Current market carnage - anyone selling or buying?

talexuser

This guy has been predicting a crash for several years now. If you predict a big crash every year for 10 or more years at some point you will have been proved right. It doesn't help the people who may have been out of the market for the previous 9 years on your advice, in fact it proves nothing at all, except that when you can state the obvious eventually it will be so.

That is not to say there won't be a crash soon, but avoiding it while maximising returns in the meantime is more a matter of luck. To be 100% sure of avoiding the next crash, stay in cash permanently and lose out on growth.

bowlhead99

Wikipedia: Paul Samuelson
Paul Anthony Samuelson (born May 15, 1915) is an American neoclassical economist known for his contributions to many fields of economics, beginning with his general statement of the comparative statics method in his 1947 book Foundations of Economic Analysis. Samuelson was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 1947 and was sole recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1970, the second year of the Prize.
(...)
For many years, Samuelson wrote a column for Newsweek. One article included Samuelson’s most quoted remark, and a favorite economics joke:

To prove that Wall Street is an early omen of movements still to come in GNP, commentators quote economic studies alleging that market downturns predicted four out of the last five recessions. That is an understatement. Wall Street indexes predicted nine out of the last five recessions! And its mistakes were beauties.
-- “Science and Stocks,” Newsweek, September 1966

Similarly, in 1929 the Harvard Economic Society declared that a depression was "outside the range of probability". How did that go again? Great.

caveman38

It is a few years since I had an IG account for both spread betting and CFD's. I seem to remember that I could leverage X 10 on blue chip shares but the position would close if my a deposit account was nearing exhaustion and I couldn't be contacted to make a payment.
In other words if I had £50K in the account, bet £20K on a position and if it went tits up when the losses neared the £50K they would contact me and if I was unreachable or had no funds then they closed the position and I had an empty account.
If as the story goes one trader lost £300K, is it the case that he had that money in his account or they are chasing him for monies he didn't; have in the account.
Excuse my ignorance but it seems a lot to hold in an account - at least by my standards.

Thrugelmir

El_Selb wrote: »

Was anyone else worried, or take any heed of RBS' comments earlier in the week?

"Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has told investors to run for cover with 2016 set to be a 'cataclysmic' year for markets... the investment bank said: ‘Sell everything except high quality bonds. This is about return of capital, not return on capital. In a crowded hall the exit doors are small.’ "

RBS are far from alone. Fair to say there's an air of nervousness generally. Lot of poker being played. Someone is going to have to fold their hand.

Thrugelmir

InvestInPoker wrote: »

Anybody who listens to anything RBS says needs their head examined.

Are you one of the ostrich club?

InvestInPoker

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Are you one of the ostrich club?

Nope, do you believe everything you read?

tg99

caveman38 wrote: »

It is a few years since I had an IG account for both spread betting and CFD's. I seem to remember that I could leverage X 10 on blue chip shares but the position would close if my a deposit account was nearing exhaustion and I couldn't be contacted to make a payment.
In other words if I had £50K in the account, bet £20K on a position and if it went tits up when the losses neared the £50K they would contact me and if I was unreachable or had no funds then they closed the position and I had an empty account.
If as the story goes one trader lost £300K, is it the case that he had that money in his account or they are chasing him for monies he didn't; have in the account.
Excuse my ignorance but it seems a lot to hold in an account - at least by my standards.

So it sounds like you had a deposit account with no credit or next day margin facilities such that you needed to keep the full notional exposure in funds in your account if you wanted to avoid being closed out if the market moves against you.

Guessing that trader may have had some money in the account to back his / her initial leveraged position but not anywhere near the full £300k and that the majority of losses were from the one off spike in CHF that resulted in a loss over and above the funds in the account exacerbated by not being able to exit straight away. Hence would then owe funds to IG to settle his or her account balance.

Thrugelmir

InvestInPoker wrote: »

Nope, do you believe everything you read?

I keep an open mind to what I read and hear. Irrespective of my personal viewpoint at the time. As my view does change with the direction of the wind. I never rubbish organisations because of their views as no one every gets it a 100% right. .

InvestInPoker

I never rubbish organisations because of their views as no one every gets it a 100% right. .

I would never rubbish an organisation simply because it holds a strong view. I would however rubbish them and be far less inclined to listen to what they have to say if they have historically proven themselves to be idiots (and needed to be bailed out financially).

JohnRo

Bear in mind the truly extraordinary measures taken by governments and the global politburo to prop up the whole rotten banking casino in recent years. Some of these predictions are more than just doom and gloom rhetoric, they're quite carefully considered.
Perhaps what many of these gloomy predictions haven't accounted for though, is the extent to which governments are captured and the central politburo is prepared to effectively become the market in order to keep their wealthy client/owners in the manner to which they're accustomed.
Who would have thought in 2008 after the crooked banking enterprise all but collapsed that those same crooks would still be allowed and doing all the same things that caused it while getting bailed out at everyone else's expense 8 years later and counting.