The Current Stock Market Meltdown

current stock market prices

Current Stock Market - All over Europe during the early 17th century, it was claimed that Tulips-bulbs became incredibly favored by stockholders, to the point at which they were more valuable than gold by weight.

Everybody with any expendable income seemed to jump on the bandwagon because they could make some ‘easy money’ ( obviously an oxymoron if ever I heard one ) just by buying a Tulip-bulb and then selling it to another investor : some days later, because the price was rising so rapidly. Years on this became known as Tulip Mania ( or Tulipomania ).

In 1929, an analogous thing occurred with shares of corporations ( stocks ) when even hotel bell-hops were regularly reported as being the tipsters of their day, giving hotel-guests ‘hot tips’ for stock purchases, based on what they’d heard so-called ‘big-investors’ talking about in the hotel.

I should note here an old expression that goes something like this : and I paraphrase’ when you are getting stock-tips from a bell-boy, it is time to get out of the market altogether!’.

What occurred around the globe starting around 1985 was Tulip-mania all over again. This time it lasted for about twenty-five years. Investors and backers having this ridiculous notion that stocks ( or Tulips ) can only ever go up in value.

We are seeing the result of this ‘mania’ starting late 2008.

Have you ever seen a college of fish being hunted? I have, because I like to scuba-dive. Depending on what is hunting them ( different aquatic creatures have different hunting styles ), the college of fish appears to react at the same time as a group.

It seems like all of them move at exactly the same time, away from the source of the assault. What actually occurs is kind of different. If you look closely, ( or watch a DVD of the event in slow-motion ) you may see that one fish always reacts first. This is rapidly followed by another 1 or 2, then another two or four, then another four or eight… Well, you get the point.

Frighteningly, stock-market stockholders are very much like fish. When one sees danger ahead ( this is generally the clever one or the one with insider info ), he ( or she ) will react by selling stocks. If he’s’s a big-enough fish in the sea of stockholders, others will watch him and then follow the same course of action ; he’ll sell too. Guess what occurs next? Yep, all the others start to sell too, which, in turn, drives the price of stocks down… And down… And down.

Did all companies fail in the Great Depression? Positively not! Many companies prospered during this time. Companies like :

Repair shops ( all kinds, including automobile repairs, house repairs, bike repairs etc . ) healthcare services Public transportation 2nd Hand ( thrift ) stores Legal Services Trucking and Freight Services And… Educational Services.

Why did Education become such a profitable business to be in? Because younger men ( who in that day were typically the bread-winners ) realized they had to return to some type of school, so they could learn a new trade or other new skills. They knew they had to conform to the new way of the globe. So they either educated themselves or they found somebody who would do it for them.

The successful companies and the people who ran them saw the depression as a chance. There are lots of good examples of this, not least the Battle of the Cereals. C. W. Post was the number one brand at the time, but Kellogg chiefs chose to increase its marketing spend while the people in command of C.W. Post decided to cut-back to ’save money’. The result was that Kellogg became the number 1 brand of cereal manufacturer in the U.S. Which it still holds today, 80 year later!

Corporations like Kellogg not only survived the Great Depression, they flourished during it. They did not wait for public demand to come back for their products, they actively ( that is actively ) made requirement for their products.

And when the great depression was coming to an end and spending picked-up because of increased job across the nation, these corporations continued to grow because they had made a loyal following of buying buyers during the bad industrial times of the prior years.

They changed ; they changed ; they studied ; they learned ; they survived and they flourished.

You can survive this current Great ( Greater? ) Depression. It’s up to you. It’s a call you can make. Just wishing it will make no difference to you or your family’s survival. You have to do something.

Action is the key to your survival and wealth. You need to change, evolve, study and learn. Change your thinking. Adapt to your new environment. Study ways to earn income.