Posted on 01/24/2014 1:19:17 PM PST by John W
Stocks in the U.S. slumped at the end of the week, including a dive of 318 points for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as traders caved in to worries about global stability and the health of various economies.
Concerns about weak growth in China — a critical market for Western trade — melded with currency drops in countries such as India and Turkey, prompting investors to flee from stocks, which are viewed as riskier than bonds or gold. The S&P 500, a broad measure of the American market, lost 2% to 1,792 Friday, and the Nasdaq Composite slid 2.1% to 4,131. On both the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, 86% of all stocks declined.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
we would all be laughing if the DOW really takes a dive mon/tues, then headlines about the collapse of Obama-Care, and hopefully another event that embarrasses u-no-who.....this would make for the “Ultimate Lucy U Have Some Esplaining To Do” come Tuesday Night in front of 250 million people !!!
Only 7,000 more points to go before the market corrects to its actual value.
“The real question is what took them so long to figure it out?”
Who is “them”? The market went down a few percent over the last few days after growing 120% over the last 5 years. Figure out what?
So $85B per month of QE3 doesn't count?
“So $85B per month of QE3 doesn’t count?”
Chump change if they want to get the job done. It’s not cheap to prop up the entire stock market all by your lonesome.
Everyone is far to positive on the markets. It’s almost unanimous that you hear people say it is going up again.
A sure sign we are about to fall bigtime.
There is much whistling past the graveyard, even here.
And remember, Bill Clinton said he spends two hours everyday thinking about the economy.
538 for the week; 3.2%
At 8,800 the DJIA would have a P/E under nine. Got ya buddy!
It's not just the Chinese depending on us to keep them awash in cash - it is our Gibsmedats whose SNAP/EBT cards and assorted bling may be at risk!
If the music stops now we are way, way, way short of chairs.
I think the Mexicans have an applicable phrase for it, "Plata O Plomo (Silver or Lead)...?"
From an AP story-—
Investors are dumping risky assets like stocks and currencies in countries with troubled governments. They are buying safer ones like bonds and the Japanese yen.
BTW, the video has a little stutter in it. It starts over from the beginning a short way in. But be patient.
How will they come to the rescue? Stop the tapering? Buy more T-bills?
Here’s something to watch in 2014: China’s debt. Although the odds of a full-blown financial crisis are slim, they’re not non-existent. The flash point is the burgeoning debt of Chinese localities to finance major infrastructure — roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, subways, telecommunications networks — as well as housing and commercial real estate developments. The fear is that revenues from these projects won’t be adequate to repay the loans, resulting in defaults that undermine confidence and trigger bank runs. This would surely rattle the broader global economy.
Fanning the fears was an official report, released Dec. 30, showing that the debt of localities had jumped 67 percent since the end of 2010 to 17.9 trillion renminbi (about $3 trillion) in June 2013. In a separate report to clients, economist Tao Wang of UBS said the debt level was “manageable” but its rapid rise was “alarming.” Local debt now equals about 33 percent of China’s economy (gross domestic product), up from about 10 percent in 2008 and almost nothing in 1997.
Still, the danger of a debt crisis, however remote, highlights China’s largest economic problem. It is, as Lardy and others have emphasized, to shift the economy from excess investment spending toward more consumption. Too much investment threatens gluts of factories, housing and commercial offices. China’s investment spending, Lardy notes, accounts for nearly half the economy, far more than in other major countries. A better-balanced economy would be safer for China — and the rest of the world.
Ain’t that so brother.
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