Dow almost halved in just over a year

[kingmonty]

We all know there is large scale turmoil on financial markets world wide. I've just been going through some performance charts and have noticed a few alarming trends. Firstly, the Dow Jones is currently at a 5 year low - trading at early 2003 levels (currently pegged at below the 8000 level). But what is really scary is the speed at which it dropped from a record high in 2007 to 5 year lows - in fourteen months the Dow shed over 40%. Similarly, the FTSE100 in the UK shed over 30% in the last 4 months alone.

We all know markets are cyclic and these trends are just a nature of economies plodding along - but this time purely from the data of the last year, it is clear we're in untested waters. Most of us know that the market was due for a sell off - but now we're entering into a period of gross uncertainty where they're talking about bailing out banks again to try and keep things somewhat afloat - talk that is now resulting in the consensus that the global economies are heading for deflation, a prospect developing economies should fear far more than recession.

May you live in interesting times. Indeed.

 

[lilGr]

Doh! *Reaches for a beer*

 

[sand_man]

What about the all share? Touched 33000 points in May this year and at todays close it's 17814!!!! That's just over 46% of it's value shed in just over 6 months!!!! Frigging scary!!!

 

[StrongTurd]

Sandman, I don't know if you've seen my doomsday thread but this thing is unprecedented in our lifetimes:

In the first year of the current bear market, the market has fallen more steeply than it did during the first years of the Great Depression's bear markets. After adjusting for inflation, stocks are more than 40 percent lower than they were at their 2007 high (and more than 50 percent lower than their 2000 high).

I can honestly not see any reason why this will not unfold into something worse that the Great Depression because this time round the dollar isn't backed by gold and the world has reached the peak of oil production and is set to decline at more than 6% p.a. going forward. In other words, we won't have abundant cheap oil to get us out of this mess.

I sincerely hope that I'm wrong but things are shockingly scary if the USA has to go and beg for vast sums of money from the Arabs.

 

[sand_man]

Sandman, I don't know if you've seen my doomsday thread but this thing is unprecedented in our lifetimes:

Bits and pieces yes but being a father and a husband I would prefer to live in denial...

 

[StrongTurd]

Bits and pieces yes but being a father and a husband I would prefer to live in denial...

I really think that's a great policy. None of us can really do anything about the fact that we're done with anyways. So why worry?

I personally went through a period in about 2004 when I became peak oil aware when I was shocked to my core about what is about to happen to our way of life. Soon enough, though, I got used to the idea that nothing that you see around you is sustainable and that our children are going to grow up in a vastly different world than what we are used to. One starts gaining a far bigger appreciation for the material abundance that we have when you realise that none of this will be around much longer.