how low can it go.......the DOW I mean.....it's off 27 again this morning...

[a kennedy]

I know, I know, it's not a measure of the recovery.....but it just keeps falling.

Stock Index Futures (Stock exchanges closed)
Index Value Change % change Time
DOW 10,865.00 -27.00 -0.25% 7:02 AM ET
NASDAQ 1,962.00 -7.50 -0.38% 7:10 AM ET
S&P 500 1,170.90 -1.50 -0.13% 7:25 AM ET

http://www.usatoday.com/money/default.htm

[GoCubsGo]

1. They are down because of the situation in Greece, and not what's going on here

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100505/ap_on_re_eu/world_markets

[Auggie]

2. Spain is a concern too -- and a much larger one than Greece.

[Xipe Totec]

3. 52 week low for the DOW was 8,057 so it's 35% above that

[AllentownJake]

5. and about 35% below the high

From 1929 to 1932 the market recovered and failed several times, the 1929 high was not reached till the 50s.

There is still a ton of deleveraging to occur.

[dmallind]

7. But then it's 40000% higher than the low by that metric

Using all time highs rather than the 52 week low responded to is dishonest. It's only a few percent below the 52 week high.

[AllentownJake]

9. I'm not a fan of using the stock market as a metric

but since a corrupt group of government officials and wall street traders have convinced idiots that it always goes up and it is the place they need to put their retirement money, we are forced to discuss it.


Of course if you were believing both these parties in 1999, and heavily invested in the Nasdaq, you are still looking for 5000 again and it is at 2500.

ZIRP creates bubbles, I believe the current stock market is a banker created bubble based on the trading volumes. Fundamentals of stock analysis have kind of gone out the window for 2 years since the Administration and Congress declared war on accounting standards and bankruptcy of large firms.

Time will tell if I am right.

[dmallind]

11. You seem to be when it's down.

You commmented on a comparison of a 52 week low with a comparison to an all time high. Why if you are not a fan of the metric and why not use the corresponding 52 week high?

Yes people who think it always goes up in any discrete period are idiots. That however is not necessary to decide it is good to invest in the markets. DCA allows you to spread costs over lows and highs. Very few people indeed invested all their retirement in the NASDAQ all at once in 1999. I was buying some NASDAQ stocks in 1999 but I was also buying some in 1992 and 2009 too. Why not use those data points? I'm up 400% since 92 just as much as I'm down 50% since 1999. What makes one more valid as a comparison than the other?

I keep asking this and never get takers. WHEN will you be proven right, how far will it fall, and are you willing to sell me some futures with escrowed funds at that level and time? Nobody who buys the Kunstlerite 4000 crap has ever had the confidence in their predictions to sell DJIA futures at 5000 so far. That tells you something.

Roubiniesque constant doom predictors will be right occasionally, but it's idiotic to believe they predicted the actual severe index losses when they always predict severe index losses. It's not being proven right unless you can put a time on it, any more than a person constantly predicting increases was proven right in late 2009.

[AllentownJake]

13. Actually if you re-read my post

I say the market will be down as long as Ben Bernake permits it to be down.

When AIG, Citigroup, and Freddie and Fannie, and a bunch of other bankrupt government sponsored entities are trading at their real values...0, I might consider going back into the markets...till than, this nothing but a laughable pys-ops game of the federal reserve to keep the sheeple quiet when they look at their 401(k) statements.

I'm not bullish on equities long term. You have a large retiring population who has accumulated an asset class for retirement with a population younger than them that will make less than they do to purchase said asset class for their retirements. I do not see how that translates into appreciation in an asset class.

That and pretty much the fact that I can't trust a balance sheet or an income statement because the past two administrations have gone extremely light on punishment for white collar crime. The incentive to commit fraud and run if you are a CEO outweighs the risk of punishment in my book, and therefore, owning their stock, seems foolish.

[AllentownJake]

4. Depends on when Bernake sends the PPT into action

Check the volume at noon, if it is a high volume day :scared:, if it is a low volume day, it will be up in double digits.

Growth is expected to slow in the second quarter. So there should be a slight price correction.

In any event, any banking stock should be trading at 0 if assets and liabilities had real values, but Ben Bernake and Obama are doing all they can to extend and pretend.

Guess that goes back to the White House objection on a Federal Reserve Audit.

[KharmaTrain]

6. Is This A New Talking Point?

As other have mentioned the fluctuation in the world markets is tied to the Greek financial mess and subsequent bail out. Oh Noes...the market is back down to 10,850...above where it was at the start of this year and a long ways from the 6500 where the market hit bottom when our economy melted down. The short sellers are having their fun, the long termers see this as the latest ripple...but the sellers will soon turn around and go for the bottom feeders and the market will turn around.

[dmallind]

8. Arouind here the DOw only means anything when it goes down. Meaningless when it goes up. NT

[AllentownJake]

10. No, my talking point has always remained

Income tax receipts, the U6 with discouraged workers, sales tax receipts, and watching the cargo ships and freight on trucking and trains.

We can add mortgage rate defaults...how is that prime default rate going these days. Not sub-prime...Prime and you tell me how the contagion of economic misery is doing.


Everything else is easily manipulated.

As for the market, high volume down, low volume up.

Takes a little bit of money to move it 2% up and a lot of money to move it 2% down.


Just because you believe in the Casino, doesn't mean I necessarily do. Fundamentals of investing are meaningless when AIG and Freddie and Fannie still have equity.

[KharmaTrain]

12. That's Not The Point...

No disagreement about how badly the economy is and how it's been papered over by casino games...there's been nothing done yet to address this matter and it appears the pending legislation won't do enough to tame this beast. But that's not what is being framed here.

The assumption is that how the corporate media and the right wing loves to peg any fall in the market as some kind of major administration failure...or on the other side, the doom and gloomers who are hoping for a major economic collapse that would hurt the lower and middle classes far more than the rich they hope to topple.

Just not sure which talking point this is...

[AllentownJake]

14. I can point to plenty of administration failures

Focusing on the stock market is one of them, which is kind of ironic, because the candidate said while he was running GDP and the stock market will not be the indicators he looks to for economic health of the populace he governs ;-)

I know I repeated that a few times while campaigning for him.

This is not about hoping, this is about realizing the situation we are in, understanding our legislature and most of our regulatory agencies and executive branch offices have been usurped by the criminals and doing what you need to do to prepare yourself and your family for that reality.

I can hope all I want to I don't see what I see, at the end of the day, wishing it was and pretending it is a skittle shitting unicorn does me no good.

I do not plan to be a poor schlub like the ones in Greece when this hits the fan.

[KharmaTrain]

15. We've Already Hit The Fan...

Look at how many people are out of jobs. Can it get worse? Sure. Could it be like Greece? Hardly. No matter how corrupt and inept our governments have been they nowhere match the money pit Greece had become...combined with a poor infrastructure that could be papered over and hedged against but now the party's over. I expect we'll see some kind of bailout to keep the Drachma from turning into toilet paper and the markets will stabilize...or even start moving up as a new hedge is created by that bailout. It gets too confusing for me sometimes.

I can site a lot of failures as well. C-SPAN just had on an honest to goodness real Progressive economist who had written a book about Obama's failures and really has it nailed. I forget his name, but will look later when they post the clip and try to find his book...his main thesis is that Obama relied on many of the same people who created the mess...and didn't make a clean break like FDR did. I couldn't agree more. He also pointed out that in the '08 campaign, before the economic walls came crumbling, it was easy to talk about not being controlled by the market cause things were still relatively good. All that went to hell when Lehmann collapsed and the deck of cards came crumbling down...the idealism of the campaign met hard cold reality...including a massive Wall Street lobbying shop that has boxed Obama in.

The sad problem is our own economic infrastructure is depleted. Unlike Greece that had few resources, we still do but have outsourced them leaving a big void and turning us from a producing economy into a consuming one...from blue to white collar...from industry to "information and service". There's no way we can sustain this kind of economy any longer and unless the government sees the road to a true recovery leading through Main Street not Wall Street we'll remain in this economic depression.

Cheers...

[laughingliberal]

19. +1 nt

[AllentownJake]

20. Well

You should write that type of thinking more often...we agree more than we disagree there :-)

[Statistical]

17. Low volume up? Really?

Maybe you are looking at a different market than the US equities market?

[AllentownJake]

22. Bad day to be a bull

Don't worry, once the volume starts to taper off Bernake will hit the button.

It is Tuesday and Wednesday, these are the days the market is allowed to sell off. Things will be rosey by next Monday.

[pampango]

16. Hopefully not back to the 6,000 range that Georgie boy left us with.

:)

[JNelson6563]

18. Um, it's high times compared to where it went under Bush

You think it's bad while over the 10,000 mark? You must've missed the last few years.

Julie

[lib2DaBone]

21. I read somewhere to watch for 10,850

.. if it breaks below this it could go to 10,600.

[AllentownJake]

24. I'm pretty confident there will be government intervention

before that point.

[Cali_Democrat]

23. I'm a little surprised Greece is having this much of an effect on equity markets

They only make up 2% of eurozone GDP. The euro has also been getting hammered lately.

[AllentownJake]

25. Italy, Spain, Portugual and Ireland

This has little to do with Greece.

The cost of a Greek bailout was over 150 billion dollars. Do the math of what it cost to bailout those economies which are struggling.

Also remember, all four just gave money to Greece, now how insane is that.

[Cali_Democrat]

28. $150 billion for a country of only 11 million people and a GDP of $330 billion

That's a lot of money for them :o

I would imagine a Spanish or Italian bailout would probably do irreparable damage to the eurozone.

[Statistical]

27. Its the fear of it spreading beyond Greece.

If EU can't control Greece problem it is a vote of no-confidence on the EU and more impotently the Euro.

Spain for example has defaulted on its national debt 15 times in its history. If Greece goes Spain isn't far behind it. The southern portion of Europe is economically weak. Greece is simply a proxy for that weak portion which is a substantial portion of EU in aggregate.

[tjwash]

26. I sold...several hundred shares at the peak high a couple of weeks ago

I was able to pay off all my outstandings, and bring all of my balances to zero. Even after that I am still up 22 percent on all my investments from where I was when the shrub was in office, and that includes my real estate holdings.

A down market day does not always translate to doom and gloom....