Dow 10,000

The problem with being right about impending disaster is that you can't eat smugness. So, I don't want to point out when the Dow Jones Industrial Average hits 12,000, as I've predicted it'll go all the way to 10, and I know that people get upset when the DJIA loses value. You pull your kids out of school, fire employees, sell your house (ah, oops,) all sorts of terrible things. And I don't feel a lot of schadenfreude, as the people who benefited most from the spurious inflation of the equities markets have already feasted on their ill-gotten gains, and can't be made to unfeast.

The market's haven't closed, and sometimes they pop up again at the end of the day, but they're at 12,137.51 now. On October 10, it opened at 14,010, so it's already 47 % of the way corrected, and that's with a dropping dollar.

So, since it doesn't really benefit me or anyone I know for the market to drop like this, I won't point out when it hits 12,000. But, I wanted to note the possibility.

You could try this book. I don't know much about it, but I wanted to end on a positive note.

In Conquer the Crash, Robert Prechter explains why he thinks the boom times are behind us. Based on his interpretation of the Elliott Wave principle (an idea premised on the notion that mass investor psychology is what really drives markets), Prechter believes that the U.S. economy is about to enter into a deflationary depression that few investors are prepared to deal with. In making his case, Prechter assembles an impressive array of data that in essence suggests that the bill for the last 10 years of market excess is about to come due. The second half of the book shows how to avoid becoming "a zombie-eyed victim of the depression" and offers advice on protecting one's assets in a deflationary environment (cash is king). If there's any good news in the future that Prechter sees coming (other than how to avoid it), it's that all-out depressions don't last very long. Conquer the Crash should appeal to gloom-and-doom investors and to those desperately looking for a safe haven from the uncertainties of today's markets. --Harry C. Edwards