Free Republic

That 10.2% Unemployment Report Was The Best Thing That Could Happen To Stocks Joe WeisenthalNov. 9, 2009, 6:56 PM Friday was stunning. After a shock unemployment reading of 10.2%, the market surged. And then, after a weekend of stewing things over, markets rocketed higher again today, and are now comfortably sitting at the highs of the year. So why the powerful rally despite the so-so fundamentals? Maybe because rising unemployment guarantees a continuation of sub-0% interest rates. Think about it. In recent months, stocks have maintained a tight 1-to-1 inverse correlation with the dollar. As the dollar declines, stocks go...

Why is the Stock Market Rising When The Economic Recovery is Weak? Stock-Markets / US Interest Rates Nov 10, 2009 - 04:35 AM By: John_Mauldin "Why" many ask, "is the stock market going up when the bond market is telling us the recovery will be tepid? Isn't there a disconnect?" And the answer is that there is, and this week good friend and fishing buddy Paul McCulley of PIMCO fame discusses that very topic with his usual insight and wit. He poses the conundrum that those expecting a "V" shaped recovery have pushed risk assets up quite high, and that...

Stocks Rocket To Biggest Gains Of 2009 Vince VenezianiNov. 9, 2009, 4:03 PM Today was one for the record books. The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its 2009 year high today, going as high 10,228 in late afternoon trading and finishing at 10,227. The NASDAQ didn't do too bad either, ending up 41 points at 2154. The S&P 500 was able to gain 23 points to close at 1093. The Federal Reserve today also released a survey that shows banks are still limiting the amount of credit offered to both businesses and consumers. The market couldn't have cared less. Gold...

The Feds Have No Faith In Economic Recovery Economics / Economic Stimulus Nov 05, 2009 - 05:18 AM By: Michael_Pento The stock market has enjoyed a significant rally since the end of the first quarter. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported last week that the economy grew at a 3.5% annual rate in the third quarter--a figure they achieved by that claiming inflation was running at only a 0.8% annual rate, despite a sharp drop in the dollar, a spike in commodity prices and record highs for gold. The cyclical bull market in stocks and positive print on GDP has...

Europe Stocks Trim Losses After ECB, BoE Decisions Thu Nov 5, 2009 8:04am EST By Blaise Robinson PARIS, Nov 5 (Reuters) - European stocks were down 0.3 percent by early afternoon on Thursday, with banks and miners among the biggest losers. Yet shares trimmed their losses after both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank kept rates unchanged. The BoE kept rates on hold and said it would expand its quantitative easing programme by 25 billion pounds ($41 billion), while the ECB kept interest rates at 1 percent as expected. The two central banks' decisions came a day...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks ended mixed Wednesday, giving up bigger gains after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged and said it will keep them low for an extended period. The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) gained 30 points or 0.3%, according to early tallies. The Dow had gained as much as 156 points in the afternoon, but couldn't sustain those gains through the close. The S&P 500 (SPX) gained 1 point, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) lost a few points. Stocks rose through the early afternoon as investors welcomed a pair of labor market reports that...

Sell-off, Telecom Meltdown Continue By Akash Joshi The stock market saw the steepest fall after August on Tuesday as benchmark indices fell for the sixth straight trading session on huge sell-off in heavyweight stocks and weak cues from global markets. The pressure on telecom stocks continued as Reliance Communications (RCOM.NS : 165.8 0) fell 5.7% to close at Rs 165.8, in it seventh straight day of losses. Though its rival Bharti Airtel (BHARTIARTL.BO : 299.95 0) closed on the positive zone, the pressure on telecom stocks persisted. In the current year, RComm slid by 27% and Bharti by 16% when...

Asian And European Stocks Tank Joe WeisenthalNov. 3, 2009, 5:43 AM Yesterday's crazy trading ended surprisingly higher, but markets overseas couldn't follow through. Asian markets generally ended lower, with Hong Kong down 1.8%, Europe is sharply lower as well, with all major indices down over 1.3%. In the US, futures are following suit, pointing straight down.[snip]

Technical Analyst: The World Is About To End Henry BlodgetNov. 3, 2009, 6:59 AMSince expressing (ridicule) skepticism about technical analysis a few months ago, we have been politely badgered by reader John Brims, who has been sending us charts and murmuring about wedges. We will confess that we have not been listening too carefully, because, well, because we think technical analysis is a bunch of bullsh**. But John has been persistent, so we'll give him his chance to shine. John says the chart below indicates that the world is about to end. So hang on to your hat! Henry, I...

Is the U.S. Dollar About To Crush Stocks? Currencies / US Dollar Nov 02, 2009 - 07:00 AM By: Graham_Summers Long-time readers know that I’ve begun to develop a love/hate relationship with the US Dollar. On one hand I believe the US currency is horribly flawed given our unserviceable debt load and the Fed’s profligate spending. However, on the other hand, to make money investing you have to be willing to go against the crowd. And with less than 3% of investors currently bullish on the US Dollar, the contrarian in me can’t help but wonder if we have the...

Posted Nov 02, 2009 11:00am EST By Aaron Task in Investing Stocks rose sharply early Monday, quelling concerns (for now at least) about another rout after Friday's big decline. As Wells Capital's Jim Paulsen might say, the very fact so many people were worried about a possible crash Monday is a sign of the prevailing bearish sentiment. The market will continue to climb this proverbial "wall of worry," say bulls like Paulsen. That may well prove true but the past few weeks have reintroduced a level of volatility largely absent since the July lows. Clearly, the tenor of the market...

Will Markets Miss Another Shot At A Healthy Correction? Ron Coby Nov 02, 2009 9:05 am Every time they're ready to break down, they rally instead. My favorite Peanuts cartoon was Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football. I’m sure you all remember them: Lucy convinces Charlie Brown she’ll hold the ball while he kicks it. But every time Charlie Brown runs to kick the ball, Lucy pulls it away, leaving Charlie Brown flat on his back , crying out in pain and disillusionment . Well, that’s how the bears have felt since March. They’ve played the part of Charlie...

Nikkei (Japan Stocks) Slides On Strong Yen, Wall St Drop Sun Nov 1, 2009 7:09pm EST TOKYO, Nov 2 (Reuters) - The Nikkei average slipped 1.3 percent at the open on Monday, with shares falling across the board, hit by a stronger yen and after Wall Street tumbled on weak consumer spending data and renewed worries about Citigroup's (C.N) balance sheet. The benchmark Nikkei .N225 shed 130.97 points to 9,903.77 at the open before falling to its lowest point in three weeks.[snip]The Nikkei is down 2.5% as I post this. See here.

Stocks Get Spooked By Elizabeth Trotta 10/31/09 - 02:56 PM EDTNEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Volatility spiked, and a strengthening dollar, compounded with a soft consumer spending report and sustainability fears, made for a dreary close to the month and what one observer called "a precarious position." October held true to its reputation as a bad month for stocks: The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up less than one half of a point; the S&P 500 lost just less than 2%; and the Nasdaq fell 3.6%. Much of those losses materialized Friday. The Dow lost 249.85 points, or 2.5%, to 9709,...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks tumbled Friday, more than erasing the previous session's gains, as investors dumped a variety of shares at the end of a rough week and choppy month on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost nearly 250 points, or 2.5%, according to early tallies. The Dow lost as much as 278 points earlier. It was the Dow's biggest one-day selloff on a point basis since April 20. The S&P 500 (SPX) index fell 30 points, or 2.8% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) shed 52 points, or 2.5%. The selloff was broad based, with all...

Treasurues-Bonds Jump As Mixed Data Fuels Recovery Doubts Fri Oct 30, 2009 11:29am EDT By Richard Leong NEW YORK, Oct 30 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasuries debt prices rose on Friday after a batch of mixed signals fanned skepticism about the strength of an economic recovery, rekindling a safety bid for bonds. Concerns that the the world's biggest economy could contract again hammered Wall Street, a day after the government said the United States posted its first quarterly growth in more than a year. With the economy still fragile a year after the global credit crisis, the Federal Reserve will likely...

Oil Futures Give Back Some Of Previous Day's SurgeCrude still set to gain more than 11% for October as dollar slumps.Oct. 30, 2009, 11:15 a.m. EDT Polya Lesova, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures dipped on Friday after a 3.1% surge in the previous session on news the U.S. economy returned to growth, as a mixed batch of economic reports led traders to reassess the outlook for energy demand. Crude oil for December delivery was recently down 80 cents, or 1%, at $79.07 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Still, oil has gained more than 11%...

NEW YORK (AP) - Signs of a weaker housing market gave stock investors another reason to be cautious. Stocks fell Wednesday after the Commerce Department said new home sales dropped for the first time in five months. Sales slid 3.6 percent in September to 402,000 from 417,000 in August, well below the 440,000 analysts had forecast. Investors also pulled back after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reduced its expectation for the nation's economic output for the July-September period. Goldman Sachs expects third-quarter gross domestic product rose at an annual rate of 2.7 percent, weaker than its earlier forecast of 3 percent....

Wall Street Tumbles On Recovery Woes Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:36pm EDT By Ellis Mnyandu NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks tumbled in a broad sell-off on Wednesday, sending the benchmark S&P 500 lower for a fourth straight day, after weak data on new home sales heightened concerns about the pace of the economic recovery. Financials, technology, materials and industrial sectors, which underpinned the market's advance from March, bore the brunt of the slide as investors reassessed their bets. "The housing data definitely created an additional leg down in the market," said Mike O'Rourke, chief market strategist at institutional brokerage...

Asia Shares Dip, Weak Oil Hits Resource Firms On 12:23 am EDT, Tuesday October 27, 2009 By Susan Fenton HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asian shares followed Wall Street lower on Tuesday with resources stocks under pressure as the price of oil stayed below $79 and with investors growing increasingly worried about the recovery of the world economy. Japan's Nikkei index (Osaka:^N225 - News) was down 1.3 percent with shares in Mitsubishi (Tokyo:8058.T - News) skidding 4.3 percent as trading houses were hurt by lower oil and commodity prices in the past day. Oil was at $78.78, below $79 a barrel...

U.S. stocks posted their first weekly decline in three weeks as several major companies forecast earnings that trailed Wall Street estimates. Boeing slid 6.2 percent, the steepest drop among companies in the Dow Jones industrial average, as it posted a loss that was bigger than analysts forecast and reduced its full-year profit projection. Boston Scientific posted its biggest drop since February on concerns that sales of heart devices are slowing. Burlington Northern, meanwhile, fell 8.4 percent -- the most since March -- on concerns that shipments of consumer products will remain weak. "Given that the market has moved up so...

Nouriel Roubini: Big Crash Coming Written by Dave Nadig October 23, 2009 00:00 AM Dr. Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics and international business at the Stern School of Business at NYU and chairman of RGE Monitor, is perhaps best known for his prescient predictions of the financial market collapse in 2005.Dr. Roubini will be the keynote speaker at IndexUniverse’s upcoming “Inside Commodities” conference on Nov. 4 at the New York Stock Exchange. We sat down with Dr. Roubini ahead of the conference to take his temperature on global markets, the role of oil (NYSEArca: USO) and gold (NYSEArca: GLD) and...

Dow Falls Below 10,000 As 'Sell The News' Prevails By Elizabeth Trotta 10/23/09 - 04:24 PM EDT NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The Dow fell below 10,000, and the major averages retreated Friday, as better than expected data and earnings from Microsoft(MSFT Quote) and Amazon(AMZN Quote) did little for other stocks in a "sell the news" environment. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 109.13 points, or 1.1%, to 9,972.18, while the S&P 500 gave up 13.31 points, or 1.2%, to 1079.60. The Nasdaq edged down 10.82 points, or 0.5%, to 2154.47. Microsoft and Amazon shares were higher by 5.6% and 26.7%,...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks slumped Friday, in a broad-based selloff that was especially hard on the leaders of the most recent leg of the rally - banks, energy shares and transportation companies. The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 109 points, or 1.1%, according to early tallies. The S&P 500 (SPX) index lost 13 points or 1.2%. The Nasdaq composite (COMP) lost 10 points or 0.5%. Stocks had risen in the morning after upbeat results from Microsoft and Amazon.com and an encouraging reading on existing home sales. But the tone turned negative in the afternoon, as investors cashed out...

Stocks Mixed, But Tech Brightens By Elizabeth Trotta 10/23/09 - 10:26 AM EDT NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The major averages were mixed midmorning Friday despite better than expected existing-home sales data and warmly received earnings from Microsoft(MSFT Quote) and Amazon(AMZN Quote). The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 38 points, to 10,044, while the S&P 500 gave up 2 points, to 1091. The Nasdaq advanced 13 points, to 2178. Stocks were briefly lifted by report a from the National Association of Realtors that showed existing-home sales rose more than expected in September, to 5.57 million, from 5.09 million the month prior...

Stocks now pay way less than bonds once again, but neither pay much... BLINK and you missed it. US equities offered a greater yield on investment than did US Treasury bonds for less than five months... And from the day this oddity struck, 18 Nov. 2008, the S&P still had another one-fifth to fall. "When this inversion occurred, my two older partners assured me it was an anomaly," wrote the late Peter Bernstein in Nov. 2008. The inversion Bernstein referred to had occurred five decades earlier...back when the dividend yield offered by US equities slipped below the yield offered by...

Ahhh.... There is nothing like the smell of an economic collpase in October. The road to recovery on Wall St. hit a pothole yesterday as banking analyst Richard Bove downgraded Wells Fargo (WFC) to a "SELL":

Stocks Fall Ahead Of Close By Elizabeth Trotta 10/21/09 - 03:39 PM EDT NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Oil surged more than $2 but stocks sold off early heading into the close Wednesday as Wall Street raised the bar for earnings. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was recently down 59 points, to 9983, while the S&P 500 shed 5 points to 1086. The Nasdaq gave up 6 points to 2157. Earnings remained in focus, as Yahoo!(YHOO Quote) and Morgan Stanley(YHOO Quote) were still 3.2% and 6.2% higher, respectively, after after strong quarterly reports. Boeing(BA Quote) shares, on the other hand, were...

Market Movers That Aren't Housing by: Wall Strategies October 20, 2009 The market is fixated on the less than desirable housing-related reports out Tuesday morning. Such below-consensus readings on starts and permits are a shot across the bow for regulators to cut the smooth talk and extend the housing tax credit. Whether the tax credit has had a huge impact on overall housing demand in recent months is not very supported in the statistics (low mortgage rates arguably a bigger component). But, much could be said about bolstering market psychology, in this case that of homebuilders. Maybe it is time...

TREASURIES-Edge Up In Asia After Bleak U.S. Data Tue Oct 20, 2009 11:34pm EDT TOKYO, Oct 21 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasuries edged higher in Asia on Wednesday after bleak data on the U.S. housing market and inflation suggested the pace of the economic recovery may be only tepid. * Moderate losses in Asian stocks also encouraged investors to pick up government debt, dealers said. Tokyo's Nikkei average .N225 slipped 0.3 percent and the MSCI index of Asia stocks excluding Japan dipped 0.8 percent .MSCIAPJ. * Dealers said it is questionable if the U.S. housing market will be able to sustain...

A Big, Fat Stock Market Selloff By Eric Fry 10/20/09 Laguna Beach, California – Stocks prices are very, very high… Our contrarian colleagues over at The 5-Minute Forecast continuously lament…which means that the collective anxiety of investors is very, very low. Our colleagues don’t mind that a rising stock market is adding trillions of dollars to the asset side of household balance sheets. That’s good news. But the worrisome part is that a falling stock market could erase those trillions from the ledger just as quickly as they first appeared. And as our colleagues correctly point out, rising share prices,...

Dow Could Go To 13,000. But Will Likely Reverse (Suddenly) By More Than 20% Stock-Markets / Articles Oct 20, 2009 - 07:21 AM By: Andrew_Butter This is the analysis used to predict in May that the Dow would reach 10,000 without a major reversal, (personally I didn’t expect then that it would happen so quickly). I’ve put on my estimate of where I reckon it is now (in red). It’s approaching the “danger zone” (dotted black ring), although reversals when the mispricing is negative tend to be more restrained. That analysis was based on two lines of logic, the first...

The Market Suspense Continues by: David Brown October 20, 2009 On Monday of last week, I posed the question whether the market was about to break out or top out, and for most of the week breaking out seemed the likelier outcome. The plethora of positive earnings, together with better-than-expected revenue from a number of major players -- Google (GOOG); JP Morgan (JPM); Intel (INTC), among others -- fueled the market onward with the Dow crossing 10,000 and the S&P 500 approaching 1,100. The economic indicators were generally good as well, with slightly improved new jobless claims, a very pleasant...

Three Asset Classes That Can Actually Outpace Coming Inflationary Price Increases by: Paco Ahlgren October 19, 2009 This “Excess capacity is temporarily suppressing global prices. But I see inflation as the greater future challenge." - Alan Greenspan, June 25, 2009 "The US economy may witness double-digit inflation in a few years unless the central bank tightens up its monetary policy… Unless we roll in this whole degree of expansion, we will be in trouble… I am not talking 3-5 per cent inflation, I am talking double-digit inflation in the US.” - Alan Greenspan, September 9, 2009 -- Man, the Dow...

Since taking office as the President of the United States, President Obama has encountered crisis after crisis. His next major crisis will be oil prices. Read full article... http://newsflavor.com/politics/international-relations/next-major-obama-crisis/

Stocks are up. Jobs are down. So if you're an investor you're enjoying a vibrant recovery and if you're a worker it still feels like a grinding recession. Since bottoming out in March, the stock market has soared by about 60 percent, one of the most awesome rallies in market history. The Dow Jones Industrial Average cracking 10,000 may not be strategically significant, but it's a psychological breakthrough that's worth cheering after the demoralizing crash that preceded it. While the Dow has been racing upward, however, the unemployment rate has also skyrocketed, from 8.5 percent in March to 9.8 percent...

1929 And Today - Sobering Parallels Abound By Simon Maierhofer On 1:14 pm EDT, Thursday October 15, 2009 When was the last time you saw stocks decline 54% followed by a 55% rally? When was the last time you saw stocks (NYSEArca: VTI - News), bonds (NYSEArca: AGG) and commodities (NYSEArca: DBC - News) move in sync for nearly two years? When was the last time asset allocation did not really provide the diversification and protection it was supposed to? When was the last time, a ten year investment in the stock market delivered negative returns? Investors that care to...

Now that the credit/bank crisis is two years old, and the Dow around 10,000, gold is at highs over $1000. One would think that with $3 trillion of direct US Fed bailout cash, plus $17 trillion of various guarantees and singlehanded support for the US mortgage/financial markets would do something. After the ‘Cash for Clunkers' stimulus, and all the other money thrown into the banking system since the collapse of Lehman a year ago, one would expect some kind of economic rebound. The financial pundits are all making a big deal out of the Dow rally to 10,000. Will it...

U.S. Stock Markets Disconnected From Reality Stock-Markets / Market Manipulation Oct 15, 2009 - 03:57 AM By: John_Browne Earlier this year, I predicted that the 2009 rally in U.S. stocks could bring the Dow Jones Index as high as 10,000. It looks like that level has been achieved. If, at this point, the index reverses course, I would have made a fairly good prediction. However, it is important to get beyond the charts and look at the fundamentals. The furious six-month rally in the stock market has certainly not been mirrored by the economy as a whole. Instead, the country...

My advice, if you are heavily invested sell everything tommorrow. Obama is attacking the Health Care industry, the dollar is collapsing, the budget deficit was nearly $1.5 TRillion for FY 09. Buy Gold or preserve principle in a money market.

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. stocks rallied Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average pushing above 10000 for the first time in a year on better-than-expected quarterly reports from Intel and JPMorgan Chase, and as improved retail sales data lifted Caterpillar and a wave of other industrials. Since hitting a 2009 closing low of 6547.05 March 9, the Dow has tacked on 53% in the past seven months. For Wednesday, the index closed up 144.80 points, or 1.47%, at 10015.86, marking its biggest one-day gain since Aug. 31. The measure hadn't traded at 10000 since Oct. 7, 2008, and hadn't closed...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit the 10,000 mark Wednesday afternoon, reaching the psychologically important level for the first time in more than a year, as strong earnings reports from Inteland J.P. Morgan Chaseboosted sentiment. The closely watched market measure last traded above 10,000 on Oct 7, 2008, and hasn't closed above that level since Oct 3, 2008.

[snip]In case anybody checked, the dollar's path has been steadily downward since the early years of the administration of George W. Bush. And, notwithstanding the bleating you hear about the battered buck, that's just fine with Wall Street. According to Barclays Capital, "since 2003, dollar weakness has gone hand-in-hand with equity rallies." The bank's economists estimate currency depreciation helped to reduce the trade deficit, which added 1.1 percentage points to gross domestic product growth in the first half of 2009 from a year earlier. From the stock market's perspective, Barclays Capital notes in its U.S. Portfolio Strategy weekly letter that...

Are Stocks Ripe For Another Black Monday? By Simon Maierhofer Tuesday October 13, 2009 Investors usually see red when Wall Street has a 'black' day. There have been a number of black days, such as Black Monday, Black Thursday, Black Friday and Black Tuesday. Even though the various black days have been spread out over centuries, there's one thing they all have in common. They arrived unexpectedly. If they were expected, they wouldn't be considered 'black.' Black Mondays In finance, Black Monday refers to Monday, October 19th, 1987. But did you know there were actually three Black Monday's?[snip]

The Stock Market Isn't A Leading Indicator Mike Mish Shedlock Oct 12, 2009 3:20 pm When it comes to recessions, the stock market is only good for hindsight. Inquiring minds are wondering if the stock market is a leading indicator. Consider the following charts: S&P Monthly Chart 1980-1992 Vertical bars on the chart show when recessions began. There were three recession in this period -- starting January 1980, July 1981, and July 1990 -- according to National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions data. The NBER is the official determinant of recessions. Looking at a chart...

Taxing financial transactions on Wall Street is gathering support in high places. With federal budget deficits soaring, policy makers and other advocates are eyeing the huge sums that could be raised as a way to cover the costs of new initiatives. Labor unions, in particular the AFL-CIO, have proposed a financial-transactions tax as a way to defray costs of a health-care overhaul. Lawmakers have discussed a similar fee as a way to cover the cost of future financial oversight. Liberal advocates are pushing the tax to pay for new stimulus spending. This week, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute floated the...

Dow 10,000 - Springboard or Final Kiss Good Bye? By Simon Maierhofer On 11:32 am EDT, Friday October 9, 2009 What would you like to hear first, the good news or the bad news? Well, the good news is that we are approaching Dow 10,000. The bad news is that Dow 10,000 may be nothing more than a good selling opportunity. On March 9th, the Wall Street Journal ran an article titled 'Dow 5,000? There's A Case For It.' The Dow (DJI: ^DJI) bottomed that very day at 6,440, along with the S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC) and Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC),...

Vanguard Cautions Investors On RallyOct. 6, 2009, 4:25 p.m. EDTSam Mamudi, Market WatchDon't be taken in by this year's robust gains, fund firm warns. NEW YORK (MartketWatch) -- Many mutual funds are poised to celebrate stellar returns this year, but one fund firm is going out of its way to warn investors not to get too giddy. Vanguard Group issued a cautionary note on Tuesday, emphasizing that strong third-quarter gains don't mean it's time to go overboard on certain areas of the market. Investors Brace for Earnings SeasonMichael Cuggino of the Permanent Portfolio Funds says the coming parade of quarterly...

The recent bear market has been particularly painful for stocks investors, beginning only five years after the vicious 2000-2002 bear market. For the ten years ending last December, stocks have offered a negative 3.15 per cent real return for US investors, constituting the fourth worse ten year period since 1871. This had led many to question whether the mantra “Stocks for the Long Run,” is still right for investors. But a look at history shows that recent experience is not uncommon and excellent returns are available to those who survive such rough patches. Since 1871, the three worst ten-year returns...

The Great Recession Ended In May 2009: Evidence From Unemployment And The Stock Market In The Last Fourteen Recessions Roger E. A. Farmer 5 October 2009 Has the US recession already ended? This column says that it very likely has, based on evidence from the last fourteen recessions. It predicts that the NBER will declare that the recession ended in May 2009. But that doesn't rule out the dangers of a double dip or jobless recovery. A number of economists, including Chairman Bernanke of the US Federal Reserve, have declared that the current recession is very likely over (Robb, 2009),...