June 26, 2008

Ahhh, bubbles. Pretty, pretty bubbles.



Here's the chart of Crocs - the company that makes those horrific, easy-to-knock-off rubber shoe things

Looks like the chart for that investment condo in Miami. Or pets.com. Or tulip bulbs in Holland. I could go on.

Fads are fun. Until they aren't.

Meanwhile, what are you all doing in today's crazy market - buy, sell, hold or just staying the heck away?

65 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://tinyurl.com/4qlz9a

jim said...

Gambling everything on leveraged reverse index funds.

Anonymous said...

In early trading, GM (GM, Fortune 500) shares dropped $1.21, or 9.4%, to $11.60, after tumbling as low as $11.32 in the opening minutes of trading.

The last time the Detroit-based automaker's shares dropped below the $12 mark was on Jan. 2, 1975 when it fell to $11.68

Trevor Cordes said...

I'm slowly selling the puts I loaded up on every 300 points up on the DJIA since March. Remember I said buy 2010 LEAPS every 500 points up and sell every 500 points down? Works like a charm! But with this awesome run down I'm almost out of puts to sell yet I firmly believe we'll break below the March low and make a new, lower range.

Look at all the ETF call buying! Smells BEARISH to me. The joke is options traders are always wrong, so if they're all buying calls... We'll see!

Anonymous said...

Where's the prophet who predicted the March low for the DOW was the bottom? I've waited too damn long to rub thy nose in that one, and now I can't muster any cordiality in doing so.

Anonymous said...

I am out of the market and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. Not worth losing my ass.

Anonymous said...

Oh, my. Look at the Dow today. Where's DOPES!?

Anonymous said...

I am staying the heck away, and living within my income.

Kenduffelsniffenspotzen

Mark in San Diego said...

Swept Away - actually that Croc chart could be the Dow today. . .me thinks we are finally getting to capitulation - layoffs are hot and heavy, and panic is in the air. . .glad the Supremes gave us gun rights. . .we will need them. . .got Spam and Ramen?? Mad Max is here.

Anonymous said...

Glad I wasn't suckered into crocs or krispy kreme donuts.

I think I am buy a little at the close for the retirement account.Buy the panic and sell the greed hpers!!!!!

Citi is getting it's ass kicked.anyone seen wamu lately at 5 bucks? Anyone want to buy and gm shares?

Frank R said...

Those things are hideous. I never understood why anyone bought them, but ahh, the sheeple just blindly follow trends, don't they?

Anonymous said...

Woodstoves man! (imagine me saying it like the guy talking to Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate). They are f%&*ing booming dude. I'm not making this up, talk to a vendor.

All those chipboard xurb McShacks in the desert are gonna be so much green house gases in a decade or so. Wait for it.

Anonymous said...

I like the croc flip flops, they're really comfortable.

Anonymous said...

They are decent footwear for kids, and my kid has a pair, but a fad for adults on something that ugly?! Sign of our times, I suppose.

Anonymous said...

When Crocs were made in Canada they were much better, now they're just like all the made in China crap you can get at any drug store for $10.

Anonymous said...

When the herd runs one way, I run the other! Buying at the end of day.

Anonymous said...

Staying away from stocks. Dow should be under 10,000. It only made its way to 14k with corporate earnings from HELOC money.

And when corporate earnings go in the toilet (which they are just starting to - much, much more to come), guess what happens to the P/E ratio of supposedly "cheap" stocks?

I think a bed mattress is the best place to put money right now.

Anonymous said...

BUY NOW!!!

THERE'S SOME GREAT STOCK DEALS OUT THERE!!!

Anonymous said...

How dare you make fun of my favorite investment.

Trevor Cordes said...

All you "stay away from stocks" "money in the mattress" guys should short or buy puts! Why do we let only the game-riggers at GS & JPM make money on the downside? Short with plenty of reserve capital to meet margin calls, or buy LEAP puts that are 2 years out. About as much risk as being a normal long stock buyer.

Anonymous said...

Hey man lay off the crocs. They're great gardening shoes.

Anonymous said...

CNBC is reporting that its time to start shorting the market now. BWAHAHAHAHAHHA. Thats our signal to load up the truck with any stock we can get our hands on (well okay, maybe not CROX). Come on people, do you want to be poor forever? BUY BUY BUY

Anonymous said...

Where's that idiot who said here last week that he was putting some buys. How's that market meltdown doing for you, financial wizard? And where are the other retard bullish cheerleaders? You should work with Cramer and Kudlow. Bwahahahaha

Attention, attention! Calling all sheeple to jump in the rigged market just to get fleeced a few days later by the crooks on Wall Street. Attention!

DOW = -358
S&P = -2.94%
NAS = -3.33%

AAPL = -7.13% for the month (Hellooooo Keith, the stock picker)

Oh yeah, that's what I call a bull market.

DOPES

DOLTS

I told you so for months, suckers.

Anonymous said...

I am out of the market and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. Not worth losing my ass.

Kind of late, huh? Funny, now everyone "is out of the market" after it melts down. When I was telling them several months in advance to get out, I was called DOPES. You're like the same cheerleaders who parade on CNBC, acting like they knew all along after the crap hits the fan. Last week the analysts were giving the thumbs up to financials. Oops.

So let me tell you what's going to happen next. The PPT will jump in next week to fake a rally and then it'll nosedive again.

Like I said many times before: IT'S ALL RIGGED!; IT'S ALL ROTTEN!

Anonymous said...

SELL SELL SELL !!!

Anonymous said...

GM share in 1953 = $11

That $11 should be worth $95 now.

Price of GM share today = $11

That's what socialist unions do to companies. I hope those high school dropouts are happy now. The same high school dropouts who think they should have incomes of Harvard graduates....like Bitterrenter.

Anonymous said...

When the herd runs one way, I run the other! Buying at the end of day.

That's what you said last week, so you must be in the whole huge by now. Haven't you learned your lesson yet?

Anonymous said...

Where's the prophet who predicted the March low for the DOW was the bottom? I've waited too damn long to rub thy nose in that one, and now I can't muster any cordiality in doing so.

Yeah, those "geniuses" will deny they said that. That's the trend here and on CNBC...the so-called "experts" or "analysts". Bunch of crooks who don't know sh!t. The same dumba$$es who now pretend they knew the housing bubble was going on.

Anonymous said...

TXChick is probably posting on Ben's boring blog that she's making a ton of money with the market lately. I tell ya, that blog is full of retards, especially Mr. PHD (from a POS and discredited university) who moved from Detroit to West Palm Beach.

Anonymous said...

Making a TON on SKF, SRS, SDS


Ha Ha Ha

Die USA!

lee said...

I'm still long from May when you said BUY!!! ;)

Anonymous said...

DOW will be at 8000. It should have gone there in 2006 before the fake bull rally the past 2 years to draw in the suckers while Krudloans was prclaiming that it was the Goldilocks economy.

lee said...

That said ur still awesome Keith !!

Trevor Cordes said...

Keith: I'm finally reading Manias, Panics & Crashes. Pretty good book, about halfway done.

They spend a whole chapter noting how distress usually involves or is caused by 2 different simultaneous shocks. Right now, we have the obvious shock of housing crash like no other. What's the second shock? I was thinking credit crisis, but maybe that's really the same shock (housing). What about oil? The price is getting bad enough now that perhaps it will count as big enough.

Other possible shocks: CDS / monoline blowup shock (yet to really hit hard); stock decline shock (maybe at 33% from peak?); dollar shock, US$ down 40% is pretty nasty.

I STRONGLY recommend reading "Devil Take the Hindmost". It's much the same as Manias but I think it's a much more entertaining and better-structured read. It contains a ton more quotes and contemporary anecdotes and it's shocking to see the similarities between 200 years ago and the last few years.

Anonymous said...

Crocs a fad yes but

My mom has been buying insoles for the last decade because od sore feet.

Ever since she`s bought these ugly things, her feet are fine

Anonymous said...

DENNIS THE CNBC RETARD said...

BUY NOW!!!

THERE'S SOME GREAT STOCK DEALS OUT THERE!!!


LOL. God knows how I hate that freak. Who had the brilliant idea at CNBC to hire that moron? No wonder GE is in the crapper. Do yo remember when they did a documentary in which he's supposed to unplug from all his gadgets. And then after 2 days he broke down like a little girl on camera, crying that he needed his gadgets back, that he couldn't live without it, tears rolling and everyhting. Whatta a sad scene; a grown up tearing up because they took his gadgets away.

Anonymous said...

Buying physical gold and scrap silver like crazy.

Anonymous said...

Frank said-

"Those things are hideous. I never understood why anyone bought them, but ahh, the sheeple just blindly follow trends, don't they?"

Umerican Sheeple are all fat-Fat people's feet hurt cause human feet they weren't designed to carry 200 extra pounds-Fat Umericans need soft rubber shoes to shuffle around the mall all day long. And all their fat neighbors were wearing them too.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Hey man lay off the crocs. They're great gardening shoes.
Condoms are great for safe sex but that does not mean you should wear one in public.

Miss Goldbug said...

The stock market closed today at 11,400....

Talking heads and traders said it wouldnt drop below 13,000.

next stop, 8,000 by the end of this year.

Anonymous said...

"Milton K. said...

I like the croc flip flops, they're really comfortable."

That's gay.

Miss Goldbug said...

I sold the small amount of stocks I had 8 months ago. 80% of my money is in various bank CD's.

Has anyone noticed, banks are slowly starting to raise their rates??? Finally.

Pretty boring I know, but if I thought stocks would rebound I would not have sold out and just held on.

It's better to keep the gains than lose it in the stock market.

Miss Goldbug said...

Gold is up today. What a surprise.

Unknown said...

Pretty good article on greenfaucet today by Janet Siderman about how to sell your house in a crap market like this one. She’s a big money agent in SoCal but I think the advice is valuable for anyone looking to sell right now.
Main points: first impressions are huge, market history doesn’t matter right now, and it’s going to be a buyer’s market for sometime.
If you’re interested, here’s the link:
http://www.greenfaucet.com/real-estate/tips-for-selling-your-home-in-this-market
basically, sellers are going to have a rough time for a while.. so you need to find a way to do decently in the face of market changes

Anonymous said...

Bwahahaha Cramer was crying like a girlyman today, because a famous banker said to portfolio.com that Cramer should be shot!

http://tinyurl.com/68phpb

Anonymous said...

Anonypussy said-

"GM share in 1953 = $11

That $11 should be worth $95 now.

Price of GM share today = $11

That's what socialist unions do to companies. I hope those high school dropouts are happy now. The same high school dropouts who think they should have incomes of Harvard graduates....like Bitterrenter."

The people who are killing the US Auto industry ARE the Harvard graduates NOT the hard working brother and sisters of the UAW! They just put the cars together you idiot it's the "educated" people in the offices who make the decisions to make cars that nobody wants to buy.

For thirty years Detroit has been putting out cars that were pure crap compared to the cars of Toyota, Nissan and Honda have been making.

If the executives in Detroit had decided back in the 70s to make an American car that could compete with Toyota's Corolla, Datsun's 510or Honda's Civic the US auto industry would be thriving. What detroit gave us was the Chevette, the Vega, the Pinto, the Pacer and othe piles of sh!t. They seemed to think if they screamed BUY AMERICAN loud and loud that we buy their crap. Well it did not work, did it?

AND NONE OF THAT IS THE FAULT OF THE HARDWORKING MEN AND WOMEN OF THE UNITED AUTOWORKERS OF AMERICA!

STOP PARROTTING TALK RADIO AND TRY, JUST TRY, TO THINK FOR YOURSELF. PLEASE. BLAMING THE WORKING MEN AND WOMEN FOR ALL THE PROBLEMS CAUSE BY THE GENIUSES IN THE EXECUTIVE OFFICES IS A HUGE PART OF THE PROBLEM THAT THIS COUNTRY AND THE ECONOMY IS HAVING NOW.

WHEN AN EXECUTIVE SAYS IT IS UNION WAGES THAT ARE KILLING AMERICAN COMPANIES. LOOK AT THE EXEC'S COMPENSATION PACKAGE AND THINK ABOUT HOW MANY OTHER EXECS HAVE SIMILAR 7 FIGURE PACKAGES. AND THEY ARE ALL SAYING THE PROBLEM IS BECAUSE SOME RIVET-HEAD ON THE LINE IS GETTING $25 BUCKS AN HOUR. CONSIDER THE SOURCE. THINK FOR YOURSELF.

Oh, yeah, and some of us "high-school dropouts" did not drop out of high school or college. Some of us even graduated from both with honors

Anonymous said...

Frank@Scottsdale-Sucks.com said...
Those things are hideous. I never understood why anyone bought them, but ahh, the sheeple just blindly follow trends, don't they?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes indeed they do Frank...just like Land Rovers and Mercedes

Anonymous said...

PS
From the Constitution of my union, The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers-

"This Brotherhood will continue to oppose communism, Nazism or any other subversivew "ism." We will support our God, our Nations, our Union."

As for myself I prefer the philosophy of Ayn Rand to that of Karl Marx.

Anonymous said...

"The last time the Detroit-based automaker's shares dropped below the $12 mark was on Jan. 2, 1975 when it fell to $11.68"

what about the market cap? hasn't GM done splits? so now its time to do reverse splits... a 33 year run (what an eerie number) is pretty good I think.

Anonymous said...

"I'm still long from May when you said BUY!!! ;)"

I fully discredited keith and covered his rear! since he claimed that he didn't like indexes.

I find myself almost ready to buy now since I think that ford, etc..., will rebound a bit and I can take profits. i.e. perhaps day trading is back since volatility might be more or less guaranteed!

Anonymous said...

Call me uninformed, but I didn't even know that CROCS was a public company, and thought the stock chart was another witty HP gag.

Good Fuck. It's for real and has a 740M market cap (if I'm reading that right) even after it's down almost 90%. The world is truly insane. Always a bumper crop of sheeple to get hosed.

Anonymous said...

no doubt, Dennis Kneale sucks ass!

Anonymous said...

T. Boone on the cover of BusinessWeek calling water the new oil.

buy PHO.

Anonymous said...

Buy stocks now! they aren't making anymore shares.

Well, Citi is. Lehman too. Gm will soon. Oh well.

Anonymous said...

People who think they can pull out of the market, get back in and time it right are the same people who want us to believe they got out in 2000 right before the dotcom bust.

I got in and stayed in over 2decades ago and it has turned out great. I went through the crash of 87 and all the other downturns and am still up 20X my initial investment.

Only fools think they can chase the next big thing. Bigger fools will tell us they timed things just right. If you people claiming to have pulled out just in time were so smart and able to time markets, you would have bought houses in 97 and wouldn't be coming here whining about being priced out of the real estate market.

My favorite is the people who claim to have money in "high-yield accounts". You mean the 3% money market rates? Wow.

Funny that this socialist is the one who believes in the enduring strength of our system enough to invest in it. I think some of you want things to collapse so you can become some kind of King Daddy of the new anarchy. You know, when the government collapses and we all get to stop paying taxes.

Right, Reality?

Anonymous said...

Keith,

I've still been shorting.

I'm now 150% ROI in 10 months. Sold some today. In the next few weeks will be 200% YOY.

Dow is going to 10K. After that - either back up or it is going to 5K. Waiting to see how it breaks.

I'm glad you're back. I don't know the imposter who was pretending the Bull market is here. Was that your kidnappers?

After 10K you'll have a suckers rally. But more puts then. The economy is f*ed.

Believe it... or not.

As Apollo Smile says - "Dodge the bullets or carry the gun."

Your money - your choice.

Your friendly neighborhood Sandman.

Anonymous said...

Summer of Capitulation
When I was a new bond trader working for the capital markets division of First Interstate Bank, Charlie, a wizened old trader assigned to be my mentor, told me repeatedly: "Remember, you make your money when blood is running in the street." I was sitting next to him on Black Monday, October 19, 1987. He smiled and chain-smoked his way through the day. In the midst of the carnage he went to work setting his bond positions. He made a ton of money.

That image of Charlie calmly smoking his way through what seemed to me to be the end of the world has stayed with me for over twenty years. I have found it to be very reassuring as I have tried to guide clients and investors through every major financial debacle since then. Some have been willing to ride out the storms; some have not. But I can honestly say that those who patiently stayed the course have come out alright.

We call it a "capitulation" when the market melts down and there seem to be no buyers left on the planet. They are periods of raw fear. They are unreasoning and unrelenting and they can try even the hardiest of souls. Yet they can also produce some of the most compelling buying opportunities. Sometimes capitulations happen like Black Monday, cascading in ever increasing volume over a very short period of time. Such capitulations are dramatic and very rare. More typically, capitulations happen over a period of weeks or months, gradually wearing down investor resolve and picking up momentum as they roll along.

We are in the latter type of capitulation right now. Between rising oil prices and the ongoing credit crisis, there is plenty for investors to worry about. I cringe every time I pull into a gas station or stop by the grocery store. Yet stocks are cheap! If you take company-by-company earnings projections for every stock in the S&P 500 for the next 12 months and compare their sum to the current level of the S&P 500 (which closed just below 1,300 today), the market would is close to the cheapest levels of the last 20 years. In fact, you would have to cut the latest earnings projections by another 30% before you would get the P/E ratio back to the average level of the past 20 years.

At times like this I like to ask myself what Charlie would do. I'm sure he would be buying.

http://www.willowridgecapital.com/blog.php?bpg=http://www.willowridgecapital.com/blog/2008/06/summer-of-capitulation.html

Anonymous said...


When the herd runs one way, I run the other! Buying at the end of day.

That's what you said last week, so you must be in the whole huge by now. Haven't you learned your lesson yet?


LOL. A couple percentage points is a huge hole? Anyone who can't handle a TINY short-term loss doesn't have any business investing in any meaningful asset class, whether its the stock market, RE, or precious metals or whatever.

Anonymous said...

I've had about 25% of my money split between BEARX and PSAFX for about three years. Returns have been pretty good. Hoping they'll get better. Rarely think about it, to tell the truth. The rest in cash accounts, CDs, shoebox in the closet, etc. Anyway, it's play money. I'll be using it as tinder to set my furniture on fire a couple of winters from now.

Own a pair of gray Crocs. Actually, not really Crocs - LL Bean version, made by China slave labor. Nice shoes. Very comfortable. In cool weather, I wear them with fuzzy socks. Man, NOTHING beats it!

Dmitry Orlov - Reinventing Collapse. Good book. Might want to check it out from your library.

Dmitry, is that you? No, it isn't.

Anonymous said...

I bought my crocs back when they were not very popular. I still have the same pair and wear them all the time. The best $20 I ever spent. They must be 4 years old and they are still holding together. Yea.. They dont look real cool but if I was going for cool I would have jumped into real estate when it was hot...hot...hot...

Not sure how/where crocs are made now but... if they are still the same quality I would buy this depressed company's stock on a value trade since the product is comfortable and lasts...

Anonymous said...

Crocs just another example of herd mentality in this country. Cheap plastic things made in China then sold to the mass morons at expensive prices. Let them eat croc's.

Anonymous said...

Pulled out all my retirement money out of the stock market in March 2007. Was really depressed when the stock market took off (against all fundamentals) and peaked in October 2007. Now it's 20 percent down from that peak. I'm feeling better.

Anonymous said...

People who think they can pull out of the market, get back in and time it right

I've always practiced pulling out at the right time and it's never faile dme

Anonymous said...

Bitterrenter,

Not sure why you addressed the last question to me. I have always been a believer in that wealth and high standards of living comes from specialization. That means collaboration, exchange and trade. The problem with coercive government is that coercion gets in the way of collaboration, exchange and trade (either banned outright or have a burden placed on the exchange, called tax).

As for "collapse," because I subscribe to the rather liberal theory that morality, law and order predates any particular government, I'm optimistic that life will go on and propser after the "collapse" of any existing regime, be it governmental or monetary. I was lucky to have missed the 1987 stock market crash. I was lucky to be in IT and to be curious about banking and finances in the tail end of the 80's when I started my stock portfolio. The two sectors did fabulously well in the 90's. The DJIA-to-gold ratio went from 8:1 to over 40:1! Currently, the ratio is about 12:1, roughly the same level as in 1973, on its way down to 1:1 in 1980 then back up and breach 12:1 in 1995. It will probably be another 20+ years before the ratio is back to 40:1. Just remember, a whole generation swore off stocks in the 70's, just like their grandparents did four decades before them.

Anonymous said...

I bought CROX puts in February 2007, then doubled up in September 2007. Ka. Ching. This one was as easy a call to make as the Indymac and Countrywide puts.