All major US stock markets fall after fiscal cliff talks reach impasse

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

US stock markets fell on Friday, following news that talks aimed at avoiding the fiscal cliff budget crisis had failed on Thursday night.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures contracts, an indication of the direction the market may take, fell 299 points late on Thursday, soon after a vote on the issue in congress was cancelled. All the major US stock markets opened down on Friday, with the Dow down by more than 120 points in morning trading.

The collapse followed news that the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, had failed in his attempt to rally his party colleagues to a "Plan B" that was aimed at averting the year-end imposition of tax hikes and massive spending cuts.

The fiscal cliff crisis has dragged on for months but it had looked likely to be settled earlier this week, as president Barack Obama and Boehner appeared to be making headway.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/21/us-stock-markets-fall-fiscal-cliff

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. Time to once again bail out those playing Wall-Street Roulette?

Just have to protect the big-money donors somehow.

[OKNancy]

2. Lots of little people in the stock market too, especially those

close to retirement or retired.
Even though it hurts the fat cats, a bad market hurts everyone.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

3. When he participated in giving hundreds of billions to the banksters, how much did you get?

Or are you satisfied the way that the bail-out-the-banksters-and-trickle-down-on-everyone-else theory is working?

[Plucketeer]

4. Our retirement depends on the stock market

We don't HAVE and can't AFFORD skilled manipultors to steer our funds thru roiling waters or hide our funds overseas. That said, we (the wife and I) think the end result of going over the cliff would be the BEST thing that could happen! It LOOKS like such an incident would tie an anchor to the Right's neck out in really deep water. We'd gladly sacrafice to see that come to pass. It's the shit-swabbing medicine that this nation needs.

[John2]

6. Does this

mean you invested in the Stock Market? I need to study this?

[subterranean]

5. The effect will likely be temporary.

There will probably be a year-end selloff as investors take profits ahead of the potential rise in capital gains tax rates. But in my non-professional opinion, the market will come back early next year after the economy fails to fall off a cliff.

[question everything]

10. Right. And I hope that the pain for all the heavy investors

is higher than for us, so this will be their motivation to move forward.

Only this year we finally recovered what we had in our IRAs in the summer of 2007.

[Civilization2]

7. little crying babes..,

yes,. when they don't get their way the threaten to take their ball and go home,.

The whole threat of a cliff is a joke,. reality is much simpler; the 1% do not want to pay ANY more in taxes or ANY taxes at all,. they will be made to do so, and the sooner the better,. personally I would raise the top rates back to what they where in the new deal days,. 90%!

[JoePhilly]

8. 120 points is nothing.

[coalition_unwilling]

9. +1. I actually thought it was going to be a hell of a lot worse when Boner

displayed his incompetence and douchiness for the entire world to see. 120 points is about 1%, as you say, 'nothing' in a trading universe where such volatility on a daily basis is the norm.

However, it seems many investors like myself had already priced in Boner's incompetence and acted ahead of its denouement Result was that only inveterate optimists -- those gambling that Boner actually was\is competent -- were caught with their proverbial pants down.

[Ligyron]

11. Still, there's money to be made here