Aha! Score one for the ladies. (I think they’re ahead by like 20 points now).

In any case, if money doesn’t enter the market soon we could see More of this. On the other hand, if money does enter the market it is going to be by a more divers population than before. This is good news because with globalization in full swing now, people are going to need money invested in the markets to some degree to make anything of themselves. If the market is more accessible, then it’s good for everyone. Provided we don’t have a ton of bad trades.

Unlike the 20′s though, we have companies that make their bread and butter with better trading based on a higher level of expertise and these companies are available to anyone.

Those are called target date funds and many investment shops offer them.  If you are buying on the retail market, pay close attention to the expense ratio, they can range quite widely. 

You are absolutely correct about women having higher returns, though it is not neccessarily due to bailing out in bad times.  It is more a result of men chasing returns and being more active in their (bad!) trading.

There’s a new fund out for guys like me that actually distributes your funds in a diverse amount of indexes foreign and domestic aggressively when you’re youg, and then tapers off as you’re old to more conservative distributions automatically.

It looks like a cool fund and honestly I am not convinced these drops will last much longer. Once Europe stabilizes I may throw my funds back in. One just has to remember that with these funds you have to not panic, otherwise you resign yourself to losing all that money….

If I hadn’t thrown into bonds a couple of years ago I sure wouldn’t do it now. I’d ride it out. Especially on a long term investment strategy. I read some statistics that women have been making more on their funds simply because they are less likely to bail out when stuff like this happens.

Ever consider buying ETFs (exchange traded funds)?  They offer great diversification at a very low price.  I would recommend this to anyone who doesn’t have the time or expertise to try and pick individual stocks.  Hell, most experts cannot beat the market consistently, and if you can’t beat the index, buy it!

Yup, gotta remember not to confuse personal economics with business economics. While I don’t have a large volume of cash to play with, I am quite tempted to bottom feed once the market decides to sink rock bottom. In fact, interestingly enough, I think this is the first time I’ve seen it to where people in my particular income bracket can actually buy 100 shares of something with little money.

I do admit though that my savings was put into good ‘ol government bonds for awhile until I decided how to play things out for the long term. I guess I am lucky I did that, at least for now. Too bad the growth sucks.

But I’m still up nicely compared to where I was 5 years ago.  So in some way’s, it’s a matter of perspective. 

And you know what?  I’m buying more stocks today.  I bought some last week too.   There are plenty of well run companies out there with excellent long term prospects, and NO DEBT. IMO, most will survive and eventually prosper again. 

If the Shiites really hit the fan (so to speak) and the stocks somehow all go down to being worthless, cash won’t be worth much either.
 
And at that point, I (and everybody else) will have much bigger problems to worry about than pissed away savings.  

Must be nice to have the media in your pocket.

Yes, it must be.  I think it is astonishing that people (the press, the public, etc…) are basically giving the Democrats a pass on this by placing too much of the blame on Bush and the Republicans.  Could Republicans have done more to stop this?  Maybe, but some did try (Bush and McCain among them) and were blocked by the Democrats.

Must be nice to have the media in your pocket.

And the best part is, we’ll get protectionism and massive government intervention from the newly empowered Dems — a repeat of the policies that made the Great Depression so much longer and more painful.

Yard sale this weekend!

As for Obama, I put his chances for victory at 50%- all depends on the next few weeks, really.  If NH is any example people are starting to get sick and tired of the Democrats screeching at them every thirty seconds. Ad buys are a fact of life in politics, but when I have to sit through a solid three minutes of Shaheen/Hodes/Shea-Porter ads, with Obama ads leading and trailing the entire pack it gets a little tiring at first, then you just start getting mad at them.

Hopefully, I’m not alone.