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3/07/2015 10:46 am  #1


I'm Confused

Or maybe I'm just stupid . . . Or a combination of the two.

Last week the numbers say the U.S. Unemployment rate is at a 6-1/2 year low. The economy is expanding and the U.S. Dollar rocketed to an 11 year high against a basket of worldwide currencies. All this is supposedly good economic news for the U.S. Yet the stock market plummeted.

Also the benchmark Brent crude oil price fell 4% on the week, U.S. Drillers continue to shut down operations (64 last week alone) due to supply out pacing demand. Yet the price of gas and oil products are on the rise.

What am I missing? Are we in some backward, upside down economic world?

Or is the seemingly reverse outcome of the stock market due to profit taking by the big brokerage firms and wealthy individuals through programmed trading.

And the continued price increases in oil products is due to market manipulation by commodity traders.

I'm confused, losing money in my account, and trying to figure out a system that seems rigged against average investors. Maybe I should move to the old under the mattress strategy.

 

3/07/2015 10:57 am  #2


Re: I'm Confused

All excellent questions.  If you find any answers please pass them on.

 

3/07/2015 10:57 am  #3


Re: I'm Confused

I've come to the conclusion that it's tough to be a long-term person in a short-term world.

 

3/07/2015 11:04 am  #4


Re: I'm Confused

The market plummeted yesterday specfically because the job numbers and overall economic outlook is so good that it's getting very likely that the Fed is going to raise rates sooner than later.

Which means stocks will indeed take a hit, but traditional savings vessels should produce a better return.

I can't really complain too much . February was an outstanding month in terms of growth in my IRA. 

As far as oil, I can't speak to that. 


I think you're going to see a lot of different United States of America over the next three, four, or eight years. - President Donald J. Trump
 

3/07/2015 11:05 am  #5


Re: I'm Confused

I think the stock market could be worried that the Fed might start raising interest rates sooner than expected?  But with the stock market who knows?
 


 “We hold these truths to be self-evident,”  former vice president Biden said during a campaign event in Texas on Monday. "All men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.”

 
 

3/07/2015 11:17 am  #6


Re: I'm Confused

February was good, but if March continues the way it has begun, any gains in my account will be eliminated.

I just find it interesting that little bits of information, negative or positive, are twisted by analysts to try to explain what's driving the market one way or another. Sometimes the same information is used to explain a drop and a rise in the Dow. I really don't think anybody knows what's driving the swings, but they have to try to come up with some excuse so people [i]think[i] they're knowledgeable.

     Thread Starter
 

3/11/2015 4:29 pm  #7


Re: I'm Confused

Rongone wrote:

Or maybe I'm just stupid . . . Or a combination of the two.

Last week the numbers say the U.S. Unemployment rate is at a 6-1/2 year low. The economy is expanding and the U.S. Dollar rocketed to an 11 year high against a basket of worldwide currencies. All this is supposedly good economic news for the U.S. Yet the stock market plummeted.

Also the benchmark Brent crude oil price fell 4% on the week, U.S. Drillers continue to shut down operations (64 last week alone) due to supply out pacing demand. Yet the price of gas and oil products are on the rise.

What am I missing? Are we in some backward, upside down economic world?

Or is the seemingly reverse outcome of the stock market due to profit taking by the big brokerage firms and wealthy individuals through programmed trading.

And the continued price increases in oil products is due to market manipulation by commodity traders.

I'm confused, losing money in my account, and trying to figure out a system that seems rigged against average investors. Maybe I should move to the old under the mattress strategy.

Your not really missing anything. It's deliberatley confusing, all the indicators say things are great, meanwhile, the average joe sees loses and gains, bulls and bears and can't make sense of it like you said. There is a good website run by a former wall street veteran. 
wall street on parade . com (can't post links yet)
There is enough to read on there to either: (1) get an idea of the crazy financial games that are played (2) make you want to curl up in a ball after puking. 
 

 

3/11/2015 5:13 pm  #8


Re: I'm Confused

Hol-e-shit. I was just on the wall street on parade website. So far, I've learned 2 things. 1. Wall Street people are f-in' scary. 2. They are quite busy behind the scenes while the rest of the "media" are busy gibbering about e-mails.

 

3/11/2015 8:51 pm  #9


Re: I'm Confused

I too read some of the articles on http://wallstreetonparade.com/  I found them very interesting. 

 


"Do not confuse motion and progress, A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress"
 
 

3/13/2015 12:36 pm  #10


Re: I'm Confused

OK, this article by Luke Brinker about the strong dollar does make some sense to me:



dollar is getting stronger — and that’s a bad thing

One euro is now worth about $1.06 — a sharp decline from a few months ago, when a euro could buy you roughly $1.50. The euro’s decline, amid ongoing debt disputes between Greece and its creditors and broader deflation on the continent, is good news for Americans planning junkets to Paris or Athens: Their dollars now get them considerably further. But for the U.S. economy as a whole, the strengthening dollar is bad news.

So argues Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in his New York Times column today. Quite simply, Krugman notes, “a weaker euro makes European industry more competitive against rivals, boosting both exports and firms that compete with imports, and the effect is to mitigate the euroslump.” That means U.S. industry becomes less competitive, threatening the modest manufacturing resurgence and sending trade deficits ever higher.

And yet, Krugman laments, monetary policymakers don’t seem fully awake to the very real and present danger:

One thing that worries me is that I’m not at all sure that policy makers have fully taken the implications of a rising dollar into account. The Fed, still eager to raise interest rates despite low inflation and stagnant wages, seems to me to be too sanguine about the economic drag. And the most recent Fed minutes suggested that some members of the committee that governs monetary policy were thoroughly clueless, apparently believing that inflows of capital would make the U.S. economy stronger, not weaker.

Oh, and one more thing: a lot of businesses around the world have borrowed heavily in dollars, which means that a rising dollar may create a whole new set of debt crises. Just what the global economy needed.

Not only do the discontents of a strong dollar underscore the need for the Fed to think twice before raising interest rates; the phenomenon also brings home the importance of a robust U.S. industrial policy aimed at tackling trade deficits. For all the Beltway’s pearl-clutching about the budget deficit (which, by the way, continues to fall), it’s the gap between the U.S. and its trade competitors that endangers jobs and the economic recovery. Economist Dean Baker calculated last year that bringing trade into balance would generate more than six million new jobs.

Alas, the workers who would fill them have nowhere near the financial might and political clout of the bond market, the god to which we must always bow down.

     Thread Starter
 

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