Daily S&P 500 INDEX TRACKER

[ananda77]

...all markets feel very artificial at present - all over the place to put it mildly
... difficult, if not impossible to follow any sort of technical set up
...re: strategy: not blinking, keeping detached, exploit differences in market potential
... the market will move one way or the other opening up
kind regards

[winner69]

Hoop, I see we got to 2050

This guy usually a bear but he reckons next stop is 2250

http://www.gmo.com/websitecontent/GM..._3Q14_full.pdf

Read Bubble Watch article

[winner69]

Hoop 2100 beckons next week

This is amazing stuff

[ananda77]

Hoop 2100 beckons next week
This is amazing stuff

... and why not S&P 500 *4200(+) in 2024 starting in 2009?
... am banking on that one
kind regards

[winner69]

If this was a stock would you buy it?

[boring]

It's interesting if you look over the S&P 500 Index over a 20 year period:

28 Nov 1994: 454.16
28 Nov 2014: 2,067.56
Period: 20 years

That gives a compound annual growth rate of 7.87%, which is not over the top. If anything, it's pretty ordinary. It's when the commentators shorten the time frame to the trough of the last stock market fall does it look like the market has had over-the-top returns:

28 Nov 2008: 896.24
28 Nov 2014: 2,067.56
Period: 6 years
This timeframe gives an annual compound return of 14.95% which would seem very heady indeed.

Now I have no idea whether the market is at a top or not. Being a long-term investor, I just want to own excellent businesses that pay ever-increasing dividends. If the market crashes (as it will inevitably do in the future, just like it has in the past), I'll still sleep tight knowing that the majority of my investment funds is invested in businesses such as Johnson & Johnson, 3M, Procter & Gamble, Colgate Palmolive, American Express, Wells Fargo, McCormick etc.

[skid]

I found this interesting --another of the many points of view

http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/03/inve...sks/index.html

[winner69]

Boring .....sometimes he return over 30 years is zilch ....ayb the next 30 years
http://www.theburningplatform.com/20...et-bah-humbug/

[boring]

Hey Winner, in my 25 year long-term investment career, numerous articles just like these get written and circulated.
In many instances (but not in the one you've posted), they're perpetrated by Wall Street institutions who push their case forward for timing the markets, generating churn and lucrative trading commissions. Other times it's just to get eyeballs on the page (or site). For those who have a passion for long-term investing and get a buzz out of owning a portfolio of sound businesses, it's not a cause for concern at all.

This is because:
1. The data points chosen in these articles have been data mined to perfection. In this case, the S&P 500 index was used between periods 1954 to 1984.
2. In real life, achieving a 0% return over 30 years in the market is highly improbable. That's because it's very unlikely that you make a one-time lump some investment in the markets during times like 1954 and hold until 1984 without ever investing a cent more during that period. Most long-term investors make periodic investments throughout their investment career, hopefully putting money to work when markets are both historically high or low.
3. The indices quoted are capital indices, so they don't take into account the effect of dividends. Dividends account for a significant proportion of total return in the markets. According to S&P, dividends account of about 33% of total equity returns. Excluding the effect of dividend returns over a 30 year period by quoting a capital index is misleading.
4. Even if a newly retired individual sunk their entire savings into the market (e.g S&P 500 index) in 1954, they still would have at least gotten a cash return from dividends. The dividend amounts from many top blue chip companies usually increase year on year. In practical reality, this scenario wouldn't happen anyway because retirees (with a clue) spread their investment holdings across shares, fixed interest and cash.

So these types of articles are an interesting academic exercise only.

for those long-term investors on this site, the real key is to just get out of your own way. Become successful despite your own judgemental and behavioural biases. It took the first 10 years of my investing career to really come to terms with that. I can now appreciate Charlie Munger's words "Investing is where you find a few great companies and then sit on your ass".

I will admit that long-term buy and hold investing is not for everyone. You really have to have a passion for analysing business models and financials.
Maybe that's why I'm hooked on watching "Shark Tank" and "The Profit".

[Hoop]

S&P500 closed this morning (10am NZtime) on its lows at 2026 (-34) -1.64%
The media are making bear noises again.
My correction indicator shows no warnings yet