CHESSNOID

Even though we are still in an “unofficial” recession, there is no denying all the US stock markets have corrected and fallen into bear market territory.

According to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, September has traditionally been the worst month for the Dow and S&P 500 since 1950, with the Dow averaging a loss of 1% during the month and the S&P 500 losing 0.6%. September has also been the worst month for the Nasdaq since its inception in 1971, averaging a loss of 0.9%.

By comparison, as of Wednesday’s close, the Dow is down 8.1% and the S&P 500 is down 6.4% in September, while the Nasdaq has fallen 11.3% month-to-date.

Year-to-date, all three major gauges are down more than 20%.

I would like to start buying stocks now because they are all cheaper than before. The problem is I can’t figure out which ones will make it through this downturn. I wouldn’t have been able to guess that Lehman would be allowed to fail. That really did surprise me. This indicates that the federal government realizes we can’t continue to just drop rates and printing money whenever we need more. OK, I guess we can, but we can’t do it without consequences like inflation, unemployment, and economic slowdowns.