Stock Market

[Steve Ekstrand]

W has that much power?

Something happen on the stock market today???

[Jeff Shyu]

Does anyone want my 401k? It's useless at this point! Jesus-H Christ! WTF is going on??? Damn you G-DUBYA BUSH!!!

i'm sure it was just a minor correction to the knee jerk reaction of a 700B bailout..

[Bob Beamesderfer]

11:21AM PST DOW -682.98

sure glad we got that bailout boost.

Last Monday, a $1 TRILLION in market capitalization was wiped out. Yes, Gio, percentages aside, the dollar amount lost was horrifying. How much more today?

[Bob Beamesderfer]

Dow ends the day -370

[Steve Ekstrand]

These daily tallies aren't what I see as disturbing. Its the trend. Its a drop from 14198 to 9955. That's a 30% correction. That's historically significant. And more disturbing is the fact that the DJIA first crossed 10000 in 1999. A decade lost begins to shake confidence in long term value guys like me that aren't looking to get rich in a day, but try to find stocks I'd like to own for the next several years. I have a portfolio worth of stocks with PEG ratios under .5 some as low as .3. That is unheard of historically. That means the market is betting on dramatic shrinkage in earnings. A massive deflationary spiral. Or, quarter by quarter some of my stocks will either pop dramatically, or finance there own LBO's on operating revenue. I have a couple of stocks whose price to sales ratio is literally 1. They are bringing in their market cap in a year. If there is any light in the economy stocks like that get bought immediately and there is an explosion to the upside. But right now there is no light. We're still going through a forced deleveraging with no buyers. That is a worst case in any market situation. Its what we have in the mortgage backed securities, and its literally what we've seen this past week in stocks.

Now I'm not so bitter about being forced into an 80% cash position. Assuming of course, that the banks don't go bust.

[Giovanni Jaramillo]

W has that much power?

No but the REAL W does (aka D. Cheney)

[Steve Ekstrand]

Dick Cheney can't spell economy. The only economic topics that would concern Cheney would be economic warfare, and frankly he'd rather just drop bombs or send in American soldiers to get knocked over like green plastic army men in a children's playroom.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

W has that much power?

No but the REAL W does (aka D. Cheney)

I'm laying the job losses at the feet of this administration. Inaction on rising oil/gasoline prices adds fuel [pun intended] to the fire.

Dow closes down 508 today. The index is way off from the beginning of the year.

[John Coffey]

I'm laying the job losses at the feet of this administration.

The easy, non-thinking way out. You're better then that Bob.

[Will Kalman]

Deleveraging is my word of the year.

Just like consumers "living large" on credit cards and loans and barely able to keep up with the payments, too many companies showing "growth" based on air (credit). And on credit to cover their credit. And credit to cover that credit. I agree with the sentiment that bad business needs to go out of business. And shareholders and Boards of Directors need to keep their people accountable or suffer the consequences. Way too much reliance on news that's too good to be true (artificial growth based on credit) to hit the monthly and/or quarterly numbers while hiding the bad news is just stupid.

And if all these bad loans were worth the government buying ('cause all that money's coming back when the market recovers, right?), why didn't private industry? Welcome to Roman Empire 2.0

[Jeff Shyu]

different spin.

the people that have been saying we should put social security into investments and make a bigger profit. this whole credit thing kinda ruins that idea..

[Bob Beamesderfer]

I'm laying the job losses at the feet of this administration.

The easy, non-thinking way out. You're better then that Bob.

So, how is the Executive branch, with it's authority over monetary policy -- and fiscal policy, albeit through veto power W has rarely exerted -- not for the most part to blame for the 760,000 jobs lost this year?

I will concede that many of the normally astute business journalists in this country failed to see the signs of where we are now, but it is primarily the job of the Executive branch to take the pulse of the economy. At what point was the Bush administration waking up to all of this? When the former investment banker turned Treasury secretary sounded the alarm.

Long before that, gasoline prices soared well beyond the levels seen during the early days of the Iraq War. Disasters took their toll and the once stalwart FEMA -- built up to serious abilities under Reagan/HW/Clinton -- strolled through it all with little sense of urgency. I'm not sure they've regained any real sense of urgency, despite the charge laid out in Homeland Security protocols on FEMA's role in any and all disasters -- that of the LEAD agency.

Getting back to economic cycles vs. presidential terms, don't tell me Carter was the only entity at fault or that Reagan was somehow responsible for the 1990s boom if you're going to turn around and say that the ass clowns in the White House are not responsible for the economy's woes, OTHER than the credit crisis. My argument is that there were grassroots, Main Street, I'll get back to ya, issues with the economy long before Paulson showed up on the HIll in July asking for a "bazooka" with which to fix what was imminent.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

And if all these bad loans were worth the government buying ('cause all that money's coming back when the market recovers, right?), why didn't private industry? Welcome to Roman Empire 2.0

Precisely. And while I do think some sort of intervention was needed, the stock market is acting like it has buyer's remorse.

[KJ Christopher]

And if all these bad loans were worth the government buying ('cause all that money's coming back when the market recovers, right?), why didn't private industry?

Primarily because those that typically make these purchases don't have the cash or can't get to it.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

Another day, another Dow decline. Nearing the 9,000 mark.

[Jeff Shyu]

the sky is literally falling over Wall Street..

[Steve Ekstrand]

Its bad.

If I can escape without the trusts in banks getting wiped out from failures, I'll probably come out better from this collapse, but its the scariest thing I've ever faced. I will put a bullet in my brother in law's head if one of those bank fails. Idiot.

The damage to the econonmy going forward is huge. I know so many people nearing retirement age who have watched their retirement accounts lose 40%. This at the same time their California homes have lost 30%. My dad at 65 was set pretty good, and now is probably thinking he'll have to work til he's 90. Its a horrific double hit for our successful responsible middle class families that thought they did have their retirements in place. For those people, now what? They don't have 10-15 years to build it back up.

And across the board with credit drying up and portfolios collapsed and home equity erased, younger successful families are going to be poor for a long time. Both of these groups are going to take huge bites out of the consumption side of the economy.

For the poor without homes or savings or investments, it is a positive if they can keep jobs. For those on fixed incomes without exposure to the markets like my grandfather who owns everything outright, has only CD's and money markets, its a win. He's all worried and I asked him why? He has less than $250K in several banks. He has no investments other than his paid for home. With the economy collapsed there is less risk now of inflation eroding his fixed income and savings. He wins big in a deflationary spiral. I win big barring the wrong bank failing.

And oh yeah the idiot in the white house takes a big chunk of the blame. But so does pelosi and Reid and the other 533 ass clowns in the legislature in both parties.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

Small comfort that what little I had saved for retirement went toward keeping up my mortgage and fixing my house, while renting an apartment up north. Instead of watching it all go away, I get to pay the tax and penalties for having used it at all.

The Nikkei went straight down overnight, however one of the newly popular safe havens is the yen.

[Giovanni Jaramillo]

Percentage, Gio, percentage! Black Monday back in the '80s saw the Dow lose 40% of its value in one day. This is 7%; Nasdaq was down 9% and the S&P about 8%.

Now if Wall St. is really scared, they'll suspend trading for tomorrow.

True but that Black Monday was a 1-time blip. We've been "barfing" :barf: up a storm over these past few months. Today it was diarrhea!

Corrrection. No longer diarrhea. This is hemorrhaging caused by a Bouncing Betty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncing_Betty. Also see "S-Mine"

This is SERIOUS S***

I was waiting to watch the repeat of the debate on CNN when breaking news flashed and it switched to CNN International, were the Nikkei index (Tokyo, Japan), dropped like a boulder!

[Will Kalman]

You, your children, and your grandchildren's tax dollars at work:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/ye ... 3aig1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Giovanni Jaramillo]

You, your children, and your grandchildren's tax dollars at work:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/ye ... 3aig1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oh yeah I heard about this last night on CNBC Europe SquawkBox. They said that the U.S. Treasury should demand a refund.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

You, your children, and your grandchildren's tax dollars at work:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/ye ... 3aig1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oh yeah I heard about this last night on CNBC Europe SquawkBox. They said that the U.S. Treasury should demand a refund.

They ran up a nice bar tab. Jerks.

Dow whipped up and down and finally ended down about 190 pounts.

[Steve Ekstrand]

There are execs that make what that little retreat cost in a day.

Those pwrichz probably had no clue they were doing anything wrong or insulting or immoral. They are so out of touch with reality they probably thought there were properly slumming it....

[Bob Beamesderfer]

There are execs that make what that little retreat cost in a day.

Those pwrichz probably had no clue they were doing anything wrong or insulting or immoral. They are so out of touch with reality they probably thought there were properly slumming it....

After all, it wasn't the south of France.

[Giovanni Jaramillo]

the sky is literally falling over Wall Street..

Oh we're WAY past this. This is more like the scene from Superman where planet Krypton is blowing up due to the gravitational forces of the local "Sun" colliding with the planet. Dow Jones Industrial Average is down another 617 points! Currently it's 8,641 points (12:50pm PST).