I got another Q. Why are the stock market companies doing so great and local companies are disappearing from the malls?
The high tax/regulatory environment benefits large companies over small because they can do work-arounds the smalls can't. I'm staying in the large caps until the Dems are out of power, and I may not return to smalls even then.
Financial institutions can survive off near zero loans from the Fed and other financial instruments. Also, they are a world wide category, ie rich folk in Russia, Brazil use them.
And local companies as you stated are dependent on the local economy as a whole. Really tough for them especially in Nevada and other high unemployment situations except if your in the foreclosure dude or a repo man.
they are like bookies- no matter if the stocks go up or the stocks go down, they make money
Because investors are not looking at the whole financial picture for large corporations. There are two ways to show increased profits: 1.) have a growing business that is attracting more and more customers; or 2.) cut expenses like a fiend; layoff the workforce; cut R & D. The second way, of course, shows a temporary profit - if you don't spend on R&D then 5 years down the road, you don't have new products to sell. But the modern executive is not going to be around that long - he wants to show increased (all be it, unsustainable) profits TODAY, so he can get his bonus and stock options and move on to the next company. But Wall Street puts those phony profits into their spreadsheets and - WOW! - with these growing profits the stock is a BUY. That's what happens when computers are picking stocks rather than knowledgeable analysts.
The small guy really only has option 1 to increase profits - he doesn't let his staff get bloated in the first place, so there is little, if any, deadwood to cut. Paper profits do him no good if he can't make payroll next week. And many are probably closing because they know that come Jan 2014 they can't survive the costs of Obamacare, so there is no incentive to "hang in there" and wait for the economy to turn. If that lease comes due, it's time to pull the plug.