I’m bored out of my fucking mind
April 14, 2000
I spent all day doing nothing. Well, my accomplishment was finishing the tax returns for me and my sister. Played some quake. Wrote in the Choose Your Own Adventure. Watched the stocks die. Oh yeah, got frustrated that Freeza is NOT dead yet - hopefully next episode. You know, it’s been about 6 half hour episodes and the time gone by in the show is supposedly only 5 minutes. You figure out what’s wrong with that. Anyway, he’s gonna die really soon and we can finally get onto the next saga.
Jesse is the second person ever to respond to a rant, his view is up on his site. Michelle was the first ever, she wrote an email in response to a rant on the previous version of this webpage and one of these days, i promise i’ll read it.
In response to Jesse’s 1 line email that the 0.7% increase in the US CPI is one month, not one year, you’re right it is. But that’s not the point. The inflation fear sparked the mass selling which is normal ~ all inflation announcements usually follow selling. The point is, the NASDAQ has been overpriced since I guess… fall of last year, when the whole index was all bull for so long. Companies that weren’t putting out numbers were being overhyped and this whole drop seems more like a market correction rather than a crash.
As for the Dow, it could be that some big tech stocks dragged it down (it ended the day abou 5% off). And the well diversified S&P500, they were about 5% off or so too. Compare that to the almost 10% drop the NAS took. Ouch.
On the happy side, oil is down.
And the lucky winner is…
Wow thanks to all of you who entered the raffle draw… all 2 of you (thanks Andrew and Michelle) BUT the raffle was rigged because well it was rigged. I ended up sharing my little ordeal with none other than Dennis - who I always tell me ordeals too. Sorry people! The outcome: no change in perception. The dilemna still exists, but Dennis just pointed out the things that I knew deep inside but just ignored. It’ll eventually work out, just in the meantime, I’ll have to deal with the nuisance of certain thoughts popping up in my mind.
// More News [12:24]
The US CPI was 0.7% which was higher than expected and fears that rising interest rates affected the market. All the North American markets took hits and even international markets went down - NIKKEI, HANSENG, all down a tiny bit. Gold and bonds are up because people are pulling out of the stock market and going into those. The CDN dollar took a beating. The CDN CPI is to be released on Monday and I doubt it’s any different than the US. I wonder why an inflation of 0.7% is so scary? I thought inflation of ~1% was healthy.
// Ouch that hurts [11:51]
Dow 10421.80 -501.75 (-4.59%) Nasdaq 3392.16 -284.62 (-7.74%). That’s what I wake up to. That hurts. The NASDAQ fell about 1000 points THIS week. Actually people should’ve have seen it coming a long time ago. Practically the whole index is overrated. People are buying tech names and dot.coms left and right because EVERYONE is buying them.
Let’s use some finance learned this year. Stock prices are dictated by most part the expected dividends the company is going to give. Sure, capital gains make up a portion, but any analyst will tell you that the expected dividends make up a good chunk of a stock price.
For the last year now, tech stocks have been inflated way over their prices from impulse buyers looking for the quick million. Take all those Super IPOs. They are way too hyped. How can people boost the price of a stock up 200, 300% when the company is in its infancy and doesn’t even have enough information to tell about its expected earnings and such? Again it’s all part of the big quick change. You buy in on a company, expecting that since it’s a dot.com or tech company, it’ll skyrocket in the two or three days it’s sold to the secondary, and you sell it off, keeping that nice 100+% profit. Sure there are many of those around… but get rid of those risky stocks quickly. Most IPOs drop in price or even get withdrawn. When they hit a nice high, don’t hang on to them hoping for even more gains. Cash in early.
I really hope anyone who has stocks right now diversified well enough so that their portfolio isn’t comprised of ONLY tech (there are a lot of portfolios like that). I don’t have a portfolio but on my stock game, I’m down 6% because 40% of my money is in bluechips and utilities - which are more or less market indepedent. The biggest hits I took were from the big name techs - Intel, Cisco, etc. The rest took slight dips because they get dragged by the market. Even the NASDAQ 100 TRUST (AMEX:QQQ), which should copy the index didn’t do as badly as the tech’s. It’s only down 6% compared to the rest of the market 7.7%.
I don’t have the necessary education to tell if this low is just a trading lull, or if this is the equilibrium level. What I guess is that tomorrow, many people will pick up super cheap stocks and the index will pop up to 3500 or so (which is my guess what the equilibrium level is). So pick up some cheap stocks (if you still have cash left hehe) and don’t just buy those dot.coms.
[i'm not liable for any financial loss or gain resulting from following my advice. Hell i'm just some second year commerce guy. I don't trust myself sometimes.]
Hey cool. Gold is up a teenie bit.
Quote I just picked up [01:30]
The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them - Mark Twain
I hate dilemnas [00:56]
Just came back from a little outing to lessen the stress built up all week. First pool - I got rocked today, my shots were all screwed up. Then we went to bk for a long deserved poutine… yum. After we filled ourselves with crud food, we then went to Jack’s Loft for crud bubble tea. I guess I would’ve had more fun if the company was slightly different (just slightly) and if I didn’t have a little dilemna that’s been bugging me for a week or so.
I wish I could write it all out on my lovely little webpage, but if you know me well enough, you’ll know I always keep my problems bottled up. Repression is my specialty. It’s not a big deal. I won’t die. I never die from external problems - it’s not worth it.
So what’s new with you people? I’m so tired from studying and so much crap all month, all year long. Screw it all.
Hmm… you know I think I just might break my discipline and tell someone about it and ask what would they do… who shall it be who shall it be… who will be the (un)lucky one? Maybe it could be you! Hey! Let’s make it fun: enter your name in the raffle draw for the chance to be the lucky one! Deadline is end of this month!
