Not the post you were expecting...

[ronelyn]

...in which I talk about how the last two weeks went, about my Dad's death and so on. Instead, because it's the current fire I'm trying like heck to stay on top of, a quick word about the markets.

Yes, I know they suck. But here's a question for you. Let's say you own some stock in Honda. You bought it because everydamnperson you KNOW owns a Honda

Comments

[bubblesutonium]

WoS and I have made a vow that we aren't going to look at any of our investments for at least the next xix months. We are all in this for the long run, and as they say, buy low, sell high.

[huruma]

J and I have agreed to do this as well.

[ronelyn]

Good on ya both, then!

*sigh* If only I could convince my brother of same. He is heavily in with the "krugerrands and guns" crowd at present. :)

[ronelyn]

By, the way, Huruma, I'm a terrible correspondent, but it really is lovely to hear from you again after all these years! *hugs* Very glad you seem to be in a happy place.

[ketina]

We have stock in Honda? I didn't know we had stock in Honda...

[aefre]

That is a great way of looking at things!

[schmallturm]

Very true. But if you owned stock in WaMu you just lost everything.

I think the main concern is for the bond market and money market now. These were considered very safe, but now nobody can assess risk. That is my understanding. I think as long as the government doesn't do something stupid it will work itself out... oh wait.

[ronelyn]

BUT... if you had your money in a mutual fund, you don't just own WaMu, you own a wide variety of bank stocks. And if you're smart, you don't own just one mutual fund. And further, each of these mutual funds is run by a maniac who lives on Excel, Jolt Cola and Tums who's trying everything they can to turn a profit on their investments.

Yeah, the bond/MMF thing definitely sucks, though it seems that the market's just sinking in unison, so I'm kind of hoping that it will rise more or less in unison.

And actually, the central point of my argument still holds. Honda makes cars. GE makes... well, everything. Banks make... decisions. And piles of paper. They damn well better be able to boil what they do down to a simple sentence better than they have been.

I rarely implicitly trust Slashdot, but if your explanation of your company's --> Profit! description needs to reference calculus or probability theory, you better make sure you're not just shuffling paper around because you like the sound of shuffling paper. :P