r2i forum

We have had many threads that talk about the collapse of USD, US economy, bloodbath on the streets, financial collapse, and what not.

Past 1.5 years have been an exhilarating ride down and up and then again down the roller coaster. The great rally of 2009 is slowly fizzling out, and the bears are starting to hunt the bulls. Lets use this thread as a one stop shop for all doom and gloom stories/articles/experiences/strategies.

Caution: DYODD
PS: If you are not a doomer and gloomer, you don't belong to this thread. Please create one for yourself.

A Market Forecast That Says ?Take Cover? (NY Times | Jul 2, 2010)

[QUOTE]...we have entered a market decline of staggering proportions ? perhaps the biggest of the last 300 years.[QUOTE]Originating in the writings of Ralph Nelson Elliott, an obscure accountant who found repetitive patterns, or ?fractals,? in the stock market of the 1930s and ?40s, the theory suggests that an epic downswing is under way, Mr. Prechter said. But he argued that even skeptical investors should take his advice seriously. [QUOTE]His advice: individual investors should move completely out of the market and hold cash and cash equivalents, like Treasury bills, for years to come. (For traders with a fair amount of skill and willingness to embrace risk, he suggests other alternatives, like shorting the market or making bets on volatility.) But ultimately, ?the decline will lead to one of the best investment opportunities ever,? he said. Buy-and-hold stock investors will be devastated in a crash much worse than the declines of 2008 and early 2009 or the worst years of the Great Depression or the Panic of 1873, he predicted.

ProShares Short S&P500 (ETF) (Public, NYSE:SH)

http://www.google.com/finance?q=SH

[QUOTE]ProShares Short S&P500 (the Fund) seeks daily investment results that correspond to the inverse (opposite) of the daily performance of the S&P 500 Index (the Index). The S&P 500 Index is a measure of large-cap United States stock market performance. It is a capitalization weighted index of 500 United States operating companies and selected real estate investment trusts. The Fund intends to invest at least 80% of its net assets, including any borrowings for investment purposes, to investments that, in combination, have economic characteristics that are inverse to those of the Index.

Ah...at last!! Feels good! Thanks sid_earth :))

One more article on doom and gloom

Link

[QUOTE]With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932

The US workforce shrank by 652,000 in June, one of the sharpest contractions ever. The rate of hourly earnings fell 0.1pc. Wages are flirting with deflation.

"The economy is still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession," said Robert Reich, former US labour secretary. "All the booster rockets for getting us beyond it are failing."

"Home sales are down. Retail sales are down. Factory orders in May suffered their biggest tumble since March of last year. So what are we doing about it? Less than nothing," he said.

California is tightening faster than Greece. State workers have seen a 14pc fall in earnings this year due to forced furloughs. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is cutting pay for 200,000 state workers to the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to cover his $19bn (£15bn) deficit.

Can Illinois be far behind? The state has a deficit of $12bn and is $5bn in arrears to schools, nursing homes, child care centres, and prisons. "It is getting worse every single day," said state comptroller Daniel Hynes. "We are not paying bills for absolutely essential services. That is obscene."

Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the jobs market altogether over the past two months. That is the only reason why the headline unemployment rate is not exploding to a post-war high.

One more article

Dow Repeats Great Depression Pattern: Charts

[QUOTE]The Dow Jones Industrial Average is repeating a pattern that appeared just before markets fell during the Great Depression, Daryl Guppy, CEO at Guppytraders.com, told CNBC Monday.

?Those who don?t remember history are doomed to repeat it?there was a head and shoulders pattern that developed before the Depression in 1929, then with the recovery in 1930 we had another head and shoulders pattern that preceded a fall in the market, and in the current Dow situation we see an exact repeat of that environment,? Guppy said.

The Dow retreated 457.33 points, or 4.5 percent last week, to close at 9,686 Friday. Guppy said a Dow fall below 9,800 confirmed the head and shoulders pattern.

The Shanghai Composite is seeing a very rapid collapse, falling below 2,500, which suggests the major fall in the Dow, he added.

In the European markets, Guppy says Frankfurt's Dax is witnessing a different pattern to London's FTSE.

Guppy uses the broad trading band as measurement- giving the Dax a downsize target of 1,500. The same head and shoulders pattern seen in the Dow can also being seen in the FTSE, he added.

sid_earth;302967 Doom and gloom strategies.

Caution: DYODD
PS: If you are not a doomer and gloomer, you don't belong to this thread. Please create one for yourself.

1. Sell Equities, bonds and hold cash in Canadian, Australian, Swiss (nations with lower debt to GDP ratio)
2. Buy Gold, commodities

VS007;3031211. Sell Equities, bonds and hold cash in Canadian, Australian, Swiss (nations with lower debt to GDP ratio)
2. Buy Gold, commodities

I think above will be true only for a hyper-inflationary doom scenario. The word on the street is about massive deleveraging and deflation. In that scenario, one should do exactly the opposite to what you have mentioned:
1) Hold cash in USD
2) Dump Gold & Commodities (which is going to affect economies dependent on these assets, like Canada & Australia)

Can you share your thoughts, if you think it is going to be an inflationary period, in the coming future?

Folks in US How to live under 15k per annum -
http://assetbuilder.com/blogs/scott_burns/archive/2008/05/16/how-to-survive-on-15-000-a-year.aspx

Can you share your thoughts, if you think it is going to be an inflationary period, in the coming future?

IMO:It will be inflationary a couple of years down the line. If the 2nd dip comes to pass or the market tanks as many expect it to later this year or early next year, what would helicopter Ben do? Run the presses at full steam! Sure, there is not much support from Congress at this point for printing (with EU smartly moving towards austerity measures), but the FEDs would use FUD to get what they want, failing which he'd do it through some backdoor mechanism! So, deleveraging in the short run, yes. Long term inflationary would be my bet.