nigelforbes

Judging from the volume of your posts you must be lonely or bored. Please go find some friends and find somebody else to annoy, we're well and truly done and now you ARE going onto my ignore list..

I said no such thing! I wrote: "It's perfectly reasonable to think that markets might not recover, several respected analysts are talking in terms of recovery within a decade".

OK, I'll take your bait, just this time. I have a BA Econ. from Warwick dated 1971 and a higher degree from FAU in the US. I've worked in banking, Big 4 Finance and management consultancy (Deloitte) since 1981 with an emphasis on merger, acquisition, risk and new start up. I've worked for Standard Chartered in Hong Kong for many years, Goldman Sachs and Barclays in New York as well as Henderson's in The City. I've also freelanced for at least a dozen UK Building Societies where I've implemented Treasury systems. All of which means zero. We were debating markets, you failed in that, badly. Nobody was giving advice.

With a name like trader I'd expected a higher quality of debate with arguments supported by evidence rather than one liners and constant back and forth confusion between GDP and inflation..... that doesn't seem likely. And despite you thinking my education or work record is important to this discussion, I don't think it is relevant at all since either possible answer doesn't change what I have written or will write., only the arguments that are put forth are important. You'll forgive me if I ignore you from this point onwards.

We were talking about GDP, which is finitely measurable, not inflation. Goodbye Sparktrader.

Whatever is a real in this context, defined how?

The long trend is a meaningless indicator, anything more than 200 day MA is pointless, anything less is inconclusive. BTW, the long trend (whatever that is), has always been up in the past.

If US GDP growth in 3Q22 was 2.6% it can't be in a recession (which is defined as two successive quarters of falling GDP)! https://www.statista.com/statistics/188185/percent-change-from-preceding-period-in-real-gdp-in-the-us/ But interest rate increases are lagging indicators as far as GDP is concerned, the rate increase today won't show up in GDP until successive quarters.

You of course can find isolated examples but markets remain completely illogical. Ah yes, averages. Averages can be used to justify almost anything, whether or not they are actually relevant is another story. Why? Because averages rely on historic data and markets are forward looking, just because they did something in the past doesn't mean they will continue to do the sane thing in the future.

"The growth came in large part due to a narrowing trade deficit, which economists expected and consider to be a one-off occurrence that won’t be repeated in future quarters" https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/27/us-gdp-accelerated-at-2point6percent-pace-in-q3-better-than-expected-as-growth-turns-positive.html (It also resulted from increased government spending). And it's just as well it wont be repeated because if it is it will mean the Fed's medicine isn't working, in which case we can expect them to increase the size of future rate increases, not make them smaller. .

Markets are probably the least logical mechanism known to man. Indeed there are far too many doom mongers who comment on this subject and I would normally disregard them, this time around I disregard them 80%. But consider for a moment the precedent for market over performance following a global pandemic the scale of covid and the lockdowns and supply chain disruptions it has caused. Consider also the unprecedented money printing exercise that preceded the pandemic and the over valuations that resulted. There are no comparisons in modern history to these things. So will we recover? Yes of course we will, that's not an issue, the only issue is when and how that timeframe fits with everyone's plans. That said, it's not unreasonable to think that people who are wrong 9/10 times will eventually be right once, and that's all it will take.

I love it when people reference the great crash of 1929 and think that just because markets crashed and recovered nearly 100 years ago that they must do exactly the same forever! There is no comparison between 1929 and today, in fact, there's no comparison between the current events and any time in the modern past. It's perfectly reasonable to think that markets might not recover, several respected analysts are talking in terms of recovery within a decade.

I personally don't see the DJI as representative of the market, ditto the Nasdaq. I think only the S&P offers a representative view of the market as a whole. The former(s) comprises 30 stocks, the later comprises 500, the issue is the scale of the view. And I think the DJI has been rising for about half a month, since 12 October, not a full month at all. Not that a two week surge means much at all, a 200 day MA is a much more representative of trend, which incidentally is down. .https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/djia/charts?mod=mw_quote_advanced

There's only one issue as far as markets are concerned and that's the Fed/inflation, everything else is noise. I don't buy stocks or bonds, only actively managed funds. I went into wealth preservation funds about a year ago and I'm still there with less than 35% in global equities (thank goodness). I'm also about 40% in cash. My holdings are down less than 1% over the past year. I have a short list of funds I want to buy into when the upturn starts, all actively global equities funds, the big question is when that will be. I don't believe for one moment that the current S&P surge will last, it's just another bear trap. The 10 year and 3 month bonds are still rising and remain over 4%, latest estimates are that the Fed will max out at 5% in the Spring...0.75% this week, 0.50% in December. The VIX has fallen to its lowest level in a month but is still over 25, the USD Index remains way too high at over 111%. Part of the reason the S&P rose over the past seven days results from safe haven buying of equities such as Apple that has attractive dividend payments. I'm pretty certain we'll see a retracing of steps downwards after the Fed speaks this week. Also, US unemployment figures remain way too high and that's a key Fed measure, there's no real indication the rate increases are starting to have an effect on the real economy. The PCE (Price Index Report) is the Fed's preferred measure of inflation and that just came in up by 0.5%, until inflation is tamed I don't believe equity markets increases are sustainable. Having said all those things, the falls in some of the FAANG stocks were massive, there is a small chance that pent up consumer demand might generate a surge, if that happens it will play right into the Fed's hands and the December increase will be much higher, not lower.

Being charitable here, she may be saying that the system is not 100% free for her or for others, sometimes there are small incidental charges that hospitals levy, sometimes there are bigger charges they manage to apply on top. My wife had her gall bladder removed at the District Hospital using the social security scheme insurance. There were charges the SSc insurance didn't cover because she had minimally invasive surgery using an endoscope.....I think we ended up paying something like 18k baht as a result but nobody told us or asked us beforehand. Then she had a room upgrade that was sold to her by the hospital at time of admittance, that was 1k per night for a private room. If my wife would have had the OP at a private hospital she would have paid circa 100k but SSc doesn't cover private hospitals, in any event it would have been the same surgeon. Really, the SSc insurance operates no differently than any other health insurance organization, it's just that private hospital treatment is excluded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Thailand#:~:text=Healthcare in Thailand is overseen,nationals through three government schemes.

It doesn't matter that she hasn't worked, she still has a SSc account. Medical treatment is free to her, she knows this.

Thai's are entitled to free medical regardless of whether they pay social security or not, the 30 baht scheme sees to that. The social security payment provides a higher standard of coverage although there is often some co-pay involved. When a Thai person starts a salaried job where the employer pays the social security every month, those payments are credited against her ID number. When that person stops work they can continue to make the payments themselves thus providing continuity. My wife for example has spent the past 20 years of her working life, alternating between employer made SSc payments and self paid payments. All they need to do arrange for the funds to be remitted every month, to the social security office, quoting their ID/account number.

About 475 baht month, which contrasts quite favorably against the 126,000 per year that I pay!

My wife pays voluntary contributions, so do hundreds of thousands of other people. About 475 baht per month.

Paying the social security payment each month is the best answer and the cheapest.

"Urban residents, meanwhile, earned an average of 12,018 baht per month in 2021" Given the huge disparity in earnings between Bangkok and say Chiang Mai, both urban areas, I fail to understand how a national urban average is meaningful or useful.

Girlfriend problems? https://bangkoknightlife.com/bodyguard-close-protection-services/ https://spi-bodyguard-security.com/en/home/

The poster is all over the map. He started posting about wanting property in Pattaya, then moved to Chiang Mai and the San Sai district....he even got into money transfer discussions. Then he's back South again, Pattaya and now Koh Samui looking for a place to rent.....I'm pretty sure he's a dreamer.

No they are not but they do appear to be constructed to Western standards. I've had my current Rapter equivalent for 9 years, the engine is still good because I've taken care of it but the rest of the machine is simply worn out. I paid about 18k for my current model 9 years ago. I've seen the new Rapter model at a shop nearby and the frame is a much more solid and thick aluminum frame and the price is about the same as what I paid 9 years ago. All things being equal I would expect to get over 10 years usage out of my next Rapter, under 2k per year.