i love munis, and preferreds. but man i’m i getting my ass kicked buying munis for clients. i mean teeth kicked in!!

C’mon, time to be a man and buy stocks. The yield on GE is over 6%. What are you waiting for? Little old ladies is fine, for your active cliets, buy INTC.

intc sucks

I loooove me some GMAB’s from mutual insurance companies for my accumulators.  Keeps 'em in the game (which we all should be doing, NOT selling in a panic)

see you at 8000. wasn’t short term money. the question we should all be asking is why didn’t the brains in reasearch see this coming instead of putting out the all so optimistic forecast. i’m very disappointed in them.

[quote=ezmoney]see you at 8000. wasn’t short term money. the question we should all be asking is why didn’t the brains in reasearch see this coming instead of putting out the all so optimistic forecast. i’m very disappointed in them.

what are you compliance dept. i get paid for my service. 1% to be exact. see you at 8000.

Your clients are overpaying.

Wisdom.

I get 5% in and out of a position … I don’t get why nobody else seems to get it. You want to buy in … sell a cash covered put. If you get your price you get to reduce your basis on the per the premium recieved, It doesnt get there you get paid for being wrong. Never mind writting covered calls.

VIX over 40, delta under .20 or -.20 you have a 80% chance of success with 5 differant ways to worm out of a loss. Not to mention FREE margin $$.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=RYMZX

I spoke with our Met wholesaler today, he attempted to sooth my nerves via the cash they raised and are sitting on (20 billion) and the hope that other insurers will bail out other insurers to keep them all propped up. Apparently Smith Barney has an analyst who put out a report saying Met is the one to own. Don’t plan on owning the stock, just want the darn GMIB+ to be there when my clients need it.

GG-

Footsolider, I went to an American Funds event today and was less than inspired after hearing a bond analyst talk about how bad things are. The only inspiration was a reference to 1974 and the same stuff being said about the market. This time is probably not that different but it still sucks.

Go to a Lazard meeting.  Those guys are real downers.  The charts that they show regarding the subprime issue, CDO’s, CDS’s, leverage, is enough to make you throw up your $40 steak.

GMO takes the cake for wanting to throw in the towel. The ironic thing about them is, as negative as they always are, they are still getting throttled (at least in their Evergreen fund).  It’s ironic that now we are way down, the “downers” are coming out of the woodwork. I at least give David Tice (Prudent Bear) credit, he is always an a-hole 100% of the time.

I am glad you guys are so negative…it’s giving me and my clients the opportunity to accumulate some exceptional bargains.  We’ll gladly sell them back to you 20-30% more when you are feeling better about the world.

Op-Ed Contributor
Buy American. I Am.

By WARREN E. BUFFETT
Published: October 16, 2008


THE financial world is a mess, both in the United States and abroad. Its problems, moreover, have been leaking into the general economy, and the leaks are now turning into a gusher. In the near term, unemployment will rise, business activity will falter and headlines will continue to be scary.

So … I’ve been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I’m talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States government bonds. (This description leaves aside my Berkshire Hathaway holdings, which are all committed to philanthropy.) If prices keep looking attractive, my non-Berkshire net worth will soon be 100 percent in United States equities.

Why?

A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors. To be sure, investors are right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions. But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense. These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have. But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.

Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month — or a year — from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.

A little history here: During the Depression, the Dow hit its low, 41, on July 8, 1932. Economic conditions, though, kept deteriorating until Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933. By that time, the market had already advanced 30 percent. Or think back to the early days of World War II, when things were going badly for the United States in Europe and the Pacific. The market hit bottom in April 1942, well before Allied fortunes turned. Again, in the early 1980s, the time to buy stocks was when inflation raged and the economy was in the tank. In short, bad news is an investor’s best friend. It lets you buy a slice of America’s future at a marked-down price.

Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

You might think it would have been impossible for an investor to lose money during a century marked by such an extraordinary gain. But some investors did. The hapless ones bought stocks only when they felt comfort in doing so and then proceeded to sell when the headlines made them queasy.

Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. Indeed, the policies that government will follow in its efforts to alleviate the current crisis will probably prove inflationary and therefore accelerate declines in the real value of cash accounts.

Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, probably by a substantial degree. Those investors who cling now to cash are betting they can efficiently time their move away from it later. In waiting for the comfort of good news, they are ignoring Wayne Gretzky’s advice: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

I don’t like to opine on the stock market, and again I emphasize that I have no idea what the market will do in the short term. Nevertheless, I’ll follow the lead of a restaurant that opened in an empty bank building and then advertised: “Put your mouth where your money was.” Today my money and my mouth both say equities.

I read that this morning, right after I read American Funds brochure on its new fund.  Buffett 100% US Stocks and Americans new fund is 90% International.  Hmmmm...

Great