(Login figcar) Moderator from IP address 69.235.148.12
The whole world is a little ragged right now and so it is natural that vintage watch prices reflect this. Nations and (in the US) states the size of nations...even cities the size of small nations, are on the verge of economic collapse. As for our watches...if you have to sell because you need cash, it is a bad market to be in, but do what you have to do. If you don't need to sell...and especially if you don't want to sell...then you can sit back and just enjoy your watches for what they are. And if you want to buy...and you're fat with cash...welcome to a period of strong opportunity. But this is an opportunity, not for making a profit, just for getting a watch you really want at a more reasonable price.
More important, if vintage watches are not your business and just your hobby, then watches should not be on the top of your list of things to worry about. There are bigger issues in your financial house to deal with. It is time for everyone to be doing research on the future direction of the world's economies and how that will impact on your personal wealth situation.
What emerging markets are stable and which are not? What commodities will these stable emerging markets need and which sources of them are safer and which are riskier? The most important thing to see is that the future will not look like the present or the past. The old "normal" is gone forever. Now is the time to get rid of all debt and make your personal assets as portible and safe as possible.
The dollar and the euro are only going to get weaker. Get out of US Treasuries and stocks. Find safe havens for your money by putting cash positions in currencies such as the Swiss franc and the Aussie dollar and gold. Emerging markets...think Brasil and India. Comodities...water resources and agriculture...uranium...and for deep long term value and growth, begin (don't rush...research) studying Japanese stocks.
If we get our big pictures right, the little picture...watches...will be fine no matter what happens.
A good deal is when both the buyer and seller are happy with what they got.The market will always in anything dictate the current prices and they are what they are. In a boom market everybody is happy and even the waiter flipped some watches.Nobody lost money and they were all experts and collectors turned dealers. Many of us got priced out of the market a few years ago. Did anybody forget this? Did anybody post during the boom I bought this Sub for 2k and sold it for 8k on ebay? So why all the fuss now? Happy hunting to all!
(Login dennyslim) VRF Contributing Member 75.172.161.213
Do not totally agree >>>
April 11 2010, 1:44 PM
The US market is looking good. Manufacturing is expanding, banks are getting ready to pay back money to the Federal Reserve and it looks like a nice profit from the bank bailout. Overall the stimulis money will not all be paid back soon and possibly for auto makers never. This was all factored in when the bailout was made.
However housing prices are actually going up in selected areas not hit so hard by the housing mess. Retails sales were very good last month. The DOW looks to close over 11K any time. Since Wall Street usually looks to the future they seem to believe this mess is getting behind us. Things have definately bottomed out where I live and are getting better.
Globally the countries that helped with stimulas money are now the countries that are doing the best.
At 63 I have heard the doom and gloom before but I am a positive person and do belive we will be fine and the sky will not fall on our heads.
There is no recovery, just a lot of fiat money being printed by the government to try and reinflate the bubble. Real unemployment is around 17+%...there are no fundamentals supporting stock prices and they are only up based on the free money being handed out to buy them. Los Angeles is broke. New York and New Jersey are broke. California (the 8th largest economy in the world) is broke. Japan is broke. China is a bubble about to burst. The EU makes Bernie Madoff look like a amature at Ponzi plays, and the country whose economy most resembles Greece...is the USA. We have banks afraid to forclose on mortgages because they can't afford to take the loss and increase their reserves, the FDIC ran out of money about 8 months ago, the only real action in the housing market is on the court house steps.
Being an optimist is nice but it didn't keep the Titanic above water. Sooner than later you are going to see the DOW back at 7000...if we are lucky...and maybe 5000 if we are not.
the bigger picture does not look so good. here in australia it looks a bit better. the government handed out cash and handed out plenty of infrastructure projects for years to come. it kept the consumer confidence up and most spent the cash. sure there was waste of money; nobody knew what to do. there was no cook book receipe for that scenario. but now interest rates are rising and people forget quickly; the next housing bubble is on the horizon....maybe you have to be older to see a bigger picture and have experienced downturns before. sovereign debts will be the next big topic and the USA will play a prominent part in that scenario. rising stockmarkets can be manipulated by the big players to get an exit and the small investors are f**ked. one of the priciples of capitalism is to create wealth by actually doing something. take the risk, create a product and sell for a profit.these days big bonuses are made by shuffling other peoples money around the globe and sell dodgy packaged "financial products" to unsuspecting councils, small investors or fellow bankers, who should know better. who is actually still doing something without using other peoples money in creating his own greedy present ? all short lived; company growth decisions driven by executives, who see their own bonuses, stocks and option packages first.not very healthy in the long run. time to rethink values.... this is too long anyway. kind regards. achim
manufacturing is not expanding...it has disappeared. Only some modest replacment of inventory after months of doing nothing, combined with there being no one else left to fire, has created false increases in GDP. This is a balance sheet recession...aka a Depression. The western world has 60 years of consumer debt that has finally come due. Unfortunately the western governments have the strange fantasy that if they add public debt to private debt that will somehow make everything okay. So now we have this generation out of money and the government has bankrupted the next several generations on top of that.
I am venturing that by 2012, the USA economy will start to look a lot like Hugo Chavez land...and if Obama is re-elected, by the end of his second term we will look like Cuba.
If you believe what you posted maybe you should read some of Bob Chapman's newsletters hes spot on with whats going on but he cant pic a stock to save himself.
http://theinternationalforecaster.com/
For me Ill be wearing my GMT till its over been wearing it since new when I was 16.
a wise man once told me the three ways to lose all of your money. the most fun is to spend it on the opposite sex. the fastest way is to gamble. the third way to lose all of your money is to listen to experts. jmho
depends on how frightened and desperate the voters feel. When people who don't pay taxes can vote themselves free money, democracy dies. Obama is lining up as many ways as possible to make this happen. Unions, students, illegal immigrants, goverment workers, unfunded entitlements, the voter rolls are being stacked against capitalism and for socialism. Welcome to the new Cuba.
