Stocks derailed; worst point loss this year for Dow

U.S. stocks sank on Thursday, erasing all and more of the previous day's rally, as investors bypassed U.S. corporate earnings and economic reports to focus on global concerns, including Europe's softening economy.

"We've added global growth concerns on top of other headline risks, (such as) air strikes, Ebola," said Sean McCarthy, regional chief investment officer for Wells Fargo Private Bank.

Ahead of Wall Street's start, data showed a 5.8 percent drop in German exports in August, adding to downbeat numbers that had German industrial orders and output falling as well.

"Europe's growth is weak, and close to going into recessionary like conditions; everyone is waiting for the bazooka to be fired," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott.

Stocks furthered their losses after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said there are indications that the euro zone's economic growth is slowing and that central bankers should strive to boost inflation.

"To some extent we've lost the optimism that drove the markets higher over the course of the year, whether it's worry about the impact of people dying of the latest contagion, whether worry about what will happen when the Fed is no longer pumping money into the economy, or Europe and the slowing there," said Bruce McCain, chief investment strategist at Key Private Bank.

After rising to 19.38, its highest level since Feb. 6, the CBOE Volatility Index, a measure of investor uncertainty, rose 24 percent to 18.76. The Russell 2000 Index of small-cap companies fell 2.7 percent.

Less than they have done in the past. You can have all the metals you want as your alleged backup, they are a gun up your nose away from being worth zero. If you own them as your SHTF, you are not buying and selling them, if gold moves, let’s say +/- $100 from a $1200 base, you aren’t trading in and out of it opportunistically and if you are, probably not very well unless you are very adroit. I couldn’t be more neutral on metals, I have what I have, I am neither a buyer nor a seller. I sold a serious pile of my silver up at $38.50 (I should say, I tried to sell it for $44 and was able to get $38.50) and 1/3rd my gold at $1760. and am overjoyed that I did.

You should be commended for your calm, level headed reply. That’s almost always the best argument / response.

I would argue that while Obama won the votes you describe, it is more the case that Romney LOST the election due to a poor get out the vote effort, and the fact that many of the most “active” / committed Conservative types did not work for him or turn out for him.

It seems to me that for some people, precious metals are a type of insurance for more major SHTF scenarios: Ie., those where the US gov’t is largely incapacitated, there is severe societal breakdown, etc. Of course, one can then argue that in such really bleak futures, ammo and other survivalist supplies and abilities would be “worth more than gold.” :-)

All brokers and financial managers don’t know what they are doing. Are you basing you life and future on them? If so, you are being foolish.

I spent many years with a very conservative institutional asset management firm - until leaving voluntarily in October, 2008 (great timing - but it was planned since June.) The managers were all very nice people, very old school. Not the Lamborghini-and-cocaine types you see infesting the NYC area these days, but hard-working, thoughtful, and diligent money managers.

They didn't have a clue what was coming. Only one of them, an older Treasury guy, used to agree with me when I pointed out some of the gross abnormalities in the market. But to the rest I was just "The IT Guy", so I didn't know anything.

But it was a pattern with this firm. They got caught flat-footed by the tech boom in 1999. They caught on just in time to load up before the bubble popped in 2000. They made a move into commercial real estate at the top. Worldcom blew up on them. They didn't see Bear Stearns or Lehman coming, even when the financial media was full of troubling stories. Nice, nice people, but they exemplified the old saying: "It is impossible to get a man to understand the facts when his job depends on him not understanding them." They weren't being paid to prepare for black swans.

The firm's operations were absorbed into their larger parent company shortly after I left, ending a 30-year run that saw them go from huge success in the 80's and 90's to a fraction of their former size by 2008. They thought that success was based on things they were doing right, rather than just having been in the right place at the right time to ride the Reagan Wave. They main thing they failed to accept - and just never could understand - was the rise of automated trading and its total replacement of judgment-based money management. They were still sitting around a conference room having morning meetings about what to buy and making one set of trades per day, while their competitors were using advanced computer systems to make tens of thousands of trades an hour and scalp tiny fractions of a penny here and there and kill them on performance. And the firm's institutional clients, though appreciative of their honesty and attention to customer service, invariably decided they wanted that extra return, instead - no matter how it was being obtained.

The point of this parable is that they were an honest money manager, and in the environment of the 2000's their honest methods ended up killing them.

And if the good guys are this clueless, it speaks to your point: How can anyone trust their life and future to the bad guys who came out of 2008 smelling like roses? A whole lot of 401K owners are going to be facing some harsh realities in the coming decade.

Of course, one can then argue that in such really bleak futures, ammo and other survivalist supplies and abilities would be “worth more than gold.” :-)

Good comments. You know, I am a little bit more optimistic about society than many. I think 75% of people are decent, and I think that 75% would eliminate the 25% of slugs through good old fashion frontier justice, and Darwinism at its best. Things tend to take care of themselves in an emergency.

I wouldn't consider myself a prepper, though I do have an abundance of those "staples" you mentioned. It's just good common sense to have a stored survival supply that can last you a year. If the SHTF scenario is bad enough that it lasts past that, you got to wonder if life is worth living at that point.

Through market manipulation, I honestly believe the Saudis are attempting to influence the November mid-term elections simply because we have a forgetful, ignorant voter pool here.

If this is a buying opportunity, it might be so only if the Democrats are thrown out of the Senate and in 2016 we get a non-communist President... and this President along with the House and Senate end the war on business and demand we attain energy security at home. Then again, it is hard to say... the world is on fire and pestilence is spreading across the globe... and here I see diesel fuel is about 20 cents down from my last fill up on Monday. We shall see. As for now, I am investing in my own little "bug out" piece of paradise in the western mountains of PA. Let the world burn, I have a garden to plan, calves to pull, and firewood to split.

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