ILX STOCK TIPS

by Rex Murphy

Excerpted from the ‘Magazine’ portion of CBC News THE NATIONAL television broadcast
for April 17, 2000.

"What lives must die; what rises must set; and what goes up must – must come down.
These are axioms; self-evident truths that have been available to the generations of man
since there have been generations. The birth of high-tech and the arrival of the boomers, the
Yuppie incarnation, were of course to have changed all that. Rules that have obliged every
other moment of history obviously cannot be held to apply to this one. The most self-
regarding generation of all history is going to live forever; jog till it’s 90; chemically extend
its furious sexual capacity; replace and enhance all body parts and get continuously rich
forever. It is this happy exceptionalism that has made the practice of building hopes and
dreams on the stock market, and in particular that portion of it known as the NASDAQ, such
a delightful habit for so many North Americans.

Of course the stock market, even the new economy NASDAQ is nothing more than
old-fashioned gambling. And the NASDAQ, properly understood, is nothing more than bingo
for yuppies. The difference is that for this generation, bingo is a game in which everyone is
entitled to win all the time. So when last week rolled in with stock declines and when Friday
hit with gale force and the loss of $2 trillion, well, the response of some was desperate
unbelief; shivering incredulity. A delusion had been laid waste. What had been going up was
now going down. How could anyone really be surprised? The itch to dot-com the world
cannot be infinitely scratched. A web site is not a gold mine. Companies going public for
billions that produce nothing, make no profits, hardly exist outside the ether in which they
are promoted.

The last great stock market shill was Bre-X. But at least Bre-X pretended to be something
on the earth – or in the earth. These IPOs and on-line trading stores – anything in fact with
the word ’Net in it that isn’t made of string – are phantoms of avarice and appetite.

Dot-com looniness is the vapour of hot breathing greed, and the oldest idea in the world;
that of getting something for nothing or a very great deal of something for hardly anything at
all. North America has become a society of speculators; people who would rather guess their
future than earn it. One large 24-hour casino – a Las Vegas of dividends and mutual funds
and people who wander around muttering about their portfolios – in other words, their betting
slips.

Any society that becomes intimate with the language of the stock market; where the
broker is called more often than the teacher, and dips in the stock market carry more anxiety
than a shortage at the grocery store, has wandered away from common sense and is waiting
for a fall. There is no new economy. There never was. Riches without effort, are without
effort withdrawn.

What the mouse click hath given, the mouse click will take away. Last week wasn’t a
glitch. It was the oldest force in the universe. It was gravity. What goes up comes down, and
sometimes vice versa. For the Magazine, I’m Rex Murphy."

That is horribly misinformed.

Hmm, it's up from 210 already - I'll give it to 250 before it stabilises, but who knows.

Today was a bad day to own AT&T.

A company I have shares in did a 1 for 15 stock split, i.e. your number of stocks was divided by 15, and the price went from 16p to £2.40. This was primarily a PR exercise to make the stock not look like penny shares.

How did Stencil post the current New Yorker cover four years ago?

i think you can figure that out

I just bought a book about the Australian Stock Exchange today. It's surprisingly interesting so far, I'm feeling enthusiastic about it.

There should be an ILX portfolio of 10 stocks, and we can see how much play money we make in a year.

Everything seems like a bargain until it's worth even less the next day.

see how much little play money we make lose in a year.

for this year, anyway

Can we short small/mid cap US banks?

How did Stencil post the current New Yorker cover four years ago?

-- Hurting 2, Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:48 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark Link

i think you can figure that out

-- gabbneb, Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:48 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark Link

Actually I can't

oh wait 190 REFERS to the image size not issue #

Yeah, I figured it out.

190 reefers: invest!

bet on black lol

Can we short small/mid cap US banks?

bandwagon jumper

Not really a stock, but for some reason predictit still has Trump winning election at 12c.

Doesn't that make Biden at 88c easy money?

(or whatever he's at)

Yes, basically a 12% return (- 5% redemption - 0.1% fee) = roughly 7% return in one month = 225% compounded APR or 84% simple APR

Unless... constitutional crisis or something.

now up to 15-16c
money is getting easier or chance of coup getting hotter.

the plungers have arrived

told me I couldn't buy any, too many people already had

there are proxy markets you can use like
"which party wins the presidency"
"TX Dem primary winner elected president"
"woman VP in 2020"
etc...

I shouldn't be flabbergasted by anything in 2020 but my flabber is gasted.

I got fills at 82c today...
that means people still think there's an 18% chance trump will take the white house.
what is going on...?