Posted on 03/13/2009 11:12:56 AM PDT by NEWSHOUND
The stock market has been up for three days in a row (can anyone say Bear Market Bounce?). Apparently there is so much money sitting on the sidelines that investors will use any hint of good news to get back into the market.
So What's the good news? Well, General Electric has had their AAA rating downgraded by Standard & Poors - Oh, wait! That's not good news.
I know! CitiGroup and General Motors are about to be delisted from the Dow Jones Index (their price slide has been dragging down the average you see, so I guess that's good news in a way ... sort of).
And Bernie Madoff pleaded guilty in his fraud trial so that bum is going to jail where he belongs. An now all of those people will get their money back ... oh, wait! They won't get their money back, but they'll feel a whole lot better about being broke.
Oh! And the rate of housing foreclosures has doubled lately in many locations because banks are moving up foreclosures to get them off the books in order to avoid having to rewrite the loans under the new Federal guidelines. They’re ‘clearing out bad loans’ so the banks can be healthy and make loans again … maybe. At least they can still loan out the capital that they haven’t already invested in China and India after getting their bailout money. So that’s good news, isn’t it? And the President says that things aren’t as bad in the economy as we first thought (you know, like when he was telling us we were on the verge of economic catastrophe and HAD to pass the economic stimulus bill or we were going to cease to exist as a country).
(Excerpt) Read more at myecon101.blogspot.com ...
You’re right. More foreclosures = more bank sales and auctions of homes. New home sales are still waaay down and new home starts are almost non-existent (all-time lows) Part of the problem is that the cost to build a new home is higher than the cost of purchasing a similar existing home because foreclosures have been driving down prices. 4 foreclosed homes on my son’s street (he lives in CA near Sacramento) have been bought since the first of the year by one man who is looking for bargains to invest in. Is it part of the process of realigning the market? Yes. Is it a signal that the economy is turning around and everything is on the verge of being sweetness and light? I doubt it.
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