Tuesday, January 20, 2009

How Low Can They Go?

Sounds like it ought to be a new game show for financial stocks. Here's an ugly picture



Who is left to sell BAC? Or C?


Here's a chart of Industrial Metal Prices.

Have they stabilized a la Napier's suggestion for a bear market to end? I do not know. The $USD action and supply/demand are sort of a jumble. Best to observe as this violence plays out.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

a couple of days ago, I left some follow-up on your original post of 1/4 related to Napier / Tobin's Q, as well as some additional links. My evolving sentiment, subject to more study, is that Q is informative, but not conclusive for ballparking a "bottom" in a credit crisis.
~Sleepless

Leisa♠ said...

Sleepless...I want to resurrect your comments (I see them on e-mail) but as it is an old post, readers will not. It served as a reminder to look at the charts.

My understand of the Q-factor at least from reading Napier's book is that it is not necessarily THE mark of a bottom, but A mark of a bottom. Essentially, no bear market has ever been worse than when the Q-factor was at .3. However, there have been plenty of bear markets were the Q-factor is less.

What I found more constructive about Napier's discussion of bottoms was more of the contemporary news in addition to bond/government rates. I suppose it becomes a bit like scatology. Finding 'signs' and trying to make heads/tails out of all of it.

russell1200 said...

That is the advantage of TA Kitty! She has a head and a tail, and they are both very easy to find!

Of course what she is up to at any given moment can be rather puzzling. Usually it all comes together in retrospect of course. Just like all the great prognosticators.