Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Recommended reading, economic debates, predictions and opinions.
Flaccidsteele
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 4523
Joined: 06 Mar 2014 12:52
Location: Retired Gen Xer somewhere on the planet earth

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by Flaccidsteele »

It's nice that government is trying to regulate things (or at least trying to look like they're trying; in order to curry favour with voters), but fortunately it's not possible to regulate emotions like greed and fear.
Flaccidsteele
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 4523
Joined: 06 Mar 2014 12:52
Location: Retired Gen Xer somewhere on the planet earth

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by Flaccidsteele »

This is another good reason I avoid making predictions. There's just a very low probability of it being beneficial to me. And I don't listen to other people's predictions... well, because I recognize that they're very likely to be subconsciously prone to Baader-Meinhof syndrome/recency illusion cognitive bias.
Business Insider wrote: Over the last several years, anti-Fed "policy bears" have been warning about how the extraordinary steps taken to juice the economy would end in disaster.

Some predicted surging interest rates. Some people predicted runaway inflation. And a lot of folks said that the Fed was murdering the dollar.

Well, none of that has happened. And not only that, the dollar is one of the strongest currencies in the world.

Image

This might be the final humiliation of the Fed haters
ig17
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 3418
Joined: 21 Feb 2005 20:54

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by ig17 »

Happy Ninth Birthday to the Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Bull Market.

S&P 500 bottomed at 666 on March 9, 2009.

Image
chufinora
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 769
Joined: 12 Oct 2009 15:03
Location: Ottawa

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by chufinora »

Thanks for posting that! Re-reading the first few pages of this thread was fun.

Queersamoi (And Parvus +) analysis of the dead cat bounce with attached toast was hilarious

And AltaRed "Was sitting out this rally (though happy to be proved wrong)" :D
User avatar
AltaRed
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 33398
Joined: 05 Mar 2005 20:04
Location: Ogopogo Land

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by AltaRed »

chufinora wrote: 09 Mar 2018 21:19 And AltaRed "Was sitting out this rally (though happy to be proved wrong)" :D
An interesting post indeed because I was was pretty much invested throughout the downturn. And what cash I had on the sidelines on March 9, 2009 (21.7% to be precise - I looked it up) shrunk to about 15% within the next 2 years.

An amazing chart if one had a clear crystal ball at the time.
Imagefiniki, the Canadian financial wiki The go-to place to bolster your financial freedom
Eclectic12
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 2571
Joined: 21 Feb 2018 18:03

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by Eclectic12 »

Note that I had a crystal ball ... but had been through the dot com crash. I also didn't want to leave some big gainers on the table completely so I sold two thirds of what I owned for two of them around August/Sept 2008.

I bought something like fifteen stocks. Some around Dec and most around March 2009. One I was impatient with so I sold for about a 10% loss (If I had kept it until present day, I'd be up 200%). One I sold for a 3% loss (would be up 100% today).

The rest when I sold or I still hold were up 80%, 125% and 230%.

The one I liked the best took longer than expected to restore the dividend but the dividends paid for 40% of the cost before I sold for a 230% CG.
If I had stuck to plan to buy more if it dropped further, the CG would be more like 360% ... but I started to be nervous about too many financials. :mrgreen:

I'd have to go back to check how the cash swung ... though a fair amount was on margin so the cash would not have swung too too much.

What I held kept paying dividends or increasing them, except for one stock.


Cheers
gsp_
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 2318
Joined: 12 Apr 2011 17:48
Location: Montreal

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by gsp_ »

Eclectic12 wrote: 10 Apr 2018 14:27 Note that I had a crystal ball ...
Duly noted. What became of it? :D
Eclectic12
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 2571
Joined: 21 Feb 2018 18:03

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by Eclectic12 »

More proof the crystal ball is cracked or lost ... :lol:

It didn't warn or remind me that instead of the intended Not, something close but oh so different had been written !

I looked at my cash amounts over that time frame but don't really know how adjust in the taxable account for the inflows from a combination of the Heloc and other bank accounts. The RRSP has to be adjusted for the small contribution in Feb 2009 but the fall of 2008 level was 26% then dropped by mid 2009 to 2%.


Either way - the main point is that despite the threads here and elsewhere where people at the time were concerned, holding off or like my co-worker - locking in losses, some did buy.


Cheers
Dark Bear
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 252
Joined: 16 Jan 2009 12:25

Re:

Post by Dark Bear »

Mike Schimek wrote: 18 Mar 2009 21:36 I'd agree she was right until 2:00 this afternoon when the fed announced that they will start printing money, in addition to announcements by the U.S. govt that they would be buying up mortgages from the banks.

We've entered a new age...

This post was in response to a post of mine about Meredith Whitney.

What I like about this post is it does say the Fed will do anything to turn it around and keep everything going. At the time many experts were saying that the Fed can't keep things going and they never have been able to.

Well it turns out that Mike was more then right on and this is where it all turned around and the Fed did keep it going.
Dark Bear
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 252
Joined: 16 Jan 2009 12:25

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by Dark Bear »

I also think this is a good thread to keep around about how we were feeling and thinking at the near the end of the great recession. Of course we were thinking a lot about cats bouncing around at the time as well.

I don't mind the mods or other forum members keeping this thread around as a reminder of how predictions go or how wrong experts can be. It is good for people to refer to this when the next big bear market rolls around.

I was going to wait the ten years to bump this but I think we are close enough.
Flaccidsteele
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 4523
Joined: 06 Mar 2014 12:52
Location: Retired Gen Xer somewhere on the planet earth

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by Flaccidsteele »

This thread gave me pause back then

I was adding Berkshire Hathaway and the S&P500 index at the time

I figured if stocks got any lower there would be more to worry about than my soon-to-be worthless investments in Berkshire and the S&P500

...and it all worked out. As it always does. We always recover. And it wasn't any different this time. Again...

PS: Ballsy of you to revive this thread. Kudos and respect
RBull
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 164
Joined: 05 Feb 2013 13:36
Location: Canada's Ocean Playground

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by RBull »

Flaccidsteele wrote: 16 Nov 2018 13:01 This thread gave me pause back then

...and it all worked out. As it always does. We always recover. And it wasn't any different this time. Again...

PS: Ballsy of you to revive this thread. Kudos and respect
+1
I didn’t know about this site back then. I was 100% equities most of it cdn. I stopped looking at my accts sometime late feb 09. Painful. Didn’t sell and didn’t buy. Was early in a new business venture and had no funds to add for yrs.

Yes, it worked out as I also recall from the 3-4 big corrections I previously lived through. Now in retirement my approach is to also utilize FI.
Dark Bear
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 252
Joined: 16 Jan 2009 12:25

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by Dark Bear »

Thanks guys, it is important to own up to our mistakes and not deny or hide from them.

Back then many people were thinking the US market would go through the same experience as the Japanese market did after 1989. I think those people however were not accounting for the size of the US in every way, economy and the reserve currency status, along with Central bank intervention.
couponstrip
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 552
Joined: 14 Jan 2007 15:20

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by couponstrip »

Dark Bear wrote: 17 Nov 2018 18:18 Thanks guys, it is important to own up to our mistakes and not deny or hide from them.

Back then many people were thinking the US market would go through the same experience as the Japanese market did after 1989. I think those people however were not accounting for the size of the US in every way, economy and the reserve currency status, along with Central bank intervention.
It's not easy to analyze in retrospect. It seems now that the events that took place were likely to occur given the things you list here (size of the US in every way, economy and the reserve currency status, along with Central bank intervention), but I would argue that they were not that obvious.

In fact, I think there was even more risk than many of us understood. I suspect we were within a hair of a long, severe worldwide depression that would have taken many years to recover from. The market low in early March could have been blown away with much greater losses. This is what many were predicting at the time, and they were probably right. Without some of the US government interventions in addition to investor's confidence in said interventions, I think a dire outcome, further market losses, and prolonged depression were likely.

I didn't understand how close we were to this much worse outcome in 2008/2009. I was much younger then and as posted in the "What did you buy, what might you buy" thread, we were leveraging into the losses in the early months of 2009. I thought at the time that everything was going to be ok and that it was a great buying opportunity, but I did not know as much as I do now, and I very much doubt I would have invested like that had I understood things better. It worked out well, but the risk was great.

It was a scary time, far more frightening in retrospect.
gsp_
Veteran Contributor
Veteran Contributor
Posts: 2318
Joined: 12 Apr 2011 17:48
Location: Montreal

Re: Big Sucker Rally of 2009 Has Started

Post by gsp_ »

couponstrip wrote: 28 Dec 2018 17:54 It's not easy to analyze in retrospect. It seems now that the events that took place were likely to occur given the things you list here (size of the US in every way, economy and the reserve currency status, along with Central bank intervention), but I would argue that they were not that obvious.

In fact, I think there was even more risk than many of us understood. I suspect we were within a hair of a long, severe worldwide depression that would have taken many years to recover from. The market low in early March could have been blown away with much greater losses. This is what many were predicting at the time, and they were probably right. Without some of the US government interventions in addition to investor's confidence in said interventions, I think a dire outcome, further market losses, and prolonged depression were likely.

I didn't understand how close we were to this much worse outcome in 2008/2009. I was much younger then and as posted in the "What did you buy, what might you buy" thread, we were leveraging into the losses in the early months of 2009. I thought at the time that everything was going to be ok and that it was a great buying opportunity, but I did not know as much as I do now, and I very much doubt I would have invested like that had I understood things better. It worked out well, but the risk was great.

It was a scary time, far more frightening in retrospect.

Good analysis. It’s very easy to gloss over alternate outcomes when everything works out just as we hoped it would. Way easier to be filled with overconfidence and be smug about just how right and smart we are/were and not leave any space for the “what ifs” to the downside rather than just playing that game when things don’t go our way. Well done.

Just watched Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis last night and it brought home many of the possible other outcomes. Hearing how Hank Paulson was having panic attacks or throwing up behind closed doors wasn’t exactly soothing. :?
Post Reply