Reply #22: I've worked for three Wall Street firms and it was sort of a running joke....

[Jack from Charlotte]

about what........... CAUSED.........the market to do whatever it happened to do on any certain day.

I recall when I was a young punk rookie at Bache my mentor told me to wait for a market closing statement that came over the wire before going home. The firm's top PR guy, analyst, Larry Wachtel, would tell ...why the market might have done whatever it did that day. That way if/when someone that night at a party or a bar or your neighbor asked why the market was up or down.... you had some plausible explanation.

Of course the only real cause/effect on market movement was more buying or more selling.

Now whenever I hear a guy saying.....why the market did whatever...he's just a pr schmuck