NEWS
July 14, 2009
Investors of all ages have seen their portfolios take a hit in this bear market. But will losses have a greater effect on younger investors, making them less likely to buy stocks in the future? Some academics think so. With little investing experience under their belt, young investors might conclude they should avoid stocks after last year's market plunge. Yet, if history is any guide, young investors could become big winners if they invest in stocks during a bear market and reap the rewards when those shares appreciate later in a bull market.
NEWS
By Walter Hamilton | March 6, 2009
NEW YORK -Stock prices sank yesterday to fresh bear-market lows on renewed worries about the country's banks and about General Motors Corp. The market opened lower and fell steadily throughout the day, with the Dow Jones industrial average sagging 281.40 points, or 4.1 percent to 6,594.44, falling below the nearly 12-year low it set Tuesday. Yesterday's decline marked the second time this week that the blue-chip barometer fell nearly 300 points. The Standard & Poor's 500 dropped 30.32 points, or 4.3 percent, to 682.55, its lowest level since September 1996.
NEWS
By New York Times News Service | September 5, 2008
NEW YORK - The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 345 points yesterday on a confluence of poor news about the economy, although investors could not pin the drop on any overriding reason. Reports showed that retail sales were weak in August, just as more Americans filed for unemployment benefits. Anxiety lingered about a global slowdown. Fears of another financial crisis refused to go away. None of the news came as a shock to Wall Street. So what pushed the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index down 3 percent, its worst daily performance in three months?
NEWS
By EILEEN AMBROSE | July 15, 2008
It's official. We're in a bear market. Now what? If you have done all those boring things that financial planners nag about, like making sure you have a diversified portfolio, you should be in good shape to weather the downturn. You might even be in a position to snap up bargains in the stock market while prices remain low. But if all your money is tied up in a narrow selection of stocks, you may be in for one of those hard lessons that bear markets deliver. A bear market is generally defined as a 20 percent decline from the most recent market high.
NEWS
By Gail MarksJarvis | July 13, 2008
Baby boomers are afraid of the bear market. Raised on Wall Street's buy-and-hold primer that's been spoon-fed to the first generation of 401(k) investors, many boomers gritted their teeth and stayed with the market through the 2000 to 2002 bear. Now, however, retirement is only 10 years away - or less - for many boomers, and they are wondering if it is foolish to stay the course. The stock market has recently touched bear market territory again - a drop of about 20 percent since October 2007.
NEWS
By EILEEN AMBROSE | May 20, 2008
Timing is everything. And retiring in a bear market - or even something just flirting with bear status - couldn't be worse timing. Baltimore's T. Rowe Price Associates crunched some numbers to figure the impact of a bear market on retirement, after the S&P 500 index fell nearly 18 percent between October and March. Bear markets - usually defined as a 20 percent decline in the market - are never happy times for investors. But hitting one in the first five years of retirement can spell serious trouble down the road.
NEWS
By Gail MarksJarvis | March 23, 2008
It's the nightmare scenario for a person retiring, or just retired. A bear market - a harsh, lengthy downturn - devours savings just when a person needs to start using the stash. Analysts have been speculating that we could be in such a period, and financial planners have been going over portfolios to make sure clients can weather it. There is never an opportune time for a bear market, or what typically is defined as at least a 20 percent drop in stocks that continues for months or even years.
NEWS
By Gail MarksJarvis | March 16, 2008
A416-point stock market rally Tuesday seemed to rescue investors from the bear's claws, but they have to wonder if the beast is gone for good. Many analysts aren't sure the surge was anything more than one of the powerful rallies that often come during bear markets, only to see stocks turn down again. Last week's rally was set off by an innovative move by the Federal Reserve to relieve some of the tensions on lenders and get money flowing to borrowers by letting lenders use distressed mortgage-related bonds as collateral for loans from the Fed. But stocks remain well below their record highs; a common view is that a recession is now unavoidable and the bear market has not run its course.
NEWS
By Gail MarksJarvis | February 10, 2008
Are we in a recession or not? For a person simply focused on keeping a job, the distinction between a slowing economy and the beginning of a recession might not matter much. Whether the economy is just weak or in a recession, the risk of losing a job builds. And, of course, the longer and deeper the economic downturn lasts, the greater the risk becomes. For investors, however, there is a reason for the current preoccupation with identifying a specific time when the economy did, or might, enter a recession.
NEWS
By Landon Thomas Jr. | October 17, 2007
Paul Tudor Jones II leans back in his chair and grins. The stock market is going to crash, and he knows it. "There will be some type of a decline, without a question, in the next 10, 20 months," he says in his rich Memphis drawl. "And it will be earth-shaking; it will be saber-rattling." Coming from a financial speculator as prominent as Jones, a man with about $19 billion of short-term trading capital at his disposal, the words might be enough to send ripples through a stock market that, apparently defying logic, has been hitting new highs each day. Except that the crash to which Jones refers occurred Oct. 19, 1987.