I post here to record my thoughts and to have only a witnesses. I may go back I read these posts years later as I have done.

I have been hoping most recently for a better economy for the sake of my relatives' and friends' well being.

I've spent analyzing this market hoping to come up with a positive conclusion, but I've concluded that things may get worse. Since I am hoping for the market to do better in the future, I wouldn't like to profit by shorting stocks.

I use to do many stock trades. Now, I'm just waiting for the best time to put money in for the short term. With the exception of 10% of my IRA, I missed the 5 months run-up. However, I also myself and a few relatives from losing big time in 2008 by letting them know that I've cashed all of our long term investments including my kids' 529 plan.

The DOW from Mar. 2009 to Aug. 2009 has never ran up the way it has down. It had taken the DOW 15 months to run up from April 1997 to July 1998 to acheive the same numbers.

Also, the only time the Nasdaq has run-up in similar fashion was back in 1999.

When my wife and I had twins, I had been a full-time trader from 2002 to 2006 and devoted time in real estate. Since then, I went back to work as an Engineering Manager. I had traded all kinds of trades. I would day trade. I would also go in and out within a month while I had some long term investments that I would never touch. When stocks use to crash and breakdown as a result of bad news or bad earnings, they would rise up quickly. Not quite as quickly as the drop though.

This post is too long. I'll continue it with another topic.