The weekend is over and stocks are falling again (Sunday night futures down)

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/weekend-over-stocks-falling-again-221810282.html ^

[Red in Blue PA]

Good evening!

The weekend is over and stocks are resuming their slide.

Shortly after futures opened on Sunday night, Dow futures were down as much as 102 points, S&P 500 futures were off as many as 11 points, and Nasdaq futures were down around 30.

These moves, however, are muted compared to the turmoil seen in markets last week, when the Dow lost more than 1,000 points and officially entered a "correction" after falling more than 10% from its most recent high.

Overall, the stock market had its worst week in 4 years and people are pointing the finger all over the place.

[MaxMax]

Are people jumping out of windows yet? This isn’t going to end well.

[Farmer Dean]

Japanese now off 853.

[laplata]

“All I can say is “Oh Crap, we’re in for a ride”.

I think so.

’ All I can say is “Oh Crap, we’re in for a ride.

[silverleaf]

Ho ree Cao

Djia 16013 and still dropping

Level 3 trading curb today?

[laplata]

LOL

(Good scene)

[GOPJ]

Nikkei 225 (^N225) -Osaka
18,657.52 Down 778.31(4.00%) 12:03AM BST

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^N225

A little better than a few minutes ago...

[ought-six]

I retire next year so I’ve been dumping stocks for months now. Preservation of principal is what matters now.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

You’ll most likely see XOM in particular trade down at least another 10-15% by year end. Oil is a catastrophe, and happening this time of year, these cos IMHO are simply going to be sold down into year end as tax harvesting sardines. Maybe not so much CAT; even though I watch CAT I am not tuned into it right now but DE, its sector compadre, got fricase’ed the other day, -7 points.

One could nibble on these things in this turmoil but it is not safe to put meaningful money to work *quite* yet.

My .02

[Deo volente]

Probably a good move. This market might have a lot more to go on the down side.

I’m 90% in cash, but for some reason have kept a small amount in an energy fund, which is getting slaughtered.

[Jim from C-Town]

DOW futures below 16,000 @ 15,966 (3.1%)

[JDoutrider]

Mark

[Nervous Tick]

>> You’ll most likely see XOM in particular trade down at least another 10-15% by year end. @etec

I hear what you’re saying. In fact, I caught the CAT “falling knife” at $82 and now I wish I had waited a little longer.

On the other hand, it’s my IRA portfolio and I don’t plan to touch it for several more years. So if I buy a solid company that yields 3% to 4% I don’t lose much sleep if it goes down a couple bucks... I’ll have a capital gain in a couple or three years, plus the 4%.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, and FRegards

[Nervous Tick]

>> Are people jumping out of windows yet?

Do you know if the upper-story windows of the White House open from the inside?

I can always hope I guess.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

I’m just happy I have ~~~150% puts on everything I own of size.

I made some poor sucker buy 400 of my COP the other day for $60 by exercising puts. (COP trading at $46 at the time) I was assigned 500 MRK today @ 57.50 but I can sell them any time for $60. Same drill.

*Some* IRAs allow long options and covered calls. You have to apply for and receive permission. I worry about big oil dividends, particularly COP. These stocks are going to be yielding 8 and 9% if they sell down as I believe they will and there is no way they will be able to maintain those dividends. The day any of those stocks suspend or cancel or “modify” their divs, the stock, no matter where it is trading at that point, will lose 1.5 years of dividend = ~~10% immediately. This is not a risk I am taking nor would I reco anyone else take. Oil stocks, stalwarts such as XOM, COP, CVX, in particular. If the overall market declines and oil declines and appetite for stocks decline, these will be a multimonth pukefest. None of us have to like it, but the outcome is nearly certain.

This is a liquidity event. I am going to repeat that.

[Nervous Tick]

>> *Some* IRAs allow long options and covered calls. You have to apply for and receive permission.

I’ll look into that. My regular trading account allows it but I don’t think my IRA account does.

>> I worry about big oil dividends, particularly COP.

I am concerned about that, although not quite worried. I could, of course, be wrong. The living room elephant is the nearly insatiable (and, I believe, quite elastic) demand for oil. Tell you what — I wouldn’t want to be in renewable energy right now. ;-)

>> This is a liquidity event. I am going to repeat that.

Sure looks that way, doesn’t it. Due to external events — I can’t take credit for the planning — I’m mostly in cash. In fact, up until a couple weeks ago, I thought “too much cash”. Now I’m relieved it’s that way.

[mrsmith]

A liquidity crisis after all these years of huge expansions in the money supply...

That’s frightening and sick.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Could see lock limit down today. DJIA -850 as I post. 101 /ES handles. Wow!

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

NASDAQ lock limit down. Not sure I’ve ever seen that.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Unfortunately, for about the last decade the FED has been artificially preventing major fluctuations in the stock indices, based on a theory that boils down to: if we can prevent a stock market crash from happening, there will never be a major economic downturn.

You see the problem with this theory.

In any event, the FED can do something in the market that no one else can do, which is to act invisibly. Using several billion dollars of invisible money they can buy and sell, *not* to support the whole market, but just to stabilize the indices on which the market operates.

However, while this neat trick has worked for a while, it has little control over foreign indices, and if a bad enough problem happens, it might actually magnify it, causing a much worse catastrophe than had they let the market alone.