Weak retail sales and banks take Wall Street lower

Reuters ^ | april 14, 2009 | Leah Schnurr

[RC one]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Tuesday as a surprising drop in retail sales dented hopes that the recession was abating and financial shares slid on fears that a stock offering by Goldman Sachs could prompt others to follow suit.

Retail sales in March snapped two months of gains and sparked selling across the board, with shares of retailers, big manufacturers and energy companies among the casualties.

Financials, which have led the stock market's five-week rebound from 12-year lows, took the biggest beating by far, with the KBW Bank index falling 8.2 percent. Goldman Sachs (Symbol : GS

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) lost 11.6 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 137.63 points, or 1.71 percent, to close unofficially at 7,920.18. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 17.22 points, or 2.01 percent, to 841.51. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 27.59 points, or 1.67 percent, to 1,625.72.

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Jan Paschal)

[RC one]

People stop buying things(decreasing retail sales)--------------->decreased production(shrinking GDP)----->lay offs(increasing unemployment)------->more people that can't afford to buy things (decreasing retail sales)----------> further decreases in production (shrinking GDP)------------>more lay offs-------->more people who can't afford to buy stuff--------->further decreases in production----->more lay offs-------->more people who can't afford to buy things----------->further decreases in production------->repeat until economic collapse.

[ChinaThreat]

Had nothing to do with the 0 opening his mouth at lunch....nahhhhh. I wish he would go back to Europe. My stocks sure performed better when he was gone.

[SECURE AMERICA]

(Stocks fell on Tuesday as a surprising drop in retail sales dented hopes that the recession was abating )

What I want toknow is why it was surprising.
Unemployment is still rising,more businesses are going under or just getting out while they can. The Government is spending money they don’t have which the citizen realize means that they are going to get the shaft with taxes, so why is it surprising that retail sales dropped....

[RC one]

I wasn’t surprised in the least. I saw this coming just as surely as I saw the weather getting warmer in April and precisely for the reasons you mentioned. We’re now stuck in a whirlpool. Giving bankers more money to loan to people won’t pull us out IMO. They would have been better off to just write us all a check for $50,000. Too late now.