but I'm a little lazy.

[Vern Humphrey]

The saddest words of tongue or pen
Are these "It might have been."

[Allen]

What I should have done during the Great Recession, when I was making the most money I ever did was pick up one of the distressed properties, but I'm a little lazy.

I feel the same way and perhaps we all missed opportunities during the recession to buy foreclosed properties and make triple our money back after just 3 or 4 years. At the time though, no one knew the economy would bounce back so soon. For all we knew it would keep going down and using up our money to buy property would just put us in bankruptcy also. If we knew then what we know now.......

[S.A. Boggs]

One thing to remember gents is that money is only paper and a bank account is only numbers in a data base. My wife and I turned the paper that we had been accumulating for close to 40 years into an expanded home and better living conditions. I don't mind gambling in the game of Monopoly, scare me to death in real life.
Sam

[Vern Humphrey]

One thing to remember gents is that money is only paper and a bank account is only numbers in a data base. My wife and I turned the paper that we had been accumulating for close to 40 years into an expanded home and better living conditions. I don't mind gambling in the game of Monopoly, scare me to death in real life.
Sam

Investing is not gambling. Gambling is a zero-sum game -- if four of us sit down at a card table with $100 apiece, and when we get up one of us has $400 and the rest nothing, that's gambling.

But investing -- in the market, real estate, etc., is not zero sum. The amount of wealth in the world is constantly increasing. By investing, you get a share in the increase.