Investor's Mind

Here's a funny diagram of how an investor thinks (hat tip Digg):




I can relate because I've done some of this myself before. And lost lots of money this way.

Now, I know when to cut my losses and when to ride out the bumps. The past year or so, owning stocks like SH, DXD and QID has been painful since they have gone down about 16% and up 20+%. However, the fundamental course of the US economy (and world economy) is negative without any end in sight. I'm expecting Great Depression #2 (GD2) but I have no idea when people will face the reality of an economic depression (mainly because most of us have never lived through one).

What makes me so sure that we're getting a GD? The dotcom bubble begot the housing bubble and crazy asset inflation got so high that it will take many years if not decades to work through the message the bubbles have created. Just as Japan took almost 20 years to work through their bubble (and they will probably decline with the US so their recovery lasted only one or two years), I'd guess that US will take just as long to clean up the bubbles. The only difference between US and Japan is that US has very little personal savings while Japanese were (and still are) a nation of savers. People talk about transparencies of US financial system compared to Japan, but with tools like SIVs and other off the books financial instruments, I don't see much difference between the two countries. And like Japan, it seems that US government "has to do something" about it, prolonging and exasperating the downturn (just like GD1).

The only difference I can see between US and Japan is that with the Internet, news travel fast and accurate home price information is freely available, so the real estate prices may correct faster here than it was in Japan.

Copyright 2008, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.