Posted on 02/16/2012 2:36:37 PM PST by mdittmar
NEW YORK (AP) -- The stock market built a big rally on the strength of the American job market today and barreled toward its highest levels of the year. The Dow Jones industrial average pushed to within 100 points of 13,000.
The Dow was up 120 points at 12,900 just after 2 p.m. CST. The Dow has not closed above 13,000 since May 19, 2008, and has not traded above that level at any point since the following day.
General Motors was among the best-performing stocks of the day. Two years after it was almost wiped out, the company turned a record $7.6 billion profit last year, bigger even than when Americans couldn't stop buying trucks and SUVs.
(Excerpt) Read more at wctrib.com ...
This is an AMAZING windfall for all of us! Just imagine... a 13,000 DOW can buy everything that a 1995 DOW at 1000 could buy!!
Obamanomics:
Unemployment is down... as long as you don’t include the millions of people who have been unemployed so long that they no longer qualify for unemployment benefits.
Inflation is down... as long as you don’t include commodity prices like oil and food in your calculations.
Manufacturing output is way up... as long as you include the assembly rather than the production numbers, for things that are assembled here from foreign-made components.
“record $7.6 billion profit”
Nobody run out and buy their stock just yet.
Overseas sales were very bad...domestically, very good. (read: ARRA buying of GM products for every local township and dogcatcher).
First 3 quarters: $7.1 Billion
4th Quarter: $0.5 Billion
(read: every township and dogcatcher has to wait until January to buy another GM car)
And really, if somebody gave me $82 Billion in no interest loans, I would be disappointed if I couldn’t turn a $7 billion profit selling lemonade. How could they not make a profit?
The target for them was 42 cents a share (it seems other people figure they couldn’t help but make money). They ended up below target at 40 cents.
Add in all the ill will, and people who will not ever buy GM again. Figure no more ARRA money will flow to buy these cars...and well, it will not end well for GM. They are underperforming overseas, and relying on cronyism at home. That can’t last.
Oh, we the people still own 26%...and we stand to lose $10 billion at today’s stock price.
Obamanomics continued:
GM is having a record year... as long as you ignore the fact that they still owe the stakeholders about twenty billion dollars.
This has to be smoke and mirrors. I know a lot of people who used to be into the market big time and exited never to return in the last 5 years. The government has to be printing and buying in a stealth mode to keep it going. A lot of people that bought stocks are living paycheck to paycheck if they are lucky to have a job.
The people that Obummer is targeting as his base don’t buy stocks because they are getting fat on the government teat.
Someone explain it to me.
Not surprising to see this upswing in the markets.
Bernanke promised to keep interest rates at 2% or less for the next two years.
The corporations are generating good earnings with the cheap money.
There is no other good place to put excess money at the moment other than the stock market.
Real Estate price increases should also start happening.
“twenty billion dollars?”,must be a right off,Ford owes more!
they will,it's an election year.
Inflated dollars will do that too.
Check out the Zimbabwe stock market while that country was headed into the stoneage. It soared.
Somebody leaked the secret that the president has a terminal disease.
The recession is running out of steam despite all the coals Dems threw in the boiler, so now they get credit for a “recovery’ paid for with our unemployment, foreclosures and a century of debt and welfare.
A very fragile ‘recovery’...
Wait until the shoes start dropping in Europe.
Anticiation of obama getting the boot. Everyone wants to get into the market now.
Lots of cheap money flooding in from Europe and QE’s.
But all parties gotta end eventually.
(Singing) “Greece is the word!!!”
Weren’t the future health retirement benefits allocation taken off the books because of Obamacare? If yes, then this would makeup a substantial part of the bottomline. I mean I thought the whole purpose for Obamacare was to have taxpayers liable for paying future union health benefits.
I once heard that on average $2300 of every GM car was to pay for future retirement benefits of union workers. If half of that is allocated for future health retirement benefits taken off the expense column, then multiply by the number of vehicles sold and voila, you got yourself a whopping instant profit.
Also how many GM vehicles were sold to government using stimulus?
The point is that GM likely used gimmicks and political favors to turn a profit, not by merit of any superior product or change in process. Nothing much has changed in labor contracts with GM which is what kept them unprofitable for so long. So the profit is coming from somewhere and that somewhere is likely Obamacare courtesy of the US Taxpayer.
exactly what I was thinking.... if the dollar is worth 20-30% less than it was 3-4 years ago then the actual dollar value of the dow should be what?
Gallon of gas, loaf of bread, ounce of gold.... it's all connected. Since the government is telling us that there is NO INFLATION...well by golly there isn't . But I sure remember gas at $2.40/gallon... and gold below $900/ounce. eh... it's the government, they wouldn't lie to us.
I'm gonna go watch some NBA and MTV now....
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