Dow off 445; S&P hits 11-year low

Dow off 445; S&P hits 11-year low

articles.moneycentral.msn.com

The Dow closed at 7,552, off 5.6% on the day. It was the lowest close for the blue-chip index since Oct. 10, 2002, the day after its 2002 bottom.

The S&P 500 was down 54 points, or 6.7% to 752, its worst close since April 14, 1997. The close also was below 776.76, the closing low in the bear market that erupted after the dot-com bust and the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

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Once again we see a record fall in the markets today... How much further can it possibly go? I was thinking we would hit around 5000 before we would ever see any type of relief... We have alot of Doom and Gloom around the ATS forums lately. Alot of people say that this is being crazy but when you look at our markets it isn't hard to envision the Fall of the American economy.

articles.moneycentral.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 20-11-2008 by ExistenceUnknown]

For whatever it's worth, I think this may wake many people up to the reality of the severity at hand. They will now no longer say five year lows, but lows of more than a decade! Hopefully this will have a psychological effect on the masses that will have them come to their senses.

it's another great day to buy!

reply to post by unityemissions


And a star for you, bubbaloo . . .

Clearly in discussing this with a lot of people, the severity and depth of the economic trouble in which we ar mired has not hit the masses yet.

In my workplace . . . automotive . . . there are still quite a few people who just don't get it. It is the same on the street . . . more chit chat about the latest reality television show and a glazed over look when it comes to discussing the economy and what is going on.

There's a mall right down the street from my workplace. The parking lot was jammed today when I shot out to one of our other plants for a meeting.

Unbelievable . . . and a lot of people are chatting up Christmas without a worry in the world.

Is it that they don't believe what they hear? Is it that they're not listening?

Or maybe it doesn't look all that bad to them yet.

Take a look at what has transpired over the past couple of months. Remember how our elected officials screamed a couple of months ago that if the bailout did not pass, money wouldn't get into the hands of the folks on 'main street' and there would be a collapse of our system. We heard veiled threats of martial law, lines for food, no jobs . . . hell in a handbasket, so to speak.

Well, the bailiout passed, no money went to mainstreet, the financial sector used a good chunk of it to make the rich richer, credit markets are still tighter than a drumskin and the corporate elite still go on their junkets, fly their corporate jets, vacation on the Company's ticket and generally live as though nothing was amiss.

In short, the powers that be don't appear to give a rat's patootie about it, so why should we.

Christ, take a look at the list and it's just from the last day or so . . .

Two of three CEOs on The Hill this week would not cut back their salaries in a 'gesture' of faith while they fellated Congress and the Senate for taxpayer dollars . . .

The president's twenty-strong dinner party sipped on $500 bottles of wine while discussing this economic catastrophe . . .

Some banker in South Carolina takes an $18 million buyout only after receiving a $347 million bailout from the government trough . . .

The presidential inauguration will most likely send Washington DC into bankruptcy . . .

So, what the hell are people supposed to think . . . it is business as ususal for Congress, the Senate, the President, the corporate shills, the economic elite and all those who cried wolf a few months ago, so why shouldn't it be business as usual for everyone else?

So . . . I guess it will take something catastrophic to make them take notice and until then I can only surmise that it is business as usual.

Originally posted by never_tell
it's another great day to buy!

Be careful not to cut your hand while catching that falling knife!

this is line no. 2.

reply to post by GoalPoster


From my general day to day dealings with people I find that Ignorance really is bliss. They don't want to think about how the markets can affect them. They just want to be left alone and allowed to watch their "reality TV" while ignoring the true reality.

I watched the markets all day and I was expecting this much, this shows how the so call bail out did nothing fix anything, and on top of that the markets are now so volatile that anybody investing is bound to get nothing but panic attacks and hart conditions.

Originally posted by ExistenceUnknown

 

From my general day to day dealings with people I find that Ignorance really is bliss. They don't want to think about how the markets can affect them. They just want to be left alone and allowed to watch their "reality TV" while ignoring the true reality.

No doubt. They don't want to think about it at all.

Welcome to my world.....or welcome me to your world.

Any mention of this reality to them gets an almost instant glossy eye look.

We're going to need a new forum for this. How about "Run of the mill, fully expected, not surprising in the least, par for the course news".

The sad thing is that nobody's actually talking about fixing the problems. There's all kinds of band-aid conversation going on, but corrective surgery has yet to be mentioned.

Bailout this, bailout that. A bailout is a bailout is a bailout, and that's just it, it's only a bailout. When you "bailout", you still have to go to trial.

As I posted in another thread, think of it as a sinking ship. You can "bailout" all the water you want, sooner or later you're still going to sink. Bailing the water out does absolutely no good if you don't stop the water from coming in. You've got to plug the hole, because you can only bail for so long.

John Q. Public will only catch on to this right after he finds the pink slip on his desk at work, or when he realizes his 401k is now a 41k.

Well Goalposter the malls in my neck of the woods are not so lucky, the sales bargains are incredible right now but the consumers are not just there.

So far many small businesses that has been around for longer that I can remember are going out of business.

No just failing for bankruptcy and cleaning out debt to start all over but actually cleaning out and leaving their employees hanging.

So I guess it depends were you live and how the situation is affecting the regular joes.

I guess some banks are willing to offer credit for Christmas shopping.

But the Christmas blues will hit many after the holidays are over, and while retail can claim "some profits" with credit that is not the same as cash profits, if the credit holder default after the holidays the loses will be greater than the profits.

But we will not know this until much later in the new year.

Unit, you are absolutely right with the sinking ship analogy. They don't want to accept the fact that these businesses need to fail... They don't need to be bailed out so they are allowed to continue carrying out their shoddy business practices. If I start a business and make bad business decisions, I will fail and I will expect no one to bail me out.

You know not long ago when the dow touched 7800 during a trading day before going back up before close there was a thread about the market and I said that IMO we will see a dow of 5000 before it was all over with. Everyone thought I was nuts. And they countered with 7500 as the low. Well we are only 50 points or so from that low.

I will now reiterate my educated guess that we will see the dow hit a low of 5000 before it ever sees 11,000 again. That is what it was in the mid 90s before the dot com boom. After that we had a housing bubble save us from what would have been a big depression. So the great D part deux was postponed until now .... nice.

Unit541,

I love your antagonym use of bail. That was great!

Apparently all 200 of us who understand and give a care are here.

[edit on 20-11-2008 by Rollinster]

reply to post by 2 cents


I've heard alot of estimates be around 5000...The real doom and gloomers estimated 3000.. I hope for our sake that 5000 is the bottom.

reply to post by ExistenceUnknown


3000!

That would be 75% off the high of 14,000. I think during the great depression it went down about 60-70% (not sure - just off the top of my head from what I can remember).

5000 is 65% off the high.

Disregard this post.....I couldnt remember where I read that 3000 prediction so I did a search and pulled the first one I came to....stupid me didnt pay attention to the date of the article though, it was a 2002 article.

[edit on 20-11-2008 by ExistenceUnknown]

The real doom and gloomers are worried about dollar collapse.......that Makes 3000 on the DOW look great.

Well it depends on what we get after the dollar collapse. Sometimes I think a system overhaul is what we really need. Whether I or anyone else is prepared to muster that kind of change in is a completely different question....