Posted on 01/05/2015 10:57:16 AM PST by Signalman
It's quite the sobering Monday on Wall Street as many traders and investors return from their holiday hiatus. The Dow plunged over 300 points in mid-day trading as stock markets around the world fell sharply.
What's going on? The main culprits of market jitters these days are falling oil prices and the souring global economy. Crude oil now trades at about $50 and even dipped briefly below that level on Monday -- another psychological threshold for the market.
Experts now predict oil could go as low as $40 or even $30 a barrel. While that's great for U.S. consumers, who are enjoying gas prices of $2 or less not seen since the worst of the Great Recession, there comes a point when sustained low prices begin to really hurt energy company stocks and jobs in the U.S. and other countries around the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Surprisingly unsurprising!
Let ‘er fall.
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0bama = Girly Man, LOL!
Gold UP. Silver UP. Mama Like! :)
At these prices the government better be buying up all they can to refill the strategic reserves that people demanded they open years ago, when prices were high, to bring prices down.
Louisiana better be washing out more holes in their salt domes for places to store the oil.
All beside the point
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Low oil prices must somehow prevent the Fed from printing money or prevent the government from borrowing and spending.
Those are the dominant factors in the stock market.
If we have too much oil, why doesn’t the Texas Railroad Commission set the allowable in Texas below 100%? Louisiana and Oklahoma could do the same thing. Not certain about North Dakota.
I would be surprised if obama wants to buy oil for the reserves. It is against his idealogy. I could see him converting the domes to store solar panels.
Before the huge dow runup last week I was watching it collapse the week before. I found it interesting that the collapse made very little news but the run up was a big deal. At the end of the run up it was only a hundred or so points higher than it was before the big fall beforehand.
And now the fall continues.
I remember before the big collapse in 2008 the market was having wild swings in both directions. I was noticing a few weeks ago that it is happening again, and getting wilder.
It’s kinda like a top just before it completely stops spinning. I REALLY would not want to be there right now.
Collapsing energy prices are highly deflationary. Deflation reduces income. A debt based economy based on growth demands some amount of inflation just to tread water.
Deflation, if unchecked, will destroy a lot of economies.
Nevertheless, I’m all for it, for other reasons (moral). And it’s about bloody time!
I love paying less for gas at the pump, but hope this fall in oil doesn’t portend something worse.
Oil was less than $40 a barrel throughout the 1990s, and went over $40 a barrel in 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_oil#mediaviewer/File:Crude_oil_prices_since_1861.png
ping
My late father bought a ton of that stuff back on the run up to y2k and kept it and when he passed was handed down to me and my sisters amazing return for him
Those who live by “Other People’s Money,” have made their bed, and will have to sleep in it.
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Sob, sob...
>> “Gold UP. Silver UP. Mama Like! :)” <<
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That is a sign of a true deflation. Precious metals will hold for a while while most commodities will slide, but eventually the PM must also drop some too.
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Great idea! Might be best to see if the prices fall a bit more first. Want to refill the reserves at the cheapest prices possible.
Interesting graph. The Russian economy collapsed in 1998 (the Default). The rising price of oil after 1999 is what saved the country. The economy is collapsing again...and will recover only when the price of crude rises again. The big questions is: when will that be?
The last time and only time oil dropped this low and this fast was in 2008. We ended up with an economic collapse and voted in a messiah!
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