Market retreat This third day of selling has turned into a mini rout. Only the strongest of interventions by the European Central Bank, with unequivocal open support of the national leadership of Europe's largest economies, can turn this around, now that selling momentum has taken hold around the planet. I don't think this is just going to go away.... Anybody watching the markets today was in for a wild ride, with the DOW's volatility extreme: depending on when you checked, you would have seen it down by as much as 1,000 points. ____________________
Markets down again Asian markets open first, because of time zone differences, and there, on Friday morning, they are sharply down. Expect another bad day, world wide, tomorrow. Nothing has happened yet- Thursday evening in the U.S.- to stop this slide. __________________________
I fastened my seat belt, yesterday, and haven't released it, yet, Gonzo. The pattern, so far, has been for Asia to fall, followed by markets in every time zone around the planet, each of the last four days. If the large European Government leaders don't step up to the plate with a serious announcement of collective action to settle the markets, this could turn into a rout. On March 25 I wrote: This is one of those times when you hate to be right, but I feel time may be running out for the leadership to act. ___________________ Fearing trouble, but not knowing from which direction it would come, we pulled out of equities about the same time we pulled out of foreign currencies. This has made it a little easier to watch but, if a general collapse does occur, all will suffer, and some alive today will have seen it happen twice in their lifetimes. ____________________ "...pulled out of foreign currencies...": When markets get shaky, traders start unwinding their trades which increases demand for dollars, driving the dollar up, in my understanding of the process
That was a good prediction, but stop doing that :icon_wink:, that you made on the above quote. I guess at my age (47) I just have to "roll with the changes".
They're blaming the craziness yesterday that saw the DJIA dive almost 1000 points on computerized "sell" programs that triggered in a domino effect after some bonehead issued a ridiculously large sell order by mistake, causing other company's automated systems to sell to avoid loss, which in turn triggered others and so on.... seems that automatic systems might not be such a good idea huh? Of' course this taking place while there is so much tension on the market doesn't help matters. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jmT59dgLTTziX4p9X9MRBRpWZGdQD9FHOHI00
And now they're talking about an "investigation". People are pointing the finger at Citigroup and Citigroup is saying, "Not us!" Obama: Feds looking into stock market plunge - Stocks & economy- msnbc.com
I can understand why brokers might think its a good idea to have computers step in and sell stocks before they incur high loses, on the other hand as we saw yesterday, when those programs are in place the whole market can go to $hit in a hurry since it all happens so fast... IMHO automated programs should be either removed (unlikely) or tightly controlled so that they can't move large volumes without delay periods or direct human oversight. We'll see what becomes of this... I wonder how many heart-attacks yesterday's ride caused in the business world. Edit: The article below lists some of the trades that have been nullified.. and also lists several companies that saw their shares fall to 1 cent for a short time during the madness.... http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/07/markets/explaining_wall_street_turmoil/
I had heard that there is supposed to be some kind of safeguards to prevent the FAT finger problem, wonder what happened with it.
Negative sentiment persists in U.S. markets, today, in spite of some good economic news, and the report that European leaders are huddling tonight to work on a strategy for steadying the markets. The subject of owning gold has come up on this thread, earlier, as part of a strategy to avoid a total personal financial meltdown should the worst happen. That was then: now, I've thought about it. Gold is not, generally speaking, very convenient: it's costly and can be inconvenient to ship, and protecting it from theft can be an issue. People who write about these things usually recommend physical gold, such as Krugerrands, kept in a safety deposit box in a bank. ____________________ In spite of USD strength, right now, gold has drifted higher, suggesting considerable interest in it: even more striking is the way that gold mining stocks have held up during this sell off. To see what I mean, look at a five day chart of GG (Gold Corp), as an example. ____________________
