Friday, October 9

S&P 500 now trading at 140 Times Earnings

Greetings readers,

I will be away from my computer over the weekend for a much-needed vacation, so my "Weekly Update" will not be published. But I do want to pass along this news to you:

As of September 30, the S&P 500 was trading at 140 times earnings. Here's the link to the Standard and Poors website confirming this information.

The S&P 500 is an index of the 500 largest public companies in America. It is considered the most reliable proxy for the overall state of the entire stock market.  For comparison, over the last 80 years, the S&P 500 has traded at an average of 15 times earnings.

What does this mean to you?

It means that the rise in values in the stock market since March is not the result of improvements in business; it is the result of the government dumping a little over a trillion dollars into the five biggest banks. The banks were supposed to use that money to lend, but they have instead used it to speculate in the market. (Goldman Sachs is the worst offender. The others are Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup.)

This is NOT the time to be putting money into the market. It is time to make sure your investments are protected from a stock market reversal. It is also time to be saving and getting out of debt.

See you all next week.

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