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Posts Made By: Paul Kammueller

May 8, 2003 04:25 PM Forum: Investment Discussions

Stock Market - latest trends

Posted By Paul Kammueller
This is a slightly expanded version of the post I put on the OT forum.

In case any of my fellow astronomers find charts interesting, I personally find trend analysis interesting (this is a highly complex form of analysis that can be done by anyone who can draw a straight line with a ruler).

The nasdaq just bumped off the top of its 3-year-long downtrend channel on the logarithmic scale. If it gets to a new high at all from this point, it could mark the end of the bear market on a trend-channel basis. If it fails, well...

Looking at the S&P500, things are looking similar but not quite identical. The S&P hasn't reached the top of its downtrend channel, but it's getting there...


May 8, 2003 05:02 PM Forum: Investment Discussions

S&P500 -- the BIG picture (30+ yrs)

Posted By Paul Kammueller
Everybody knows the long term trend is up. But the exact slope of that trend changes considerably from one decade to the next.

Here's a 30+ year log chart of the S&P. There is a case to be made that the recent S&P bottoms are final bottoms of the bear market (blue trendlines). Though the blue trendlines represent a sort of 25+ year 'superbull' phase for the market where the slope was steeper than normal.

A more disturbing possibility is the bottom somewhere in the 500's on the shallower long-long term trend (purple lines long-long-term uptrend, redline recent downtrend) linking the 1974 lows with the 1984 lows occurring at the end of the last long slide to the bottom of that long-term channel.


May 8, 2003 06:03 PM Forum: Investment Discussions

Nasdaq - the BIG picture (30 yrs)

Posted By Paul Kammueller
Doing the same long-term view of the nasdaq is a little harder to evaluate because it hasn't existed as long. An overall trend range (blue lines) is fairly apparent but is complicated by a severe period of deviation from that range with the tech craze of the latter 1990's and the lower bound of this trend range appears to have been broken (though very briefly) in the last year.


May 9, 2003 04:08 AM Forum: Investment Discussions

The VIX! (Volatility Index) - 5-year chart

Posted By Paul Kammueller
This one is fun to watch. A pretty good gauge of the market's "mood". 40+ indicates extreme tension. 50-ish is bordering on outright panic. Low 20's to high teens indicates high optimism, calm or complacency.

May 9, 2003 12:40 PM Forum: Investment Discussions

Mutual Funds vs. Individual Stocks

Posted By Paul Kammueller
Someone here mentioned staying away from mutual funds. I can't find it now. But I have an issue with this.

I think the inherent diversification protection of funds in general is worth the cost. The bear market illustrates this. You can lose 90-100% of your investment easy in an individual stock and many have done so since the market peak in 2000. The S&P500 is down, what, 40%? And it seems today's "solid company" is tomorrow's accounting debacle. And a lot of still-'solid' companies are down much worse than the overall indices.

I'm a fan of index funds myself.

May 9, 2003 02:25 PM Forum: Investment Discussions

Meade Instruments Corp. (ticker: MEAD)

Posted By Paul Kammueller
Interesting chart, especially juxtaposed with rolling earnings-per-share.

May 9, 2003 03:32 PM Forum: Investment Discussions

Best & Worst investments in telescopes

Posted By Paul Kammueller
My best: A TV Oracle 3 apo purchased new in 1987 for $750. Appreciated 50% after 13 years of use when I sold it.

My worst: a 14.5" truss-dob with a turned edge that I hadn't discovered until years after the maker went out of business. Cost about $1800, had to part it out for half that or less.

May 9, 2003 04:29 PM Forum: Religion

Pot-heads: "Pot" 26 of last 30 posts

Posted By Paul Kammueller
Okay can we call it "weed" or something? Where I come from "pot" is a thing you sit on to go take a dump.

May 12, 2003 04:51 AM Forum: Investment Discussions

GDP, stock prices, corp profits + money supply

Posted By Paul Kammueller
Here's an extension of the last chart. Extended the time back to 1965, the heyday (and winding down, in 1968-72) of the previous-generation bull market. Superimposed the broadest measure of national liquidity, the M3 money supply (yellow line).

Used somewhat different multipliers than the last chart to get the means of the lines close to each other on the chart. Several things worthy of note:

1) stock prices are way ahead of corporate profits;
2) corporate profits have lagged a while now and are due for a serious bounce if one looks at the history of the green line; profits are way behind the money supply and at least slightly behind the economy;
3) The late 90's stock super-rally coincides with a sudden run-up of the money supply. All that dough had to go somewhere and it found its way to the stock market. It didn't go to inflation of consumer goods, so it went to a sudden inflation of stock prices.
4) I think this is interesting, just an observation, how much money supply, profits, and stock prices all gyrate all over the chart, but GDP hardly deviates at all.

May 12, 2003 12:16 PM Forum: Investment Discussions

The God Almighty Dollar

Posted By Paul Kammueller
The dollar's sliding to new 4-year lows this morning. Opinions: a negative for the markets, because it makes U.S. financial assets less valuable? Or a plus for the markets because it will boost exports and shrink our trade deficit? Or you think the two effects will sort of null each other out?

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