Step up and call the bottom!

[laurence]

Step right up! Take your shot at being a financial prognosticator! Vote on the poll for a general range and then post your exact number for the bottom of the DOW over the next six months. By choosing six months I am exhibiting some optimism as I think we are near the bottom but to be clear, it is the low point of the Dow from now until September 2nd, 2009. That means if it's lower on September 3rd, that does not count. For the winner, I will make a $40 donation to your favorite charity (no really) in your name. I figure no one wants to hand out their address to some Internet stranger who could be an axe murderer ("But he has Bud Lite!" "And and axe!") The winner will be the one with the number posted that is closest to the low, either over or under.

So I'll start by guessing 6000 as the low for the DOW, I see too much resistance for it going any lower than that.

 

[bbbamI]

0

BTW, Fancy Feast is 60 cents a can now.

 

[Gpond]

Bob Brinker is still bullish.

We are going to 0.

 

[FIREd]

Honey, I am selling silver on Ebay...

 

[ziggy29]

Low 5000s.

 

[laurence]

0 I thought I made it clear this ain't the price is right where going over doesn't DQ you! Man, some down people here today!

 

[Leonidas]

Laurence - if you can make it stop going down no later than 2 September I will donate $40 to your favorite charity.

Seriously, I don't know where the bottom is on this sucker. I started paying more attention to technical indicators and we keep blowing through resistance levels. I think the best trade that the traders can think of is to short anything to do with the...whatever we're calling the government's bailout/recovery program this week...and everyone else is just sitting on the sidelines waiting for the numbers to quit getting smaller.

Re: Ziggy's guesstimate. If it's going to 5,000 I wish it would do it today. Bang! and fall like a rock and make people run away from the market like their hair is on fire. This down 200-300 points every other day is ridiculous and driving me nuts. If we're going to have a mammoth train wreck - I would like to get on with it rather than drag it out in this slow motion torture.

 

[jug]

5400

 

[al_bundy]

i think around 6500 - 6000 i'll probably move my kid's 529 from cash to stocks. it's been in cash since 1/2008 when i opened it

 

[ziggy29]

Re: Ziggy's guesstimate. If it's going to 5,000 I wish it would do it today. Bang! and fall like a rock and make people run away from the market like their hair is on fire. This down 200-300 points every other day is ridiculous and driving me nuts. If we're going to have a mammoth train wreck - I would like to get on with it rather than drag it out in this slow motion torture.

Personally I agree. This is water torture. At least in 1987 it was over quickly.

 

[REWahoo]

If it's going to 5,000 I wish it would do it today. Bang! and fall like a rock and make people run away from the market like their hair is on fire.

I agree.

What we need is a major negative event, like the bankruptcy of GM or BofA, something to psychologically purge the system and drop the bottom out of the markets so we'll reach capitulation and can begin to lick our wounds and start the long, slow recovery process. I think that would be less damaging and result in a higher bottom than we're headed for under the current Chinese water torture slide downward.

Predictions

- With no 'psychological purge': 5,700 by 9/2 - and that won't be the bottom.
- With a major event leading to capitulation prior to 9/2: 5,200

 

[shotgunner]

5274 by 9/2/2009. Final bottom for the DOW in 2010 at 2755.

 

[Running_Man]

Bears should beware the ides of March!
Prefer a time range to point, I think we are in the last legs of this down leg and will follow with a nice 6 month rally to the fall. But since numbers are required I will pick 6,352.

Don't ask me what I am afraid of come Sept-Dec...........

 

[DoubleDown]

DOW 5975. I'll be buying all the way down too.

 

[W2R]

You guys are such optimists.

Not me. Maybe being back at work after a much needed vacation last week has resulted in a bad attitude. Or maybe it was my portfolio experiencing significant shrinkage. Whatever. But honestly, I was thinking something like 3700, lasting at least from 2010-2013.

Grumble, grumble. Get off my lawn, you kids.

Sure is a long ways from Whee!

 

[Orchidflower]

I wish some of you guessing the Dow will be really low would give your rational for that judgment.
Regardless, I'm guessing 6,000, but who knows? Riding it out to "0" here with 2 Tylenol Tension Aspirin just today, so I'm going swimming and try to forget about the market for, at least, an hour or two.

 

[bbbamI]

0 I thought I made it clear this ain't the price is right where going over doesn't DQ you! Man, some down people here today!

My apologizes laurence.... I should have said Ohhhhh....

How about 2? Does that make it better? Now, it certainly won't get that bad and that thought makes me feel a little more content.

 

[JustMeUC]

Well, when it hit 10,000 I called the bottom.

When someone said we will see 8000 I laughed my fool head off at them....


Now, I just shake my head and say that I can't even imagine anymore.

For the sake of just throwing a number out there, I am going to say:

4946

 

[ziggy29]

I wish some of you guessing the Dow will be really low would give your rational for that judgment.

I'll give it a try.

Start with runaway fear (no, make that abject panic), no resolution to the banks and the housing mess and the market showing zero confidence in the government's ability to stop the bleeding any time soon.

Massive uncertainty. Nothing worse for markets than extreme uncertainty in tough times. Right now, no matter what happens, it just keep expecting more and more shoes to drop. Until the market thinks all the biggest shoes have dropped (and reduces the rampant uncertainty), I think the very strong bias is to keep drifting downward.

I think part of the reason the market has often tumbled in the last hour is that they are holding out some hope during the day that *something* positive will be announced that day to give hopes that there's something in the pipeline to clean up the banking and housing mess. When it isn't announced by 2:30, people bail out, partially because they were in for a possible sharp rally that isn't going to come now, and partially out of uncertainty (again that word) that something horrible may happen after the close (or in European or Asian trading) that leaves them vulnerable to a huge selloff at the open -- while they are still long.

A lot of this is the traders, I think, and the tendency is to not want to maintain short-term trading positions after the close.

There is no rationality to this market. There is no resolution of massive uncertainty which feels imminent to the market. And that's why I think there's a fair bit to go down. But I also think at some point it's going to snap back violently when the markets cheer what it believes to be a workable potential resolution to the mess. They just don't see it anywhere on the horizon at the moment.

 

[laurence]

Wow, almost everyone sees more than 10% downside from here, that's grim! I do agree, it's water torture, hit the bottom already.

 

[Moemg]

I am going to say 6100 and please end this torture . I am about ready to give up & get out .

 

[Orchidflower]

Isn't Bob Brinker saying 500 for the S&P and 5,000 for the Dow is a real possibility? (sigh) Do I have the backbone to hang in there is the question now?

 

[HFWR]

This website: DJIA P/E RATIO, DJIA EARNINGS AND DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE FAIR VALUE opines $657 in Dow earnings in 2009. Assuming a P/E of 10, that gives us 6570.

SWAG, for sure...

 

[youbet]

That was an interesting read HFWR, thanks!

 

[hankster]

Bottom: Dow 5,760