CHESSNOID

This is the last week for the 2008 stock markets.  Overall, it has been a disaster for most. All the indexes are down 30-40% and we still have a week to go.

The stock futures are pointing down right now, but that doesn’t seem to be a good indicator of what the market will do for the whole day.

The new year will be tough one. Most people will think it will be either down or flat for the year with a few calling for a comeback. If you based it on the economy we are in now, then you would have to agree with the former.

I do believe I will start to buy stocks again this year toward the 3rd or 4th quarter. I will dollar cost average into it. I am sure we will see many rallies along the way. At this point I wouldn’t be comfortable in buying equity in any company no matter how good of a value they seem now.

The stocks I do like are google, apple, amazon, Starbucks, walmart, and a few bank stocks. These all seem cheap to me and will endure our current recession. When the economy does recover, I think these will be stocks that will go up in value. At this point, all we can do is wait and see unless you are a contrarian and think the time to buy is now.

CNN.Money:

The Dow Jones industrial average has tumbled 36% and is on track to suffer its worst annual decline since 1931.

The S&P 500 is off a whopping 40.5% this year, and is headed for its worst performance since the large-cap index was created in 1957. As it stands, this year’s decline is already much worse than the previous record decline of 29.7% in 1974.

The Nasdaq is down 42.5% versus last year. While the tech-heavy index is on the path to its worst annual performance in its 37 year history, the Nasdaq has seen much darker days. In the 12 months that ended March 2001, it fell nearly 60% as the dot.com bubble burst.