Sushi Money

The market has made amazing gains over the past two days, and posts the biggest 2-day gain in five years. Pretty amazing numbers. We’ve been here before, but are we staying for awhile or not? And how many people took money off the table over the past few weeks? No surprise there- with all the financial turmoil many of us have become a little more conservative these last few months. But as I was looking over the market yesterday morning it just looked ripe with opportunity, hence yesterday’s post. Now the financial pundits will really be out in force debating the merit of this weeks market gains.

Through last week the Dow was down almost 10% from it’s high a few months earlier. The Wall Street Journal declared a correction a few days ago, looking ahead at the possibility of another 10% down indicating a bear market had returned. But after the last two days, are we out of the woods, and is the Bear still in there hiding? Sure looks like it, but that financial Bear is a wily creature. A lot of smarter folks than I expect all the negative news to have significantly more impact to the markets than we have seen lately. And a possible recession, meaning that many folks think we’re just not there yet. We don’t have that “feel-good” factor going! With the subprime and mortgage mess reaching a peak in mid-2008, there’s still lots of negative news to go around.

But you know what? I think there’s a whole lot of fund managers and investment firms competing to show some healthy gains for investors. With the hedge fund derivative losses this year I suspect a lot of smart folks are re-examining just what risk means. Maybe some of the good quality stocks are pretty decent investments after all. Maybe we don’t have to go looking for the “next best thing” or crazy combinations of risk in order to show decent returns for investors. Maybe dividends and solid year-over-year growth is not a bad place to be over time. Maybe a lot of folks will return to the fundamentals on stocks.

Then again maybe fear will continue to run amok and the markets will crash. Who the heck really knows where the market’s going? Certainly not me, but I did put a chunk of money in some key areas yesterday that look even better today. Looking ahead I see the Fed cutting rates a quarter point, the holidays making us all feel pretty good, and the election cycle really kicking in for 2008. Maybe we’ll even make more progress overseas, and start bringing some troops home. Some folks see market forecasts intertwined with the election cycle… and a Democrat in the White House next time. I don’t know what that means, except perhaps higher taxes on everything.

Something I do know…. markets go up and down, and change is the only certainty. It’s just the name of the game… a game in which I try to keep madness and the risk of emotions out of the way. Ten years from now my only memory of this day will be this post, if it still exists. Looking back ten years ago, I have no idea what I was doing…. Oh wait! Yes I do remember… I was having too much fun and not saving or investing nearly enough! Sometimes I wasn’t having any fun, and still not saving or investing enough. Now I know better… just keep plunking money in the pot, and try not to get too excited whether the market’s up or down. But up certainly is better than down isn’t it?!

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