DOW 5,000...??? (Page 2)

Once again...  agree on inflation...  and i'll back you on the packer thing...  seeing that i grew up in MN and i'm a vikings fan!!!   

The Revolutionary War was all because no one wanted free health care or a minimum wage.

 While I used the word free health care, there is no such thing, government paid health care would have been more correct, which will be more expensive and much lower quality. Minimum wage does not increase anyone's actual status, it just brings more people to the bottom. 

So let me ask you, are you saying we would be better off with with the federal government controlling more of our economy and our daily needs?

Do you want to see the US move to a more federally controlled socialistic country?

Should the federal government set the salaries for every industry in your opinion?

I'm a libertarian and as such favor abolishing the government in general. YOU said our forefathers fought and died to get away from the socialist European system. Arguably Marx is the founder of socialism and as such socialism wasn't around when our forefathers fought and died to get away from the European model.

That's NOT quite what I said. 

The European model I was referring to was a  large government, with lots of high taxes by people far removed for the common person, spending the tax dollars in an irresponsible way.

Hope that clears up you confusion.

Is that as low as it can possibly go? I can already see the hits the market will face when :

• Target 
• Blockbuster
• John Deere
• Dell
• Who's Your Daddy,Inc.

It opened up.  Go figure. 

I don't even know what the DOW number really means

I do know that If I can earn more interest on an invetsment than I am paying in interest on debt then I should put any disposable income towartds the investment and not the debt. I think.

But today is a rest day, I got a bonus payout from work, I'm getting married in a week, and life is great!!! And I really mean that!

stock market = casino

realizing this has greatly improved my investment returns

Technically speaking, you can bet against any company or index in the market. Usually, the bigger the company, the easier it is. ie there is a way of selling GE stocks (Just an exemple here!!), hoping for it to go down and if "lucky" buy it back at a lower price to make a profit.

Here is out it works:
First, in order to short a stock, you need a margin account at your broker
Second, you need to sell the stock, since you don't own it, you need to borrow it from your broker (done automatically when you send an order). If the broker have it in its inventory, only then will you be able to short it.
Say you can borrow the stock, the sell order will go through and you will profit from a drop in the stock price, and lose when the price go up. But that never happens right? ;-)
Then you buy the stock back whenever you feel is the right time to close the trade.

But there are additionnal risks and costs related to short selling:
If the price goes up too much and you can't put more money in your brokerage account, you will be forced to close the trade, most likely at a loss. That would be a margin call.
Since you borrow the stock, you will need to pay interest on the amount borrowed.
When there are dividend payments, you will pay them instead of receiving them.
If your broker need his inventory, he can make you close the trade whatever the price (Rare but can happen)

That's it, happy short selling!

Edit: Dow below 5000? Don't know. But I'll bet you a nickel that no more than half of those companies will survive as they are to see year 2011: Citigroup, Bank of america, JP Morgan, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Prudential, GE