Is now the time to buy stocks?

[luns101]

Is the current economic downturn a golden opportunity for us, the average person, to buy stocks which may have been out of reach? I'll put out a few stock prices and the decline in their price just for an example. I got all charts from morningstar.com and randomly selected the 1 year option. It's not like they're all at their all-time lows...but they are significantly lower.

-EDIT- You will have to click on the "Price" tab after you click on the links in order to see what I'm talking about.

Level 3 Communications

Google

Disney

Wal-Mart This surprised me!

Alcoa

Boeing

Amazon.com

Yahoo

Target Corp.

Quest Diagnostics

I thought I'd throw in some of the oil companies/energy providers:

Chevron

Valero

I'm sure more examples could be provided...this is just to get the topic off and running.

[Fruitcake]

Nope, not yet the time to jump in. There is more pain yet to come. We are not seeing the results for any of the major operations being released yet. The credit squeeze will not have fed through to the bottom line yet. Builders are only now starting to find their cashflow drying up, shops and large retailers are only now starting to really feel the pinch.

Give it time, the moment to strike will come. The secret now is to wait and hold ones nerve.

[kwanton]

Agreed. The path we are taking, our economy must hit rock bottom before we can see an upturn. I'm guessing that it will turn out like the previous Great Depression. In a couple years, our economy will be in a freefall until it hits rock bottom (maybe around 2010). Then the government will enact a New "New Deal" and the programs will actually help get us back on track. It's right after that you should begin to invest in stocks.

[luns101]

Nope, not yet the time to jump in. There is more pain yet to come. We are not seeing the results for any of the major operations being released yet. The credit squeeze will not have fed through to the bottom line yet. Builders are only now starting to find their cashflow drying up, shops and large retailers are only now starting to really feel the pinch.

Give it time, the moment to strike will come. The secret now is to wait and hold ones nerve.

So you do eventually plan to "jump in"...it's just a matter of when you think the market has hit the bottom, right? Same comment directed to you, Kwan.

[TheProwler]

Nobody really knows...

If someone really, for sure, absolutely, positively knew.....the markets would adjust for it.

[Hologram]

Only if you have a whole lot of balls. But then, the only rich people are the ones who have balls, or the spoiled relatives of those that have balls, so....


Anyway, if you want to, and have the money to start buying in amid all this turmoil, don't buy in all at once, buy your stock in increments every couple of days or weeks or what have you. That way you don't have to guess when a certain stock has hit rock bottom. Sure, it'll decrease your gains if you were originally right about the company hitting rock bottom, but you'll increase your chance of not breaking the bank.

[TheProwler]

Only if you have a whole lot of balls. But then, the only rich people are the ones who have balls, or the spoiled relatives of those that have balls, so....


Anyway, if you want to, and have the money to start buying in amid all this turmoil, don't buy in all at once, buy your stock in increments every couple of days or weeks or what have you. That way you don't have to guess when a certain stock has hit rock bottom. Sure, it'll decrease your gains if you were originally right about the company hitting rock bottom, but you'll increase your chance of not breaking the bank.

This is a technique known as "dollar cost averaging"....although, by employing that technique now, you are also "timing" the market....just trying to be somewhat conservative about it....

My recommendation is to stop making your mortgage payments. Take that money, and buy stocks and beer. The government might bail you out of your crappy mortgage, the stocks might go up, but most importantly, you'll be drunk and won't care either way.

[Hologram]

Only if you have a whole lot of balls. But then, the only rich people are the ones who have balls, or the spoiled relatives of those that have balls, so....


Anyway, if you want to, and have the money to start buying in amid all this turmoil, don't buy in all at once, buy your stock in increments every couple of days or weeks or what have you. That way you don't have to guess when a certain stock has hit rock bottom. Sure, it'll decrease your gains if you were originally right about the company hitting rock bottom, but you'll increase your chance of not breaking the bank.

This is a technique known as "dollar cost averaging"....although, by employing that technique now, you are also "timing" the market....just trying to be somewhat conservative about it....

My recommendation is to stop making your mortgage payments. Take that money, and buy stocks and beer. The government might bail you out of your crappy mortgage, the stocks might go up, but most importantly, you'll be drunk and won't care either way.

I also recommend this plan.

[Fruitcake]

Nope, not yet the time to jump in. There is more pain yet to come. We are not seeing the results for any of the major operations being released yet. The credit squeeze will not have fed through to the bottom line yet. Builders are only now starting to find their cashflow drying up, shops and large retailers are only now starting to really feel the pinch.

Give it time, the moment to strike will come. The secret now is to wait and hold ones nerve.

So you do eventually plan to "jump in"...it's just a matter of when you think the market has hit the bottom, right? Same comment directed to you, Kwan.

Of course I intend to jump back in....

I shorted bank stocks heavily last year and early this year (I made it obvious in my Banks and Temple of Mammon thread). I took a lump and moved into Gold in the spring of this year, sold out recently (didn’t really do as well as I had hoped) and shorted Platinum (another obvious freefaller if anyone was watching, after all….in it’s most simple terms….what do car exhausts use a lot of in a market where car sales are dropping like a stone in the sky). The rest I invested in UK Gilts AKA UK Govt. undated stocks paying (on the purchase price) around the prevailing rate of interest. I traded in the CDS market as well, buying heavily and then exiting during the summer (CDS= Credit Default Swaps, a measure of how secure a bank is, the higher the price, the worse the perceived situation is in a particular bank...again I referred to this in my Banks and Temple thread earlier this year).

I have exited Gilts within the last few days and have moved nearly all my liquidity into fixed rate income bonds issued by actual Building Societies (as against demutualised operations, something I have always thought a disgrace). I have spread my deposits right across a number of operations to come within the deposit guarantee radar.

I have a series of buy orders in place at certain levels. The first is triggered when the ftse is lower than it is right now (around 4,400 points at time of writing). If I sense the market sentiment is changing and the herd changes direction, then like a small flea (which, after all is what I am when compared to the market whole) I shall jump on the back of the whole movement and ride it for as long as I see fit.