>I beg to differ, and I still have not figured out where the money went
> from all those who sold out and "took profits". It aint like they took
> it as suitcases fulla greenback lithographs of dead presidents. I
> doubt that that much has ever been printed. If it went into their bank
> accounts, it seems like some banks would not be having "liquidity"
> problems.
>
I think the sytem works like this ... first in best dressed. In that the
first one to sell their stocks and actually find a buyer at below the listed
market price gets paid in cash. If you assume that seller sold out higher
than what they bought the stock for then yes, they do make a profit and get
paid.
But, and it;s a big but. It's really common to hear on the news etc about
these "profit takers" ..... but no one ever says exactly how many in hard
numbers actually did make a hard cash profit on their investment.
So as an example : stock is bought for $100 .... 3 months later stock price
[ illusion ] rises to $200.
Bell rings and stock market player puts all his stocks up for sale, or
investment firm, or stock broker etc, and they may own 10,000 or 100,000
shares but they put it at a price of $195 to get a quick sale below current
listed price ... imagine no one buys, so he drops it to $180 ... only 20%% is
sold at that price so he drops it to $160 and the rest sells ....
Now if it;s already a bear market of sorts as is now, then maybe no one out
there will see these stocks as being worth buying at more than this $160
price .... and if no one does pay more then that will be the "closing price"
for the day ... and all other stocks for that same company could millions
upon millions of shares also are now only worth $160 .... at the most.
So the "players" who keep an eye on the market thru the day, some will have
those same shares, and when they see their $200 stock price go $180, then
$160, they will try to dump their stocks too and do the old "take profits"
line. They might have bought at $140 though not, $100 like the first guy ...
so they sell at $160 too, but only really make $20 per share.
Of course the nite before they were at the bar in NYC talking about these
shres they bought for $140, that are now worth $200, and should go to $300
... they splurge because the "illusion" is that they are rich, or have made
a big profit.
But NO profit is made untill the shares are sold, or they hold them long
enough for yearly dividends to realise a profit for theor initial
investment.
Yes, it's stock market 101 ... but for some reason not many seem to grasp
it. Grasp what?
After these two people above sold their shares and the price goes to $160 or
lower ... the majority of smaller investors not enganged suddenly find that
their humble holding of only a 1000 shares has continued to dive thru
$140 --- and then under $100 the next day, or even within hours ... that
price tumble doesn't mean any great volume was sold but the SHARE PRICE has
crashed.
ANY stock holder who then freaks out and wants to recopu whatever they can
will offer their shares for whatever they can get. But it's a bear market,
and no one is ready to buy yet, so the price keeps going down and down.
Anyone holding these all of sudden wakes up to find that the price has
dropped to under $50.
therfore the majority of shareholders who bought these shares at above $100
ALL lose big time .... and the only people who really took profits was the
first guy, and then the second to a lesser degree.
So, it's simple in my mind. The $200 was only an illusion, no matter how
many people were ever prepared to buy those shares at that price, a share is
ONLY ever worth what one actually sells it for WHEN they sell. The $200, the
Nazdac, the Dow Jones is total BS .. it's fake, it is not real, well as real
as monolpoly money.
And when people talk about "the profit takers came in" it really means the
SHARKS came in on a feeding frenzy, dropped their sell price below the
market price, beat everyone else to the punch, and walked away making a huge
profit for doing absolutely nothing but sitting on their ass all day
watching the ticker and gambling that selling under $200 is a good thing to
do NOW.
In the meantime, to address a few other of your comments below, all this
playing around and "investment strategies" sure in a way they are supposed
to actualy relate to the real value of a company. But everyone knows, or
should know that that is bunkem, that is NOT what happens ... it's all about
gsmbling that when you buy a share the price will go up, and after IF you
sell at a profit you don;t care less what happens to that share price.
If it drops way down, you might get lucky and buy the same shares tomorrow
for a quarter of what you sold them for, wait another day or a week and sell
them all over again for twice the price and "take profits".
But all those other people holding shares who did not sell, did NOT take
profits, they got nothing, and if the share price drops below what they paid
for them then they have LOST their money pure and simple. One gains ... and
thousands lose. That's what really happens. And the big carrot is out their
for all the little investors to get "involved" ... look the Dow Jones has
increased overall 100%% in the last 10 years, so the stock market is a good
investment .. that is a lie. But it;s fed by the newspapers who hire
"analysts so they can sell advertising space, the TV run shows like Nightly
Business Report so it all sounds above board and a complex scene, but a a
genuine one, and that's all BS as well. The Government talks about the Stock
market like the Pope speaks about Communion as if it;s something Holy ....
when really it's just full of holes.
That is what I'm addressing, it happens in the money markets as well, and
Governments play in that game big time, and it's all an ILLUSION, and is
nothing different than Gambling.
It is totally non-productive ... people talk about the stock market gained
$50 billion yesterday because the Dow jones went up 50 points or something
... well that's all BS ... nothing happened, nothing at all.
The truth would be known if every single transaction, it's buying price and
it;s selling price less fees and commissions were Publicly Published ... but
hell will freeze over before that happens.
Then the world would see the handful that took profits, and the millions who
lost their shirt falsely "believing" they had a "real" investment, when all
it was was an illusion, a carrot on a stick.
Then the public would also see that the one's who take profits are more
often than not the same list of people and companies and banks and
politicians.
Then the game would be up .... but be assured that will not happen. ;-)
Thanks for your reply, you obviously are thinking person. Your on the right
track, hopefully the blah blah above clarifies why I see things this way.
Amongst all this of course, there are genuine companies who seek to raise
funds on the stock market. Good luck if you can actually find one and then
NOT have it;s share price manipulated by the "players" looking for a quick
buck, or it;s share price sunk for reasons totally unrelated to the business
and totaly out of it;s control. If a companies share price drops too low,
then often it causes a credit crunch for that company if it has used it;s
"share price" as a real assett in borrowings.
Trouble is NO share price is REAL, what is real is hard cash. There's NO
hard cash on the Stock Market zero, zip, nada. Always been that way, always
will be that way. All you get is a piece of paper with nothing on it saying
"legal tender".
It's just numbers and zeros, not real money.
cheers sean
> They didnt put it in gold, silver, platinum, grain, oil or other
> commodities, or those prices would have spiked in proportion to the
> fall in the stock markets. Didnt buy bonds with it either.
>
> I beg to differ too, in that no matter what price a stock was bought
> at, even if it is merely held, and not sold, it is commonly used as an
> asset to leverage other investments. Part of the problem now seems to
> be the leveraged assets. If that's what we can still call them. So
> even if a stock is not sold, when the market price falls, the leverage
> needs to be rebalanced.
>
> And that has to be with more assets that are likewise leveraged. Which
> is why the whole thing is subject to cacading panic. You can do the
> hard work to gather all the public data to understand this process,
> but not being an insider, unware of when the central banks will change
> the amount of needed reserves or affected leveraged values.
>
> Hillary Clinton didnt know jack shit about farming, but she did know
> who to know, and made 100,000$ over nite in commodities. It aint only
> the Republicans. Altho, she used it to invest in a political carreer
> rather than call girls, luxury cars & townhouses or vacations with the
> girls in the Bahamas.
>
> Under Communism, the government owns the business. Under Capitalism,
> the business owns the government. When the markets are manipulated by
> the insiders that drives out all the small investors leaving the asset
> base entirely in the hands of the power elite. We have a word for that
> too:"Fascism".
>
> From Nic Machiavelli, Ed Gibbon, & Jared Diamond, I see that power
> elites always corrupt republics. This works as long as the resource
> base keeps expanding. But when that stops, what the elites do, rather
> than cutting back to find sustainable solutions, what they do is
> simply increase the exploitation of all lower classes so as to keep
> their perks increasing and giving the illusion that 'progress'
> continues.
>
> New or Old World, the pattern repeats. The elites never read history,
> only repeat it. Now. We have a new factor, the Internet, where
> dialogues like this explore the data to figure out what is really
> going on outside of the limits of the group think of the elite and
> their control over the media. This is too new a phenomena to assess
> what effect it'll have on what passes for 'progress'.
>
> Some of can think more broadly than conventional partisan rhetoric,
> and have a better chance of doing better, or surviving some of the
> worst case scenarios. One of the investment strategies I see going on
> is a move out beyond the suburban fringe to the "x-urb" where people
> are investing in "hobby farms". There's a lotta interest now in
> greenhouses to provide produce that is now trucked in at great expense
> from warmer climates.
>
> This real estate does not depend on the local mortgage market values.
> The greenhouses can produce thousands of dollars worth of greens that
> have no risk of e coli, herbicide, or pesticide contamination. The
> woodlots can produce thousands in firewood. Pasture can produce grass
> fed beef. and so it goes. If the economy recovers, the organic food
> market profits will also. But if not, you still get to eat, have the
> energy to cut firewood, and keep the house warm.
>
> Just because investment on Wall Street is no longer viable dont mean
> that investment on Main Street aint. People who lost to Enron,
> Worldcom, and pension funds are moving to where they have a better
> idea of what they own. Especially where they can additionally invest
> sweat equity. (altho that has created scams in franchises)
