Originally posted by Runningbear
So as you can see, Im laughing hesterically at all those still buying NASDAQ shocks as long term investments. The paridigm has shifted and those that haven't help shift it are going to end up very poor.
Runningbear.
I agree with most of what you said, but, all the same, it's worth remembering what happened to perhaps a handful of "glamor" stocks from the 1920s. One of the more well-known examples, because it was mentioned by Loeb in THE BATTLE FOR INVESTMENT SURVIVAL, is Technicolor - owner of a hot new media technology that for a moment, to believers, looked like it might take over the world, or at least the motion picture portion of the world.
People tend to assume that all stocks crashed at the same time back in '29, but then, as now, some stocks peaked and began to fall well ahead of the general market top, and others didn't crash until well after. Technicolor made its high of 86 1/2 in 1930. Within a couple of years, it was trading for 5/8, as in 0.625 (sound familiar?). But five years after that it peaked again at 34 -- a nice move, to say the least, from 5/8.
Though the majority of "fallen angels" may never fly again, and a large number of them may either go out of business or languish at very low prices for years, I have no doubt that, amidst the widespread tech wreckage, there are a few Technicolors. Loeb gives a few other examples from the period, including fallen "blue chips" and others, that made similar huge percentage gains from their lows, even if they never re-approached their mania highs -- NY Central, a railroad company, going from 257 to 9 to 88 over the course of some 8 years, that kind of thing. In a world where average market returns may be negligible if not negative, searching out such stocks can be very profitable, with or without revolutionary technologies, a total market resurgence, or even a strong economy and favorable political environment.