Certainly true: The financial world is not the same as the real world where most people live. The horribly unfortunate part is that too much of what the fed does is done with (apparently) not much concern for the health of the real world portion. Either that or it is a comedy in really poor taste. Consider the amount of debt created relative to the GNP and the fact that much more debt is anticipated to be created. Not so bad, until time to pay it off. The payoff is always the problem.

Thanks for the interesting and educational article. Being reminded of who holds so much of the US debt is not happy. The big problem with debt is that it must eventually be paid.

In the Cannabis Corner it is not likely to go higher every day. (Bad Pun there), and certainly hoping to live on the momentary short term peaks will be very stressful. Given that prior performance is an indication of skill, confidence remains.

Interesting and useful information. Income from investments has always seemed to be a much less stressful mode of operation as opposed to attempting to ride that jagged chart to sell at a profit.So thanks for an educational, useful article.

Quite a collection of comments, that is for certain. I had not been aware that I was "following" particular contributors, so that assertion is interesting. I read articles with titles about subjects that are interesting, or that I think are useful to be informed about. I comment about things that I have opinions about, or information to share, and I tend to warn about dangers that I see, or at least believe I see.

My idea is that marketing real estate debt as a derivative should be considered a felony criminal offense and punished with both fines and prison time. The reason being that it indeed does exactly what M.K.W. says that it does.

First, why is the real estate market such a big concern? The constant sales of property mostly boosts the prices without increasing the value. That is what I have seen, and that lead to that gigantic disaster a few years ago.

Scond, the stock markets well being IS the worry of those who take care of "their friends" there. Protection of stock prices seems to be one of the main goals of the federal banking system, regardless of the damage that it does to whomever else might be in the way. THAT appears to be the primary motivation for having constant inflation. I am sure that I have seen that stated, that inflation is needed to keep stock prices rising.

This article seems to verify that problems will arise when emotions lead to actions without adequate thought or information.

There is certainly a place for emotions and it is certainly not the stocks market.

Interesting, and an impressive amount of details, but what conclusions should I draw, since both of the described funds lost value, or at least price?

Management, planning, HAVING a GOOD business plan and adequate financing are all the things inside a company that work toward success. Customer demand for the actual product is the one part that is much less under control. Marketing and advertising can be beneficial, but there are still some products that just do not sell. Thus accurate and adequate market understanding is the alternative to "good luck."