If not now, then when?

Chris Achille — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:56:51 GMT

It is the beginning of a new year, and I thought when would be a better time to start a blog? I am not sure of everything that this will contain, but I thought it would be a good place to publish updates on how the family is doing, technology, the stock market, and the economy.

So, how are things going?

Family - They are all doing well, so that is the good news.

The Economy - Eww, this is just a bad thing to talk about now a days. We have recently been classified in a recession, so that is where we currently are. Personally I think things are just going to keep getting worse and worse for a while, there just doesn't seem to be a clear end in sight. We have a jobless claims rate that drops every time we hear it, we have a dollar which continually keeps getting weaker and weaker, we have a society in which people are leveraged more then they ever have before, and we have people losing their homes at an alarming rate. The only bright side I see is that energy is at really low rates, and people are able to get mortgages at low rates. ...Just don't forget that the primary reason for the last two is because of how weak the economy is. Now Obama is probably going to improve a lot of these in the short term with all the speding he has planned, but unfortunately non of this can be dome without raising our dept and hence making our US economy even weaker in the long term.

The Stock Market - Now this has been quite the roller coaster recently. If you are in the market, you have probably lost a good amount of money, and that has been very challenging for people along with the fact that the volatility of late is quite scary. Now as a whole, the stock market only goes where it thinks the economy is going to go (if it thinks revenues for companies will increase in 6 months, then it thinks a stock is worth more than it is currently today). So because I don't see much on the plus side for the economy in this new year, I don't think there will be much to cheer about in the stock market, at least until maybe the third quarter in which is could start foreseeing some good news down the road. The good news though is that stocks have been so hard hit over the past year, that I don't think they will go down much more, and this is really the time to invest, so that when it rebounds, you are there to capture those returns.

Technology - Technology always has cool new gadgets to use and sell, the only thing though is with the economy it is going to be harder and harder to find someone to sell them to. The goods news though, is that if you are in technology, that is the place that companies always look to reduce costs and be more profitable. So that usually means they are willing to spend money there, if it can reduce their bottom line. So if you are one of those guys doing the technology work, it is a good place to be.

So my suggestion would be to get ready for that rainy day, because it may be hitting closer than you would like in the near future, and let's all hope that we don't have to endure this correction for too long.

Common Sense

If not now, then when?