Weekly Wrap

You may have been wondering where we've been lately. We celebrated our one-year anniversary, and then went off the air. To tell you the truth, it's been such an overwhelming time in everyone's life, mine included, that the stock market and the Chicks site seemed so insignificant. I took a break to focus on my family.

My husband Phil was scheduled to fly out on the morning of September 11 to start another hockey season with the Calgary Flames. His plane was grounded. With the events of that day, my whole life changed. It put everything into perspective. The stock market and writing about it suddenly seemed like the dumbest priority in the world. I also couldn't believe how much time I was putting into it, when in the whole big picture of life, it wasn't important. Not to mention, it was out of my control. The market was going to do what it was going to do, and I had better spend more time with the people that I do have some influence on.

Phil finally made his way up to Canada on Saturday and the rest of us (four kids and me) stayed back in Minnesota. (Our oldest daughter just started high school and we thought it was important to stop moving her around and give her a home base.) Since I am going to be a single parent until May, I have decided to regroup and focus some of my energies inside these four walls. So what I'm trying to say is, we aren't going to be having new articles every day here at chickslayingnesteggs.com. We'll have a new one on Monday's, which will feature a public company that we'll run through the Chicks' Dozen; on Friday's, I'll still be giving you the weekly Market Wrap. Your on your own on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday... go kiss your kids and hug your honey. They are much more important than this site. And, if you still want more after that... peruse the message boards; there's always some great gossip happenin' over there.

Here's a brief summary of this week's market:

After a week of being closed due to the terrorist attacks, the markets opened on Monday. It's no surprise they crashed. All indices of the markets were down for the week, but do you really want to know by how much?

Sit down.

The Dow was down 15%, the Nasdaq down 16%, and the S&P was down 12%. Ugh. How depressing. Matter of fact, this whole past year has been depressing. I was just talking to Chick Susie yesterday about how depressed I've been the past few months and not really being able to put my finger on it. Then I looked at the markets over the past year. Duh... no wonder... the markets have stunk, and I've been trying to find and write about some light at the end of the tunnel. There has been no light, nor even a glimmer. My stock market writing career began at the start of a bear market nearing an economic recession. I'm calling the doctor now to get some Prozac (although Chicks Lynn and Megan swear by the GNC product SamE, so I might try that first). Since Sept 22, 2000, the Dow is down 19%, the Nasdaq down 65%, and the S&P 500 is down 35%, and again, this is all since I've been writing. Someone get me a bucket.

But, praise the Lord, there's no way to go but up, right? And that's what we're going to do. I watched Peter Lynch last night, the god of all Stocks, and he is very confident in the economy, its businesses and the financial institutions. He said there is no better place for our money to be right now than the stock market. We can't look at this week, or this past year as an indicator of the stock market as a whole. It's not. We're just in a down year. If there are any two people in this world that I trust when it comes to talking about the market, it's Peter Lynch and Warren Buffett. Even Warren is confident in the markets and isn't selling. We just have to ride this through.

That's what I'm going to do, ride this through. Next week, I promise I'll be back with a regular weekly market wrap, but this weekend, let's not think about it and just pray for our country, the leaders, the servicemen and women, and our future. Our energies are much better focused on that. As for me, I'm going to do just that, going to hang out with my kids, and head to GNC for some SamE.

Have a peaceful weekend,
Karin