Global markets tanking because...

[CoffeeCat]

Most of our nation's financial media outlets are reporting that global markets, as
well as the U.S. stock market, are tanking because investors are realizing that
the consumer isn't going to lift this economy.

Really?

"Investors" are just now figuring out this little factoid? Most ordinary folks
have been balking at "green shoots", "silver linings" and a recovery that doesn't
include jobs or decent wages. We all knew that a recovery while the economy is
still bleeding jobs--seemed a little ridiculous.

So, is the real reason for the market drop--due to the no-shit-Sherlock epiphanies
that "investors" are having?

Or is there some other reason?

Just trying to...you know...understand the malarkey.

[Vincardog]

1. The real reason for the market drop is that the CONseratives have won.

Every dollar we earn is committed to interest and bills.
If they want "The Market" to raise they can put their own money in it.
IF they want us to gamble on the market they better make sure that we have jobs that pay enough
for us to gamble.

[truedelphi]

15. +1 n/t

[notesdev]

2. The reason for the drop

is that the rise off the bottom was powered by nothing more than media hype and direct government/Fed intervention at a rate that cannot possibly be sustained without risking the total destruction of the dollar.

The fundamentals suck. Unemployment, spending, earnings, debt levels, foreclosures, open and blatant accounting fraud... none of this justified the rise off the bottom. While some of the rise may have been due to simple market mechanics, most of it was due to blatant falsehoods being pumped out at a dizzying pace, all with the aim of getting you, the little guy, to put his money back in so they could steal it once more.

[sendero]

3. We are merely reaching the..

... "dump" phase of the "pump and dump" operation underway.

At this point, the powers that be have figured out that they are fooling few with their "green shoots" campaign and so the "dump will commence. Now that they have suckered every available moron to get back into the market the sheeple are ripe for shearing and sheared they will be.

The ride down is likely to be fast and bumpy.

[Po_d Mainiac]

4. IMHO

Sheeple didn't react properly. Ayuh. The run-up, and hype surrounding it was supposed to bring in all the money that's "sitting on the sidelines" (I hate that friggin term) It sucked in some money from MM funds, but not enough. Estimates I've seen (Zerohedge, Dennsinger, etc) are in the $4oo Billion range.

Had a couple Trillion been moved, the S&P might have hit the 1300 mark. But it looks like more investors got it right this time, and sat on their retirement savings. Now, those that ran the market up (probably with our taxpayer $'s) are standing around looking like the last scene in "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" w8ing for the first asshat to flinch.

They know there were never any "green shoots." There is no consumer. This has just been a last ditch effort to :puke: "earn" their way out the mire. If it don't happen, S&P 666 here we come. And that will mark game over! No one will play on Wall Street for a serious long time.

This is not going to have a happy ending YMMV

[CoffeeCat]

7. What boggled me silly...

Was that even *I* understood that their green-shoot-silver-lining meme was total bullshit.

The media would report that housing starts were up--but later we would look behind the numbers
and discover this was due to new apartment construction--not houses. This was actually a signal
that people were not confident in the economy and were opting to rent and not buy.

We also got the total bullpuckey about the banks reporting "record profits". There was one
bank that was so overflowing in profits that its Q1 2009 earnings report lifted the entire
financial sector and helped raise the DOW nearly 300 points that day.

Those are just a couple of examples. There were SO many glaring cases of statistic twisting
and turning negative numbers into positives---it was outrageous.

DU had conversations about this. Even I could see through the lies.

The question I want to know is...if so many knew, how in the world did people with money to invest
in the stock market--not realize this????

It's been so pathetic watching the lies cycle past us, day after day.

I'd rather have the truth (even if that means a tanking market) than the endless trash heap of lies
we've had to listen to during 2009 about how wonderful everything is.

[DCKit]

16. "...the banks reporting "record profits"." while still sitting on enough toxic assets...

to classify them as "insolvent" without the accounting tricks.

If I held bank stocks, I'd take that dividend check and sell the stock, pronto.

[pokercat999]

5. I'm 100% in cash waiting for the bottom, somewhere around

DOW:2600.00

[Po_d Mainiac]

6. IMHO Forget the Dow....It's a cherry-picked circle jerk.. look at the broader indexes

[A HERETIC I AM]

17. Why?

If you are convinced the Dow will fall to the 2600 level, why are you 100% in cash? Why not put your money where your convictions are and buy an inverse Dow ETF? If the DJIA falls from where it is now to 2600 you would make a killing. Then sell the Bear ETF and buy a long ETF and ride it back up.

I suppose the most difficult thing is to admit you really have no more idea where the market is going to go day to day or month to month than anyone else, you just want people to think you know. Saying the Dow is going to go to 2600 is exactly like saying you are going to win the Powerball. It's absolutely possible, but it isn't bloody likely and either way, you really have no fucking idea.

The fact is, it is NEVER as bad as people think it is and it is never as good as people want it to be. For example, where have all the Gold bugs gone? 14 months ago, some posters on this board were saying Gold would be at $2000/oz "soon" but it hasn't happened. When oil got to $140.00 a barrel there were people on DU basically predicting the end of civilization as we know it. Christ, 6 or 8 months ago there was a rice shortage at Costco that meant we were all going to starve, for fucks sake. (Yes, that's hyperbole I admit, but if you've been reading this forum as long as I have, you know what I'm talking about.)

The point I'm trying to make is why predict? Why even tell anyone how you're allocated? Who gives a fuck? If you are 100% cash or 100% in Pork Bellies, who, really and truly, could give a flying fuck? You are going to be no more right than any of the other market mavens on DU who think they have the equity markets by the tail.

"DOW:2600.00"

Yeah? I'm willing to bet you aren't willing to bet on it.

If, by a serious long stretch you are willing to bet on it, then good on ya.

May all your trades be net gains.

[Warpy]

8. When any market rises quickly

you know it's being manipulated. By the time you notice how far it's risen, the big money is being pulled out. The suckers keep it up for a little while, but there are only so many suckers and their funds are limited, so it busts. Their money hasn't evaporated as much as it's provided profits to the big money.

The big money has already moved on to the next bubble. There will always be a supply of "have a little" suckers who are willing to gamble on spotting the bubble before it builds and get out at the peak. Since the big money has been doing this forever and the suckers haven't, this is a loser's game.

This is the bubble and bust cycle and it happens whenever wealth has been concentrated as much as it can be and requires a mechanism other than unfair taxes to help it harvest more from the middle class.

[Po_d Mainiac]

9. Today was a classic example

Volume was the lowest since the days surrounding Christmas. :think:

[CoffeeCat]

10. Isn't this exactly what happened during...

...the Great Depression?

We had the horrible 1929 crash, then some little peaks and valleys---and then horrible
volatility--at which time the economy really began imploding with unemployment rising.

I'm always amazed at how the bubble-headed media darlings throw their heads back and laugh,
dismissing the notion that we're headed for more difficult times, "O-M-G, it's not like we're
in a Depression. Can't people...like...see the green shoots? It's not like we have the bummer
unemployment that we had during the Depression."

Ummm, yeah--unemployment during the 1929 stock-market crash was 9 percent. Unemployment steadily
rose during those next four years, as the market became like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride--highs and lows
all over the place. Unemployment wasn't at 25 percent until 1933.

We seem to be on the SAME trajectory--exactly!

[Warpy]

11. It is exactly and for the same reasons

Wealth concentration hadn't been addressed and the systemic flaws hadn't been corrected.

Once confiscatory taxation was levied against the most obscene wealth and recirculated at the bottom creating jobs, the consumer economy was restarted. Laws were enacted to make it extremely difficult for the wealth to concentrate to that extent again.

Enter Reagan...

[CoffeeCat]

12. Great...

...see I know all of this is true.

I'm just pissed that I'm not as prepared as I would like.

I mean...what can you do?

[Warpy]

13. I decided in 2007 to ride it out like my granny did

Dollars in the mattress are a thief magnet, as the government spirals down the drain those t-bills will be worth far less than face value, and I don't trust banks any farther than I can throw them by the ATM machine.

My granny had about a third of her stocks survive. She and my mother lived on oatmeal 3 times a day through the worst of it, but they ate and they kept their house without taking in boarders. She was quite comfortable by her death 20 years later.

None of us will know what the right thing to do is until it's long over.

[CoffeeCat]

14. You're so right Warpy...

...the people who survive the best--will look like geniuses when this is all over with.

In the meantime, we all guess and try to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

We don't have a lot of money, but 70 percent of our 401k is out of the stock market and is in Treasuries.

I do have cash out of the banking system--in case of an emergency.

I feel like we don't have enough reserves though. Not counting our 401k, if we were left without an income--we could survive
one year unemployed. That leaves me terrified.

We've spent the last five years sinking all of our money into my student loan debt. It will be paid off in two years. If I
had known this train wreck was coming--I would have paid the minimums on the student loan and socked away more cash. Hindsight...I know.
I worry mainly about our young children. I don't want them to suffer.

[wuvuj]

18. Bonds might be poor bet?

TIPS?