Take a look: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...l-street-readies-latest-update-jobs/73195030/ And . . . http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article52515.html Are things as bad as the doomsday people say they are?
I don't think anything major will happen until they raise interest rates. It makes sense for some to push for a sell off... or made a large investment in gold! But I do think we're going to have some problems in the housing market soon.
Some money in alternative investments is usually a good idea. But not too much in any one thing. I usually have at least 5-10% of my money in gold, and a few bucks in a few other metals and other commodities such as crude and an agricultural index. Maybe a few bucks in an investment vehicle that shorts the broad market. A few bucks in a REIT or a real estate mutual fund (or a handful of real estate stocks) is a good idea over the mid to longterm IMO, but who knows about the short term? I wouldn't panic and get anywhere near totally out of the stock market, and wouldn't cash out my retirement accounts either. I would always be wary of any investments, investment vehicles, or institutions who borrow heavily. Jumping in and out of the market and individual investments constantly is not a good idea for many reasons.
Honestly, I don't expect a "surprise" in terms of interest rates and I think there will be a lot of hints from the feds if there was one to come soon. While they have said before it will likely be sometime this year, I think a part of that was just market psychology to gauge reactions and/or leave their options open. Overall, I'm not too worried about it presently, but the last thing the fed wants is some market chaos right now.
A: personally, yes. OTOH, it's foolish to buy physical gold (over some for an emergency) as one can easily go short. No, not selling shares one doesn't have. Using futures or more modern derivatives like CFDS. (Banned for U.S. citizen, but with about 1/10th the margin rather attractive. The initial margin of the DAX future is > $ 13,000 if I recall). IF you have the expectation of lower stock markets, why not sell an index and buy it back when the incident happened?!? The talking heads fool the investors into thinking they can only go long...
