[newsperson999]

BLACK FRIDAY..Interesting article here

[Huck]

SELL!!SELL!!SELL!!!AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

[Dog Gone]

It looks like the market wants to bounce around at the 7800 level.

[CDHart]

Not to worry -- CBS news is reporting today that the experts say that the more the stock market drops, the closer it is to bottoming out. How's that for an intelligent theory? Arne't you glad we have the wisdom of the experts?

Carolyn

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

A repeat of Black MONDAY in 1987?

I don't think this is over,..and probably won't be until after August 14th. I think it will bounce back up hugely,.. and be sporadic for a while. But as some here mentioned when this all started a couple years ago, DJ 6 to 7 thousand isn't so far fetched anymore. Some have even suggested 5k.

A much needed correction. The time to invest is coming.. but it isn't today, or tomorrow, definetly not until after all corps have posted on the 14th of August.

Thanks for the article.. I'm off to read it now. I'm surprized there isn't more on FR about all this.

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Since you have the hyperlink in post 1, there is no reason we can't post this article. They give permission as long as you hyperlink, which you did. So here it is in it's entirety. I'd say it has innuendos bashing President Bush, but I can look past that, as many of their points are valid.

Heck, just to be legal.. here is the hyperlink to the article I'm posting: http://www.etherzone.com/2002/henr072902.shtml

BLACK FRIDAY
DOUBLE WHAMMY

By: Ed Henry

Friday, July 19, 2002, the stock market plunged almost 400 points and the U.S. Treasury posted its Monthly Report for June, 2002. Here's what the bank statement reported:

The Social Security Trust Fund went up $46.4 billion for an increase so far this year of $145 billion. That's very close to the $148.6 billion increase reported last year at this time despite high unemployment.


Last year, the government stole $98.7 billion from Social Security alone, tacked on another $64 billion in interest, and ended up with an increase of $162.7 billion in a trust fund that holds nothing but debt.

The two trusts that make up this criminal fund, Federal Old Age & Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance, now total $1.315 trillion and amount to 21.4 percent of the national debt. We give them money—they give us debt in return.

The federal government continues to steal our entitlement money so that politicians and trustees can not only spend it elsewhere but also tell us that they are increasing the lifespan of Social Security to at least 2041 by latest estimates. This scam can go on extending the life of Social Security forever or at least until their nonexistent baby-boomer fable enters the picture. The trust fund goes up, so the life of Social Security is extended. The more they steal, the longer the supplemental retirement system will last. How's that for fraud and hiding debt?

When they come around asking to be re-elected, we should all be demanding politicians explain in detail—how on earth our surplus contributions for retirement became 21.4 percent of the national debt. This magical transubstantiation of a positive into a negative is many times worse than anything Enron, WorldCom, or any private enterprise ever did to deceive people.

The government not only stole our retirement money, they put us more than 130 percent in the hole with these bogus IOU bonds and then adding compounding annual debt interest with more of the same. And there are still nitwits out there who believe stock market investments would be too risky. These lame-brains think the possibility of losing it all is much worse than the guarantee of going in the hole by trillions.

At the same time, the two Medicare trust funds went up $14.3 billion for a total of $271.5 billion now accounting for 4.4 percent of the national debt.

What will happen if Social Security, Medicare, and other large entitlement trusts must ever turn to their trust funds for operating cash? The answer is that you will be paying the same taxes again, plus interest. The Pay-It-Again Sam scam.

This is happening right now, today, on a smaller scale as some of the other trust funds are drawing down on their spurious holdings. This means that you were double taxed last month as follows:

Plagued by shutdowns, increased security, and fewer flyers, the Department of Transportation (DOT) turned to its Airport and Airways trust fund for $1.1 billion last month. This money came from the Treasury's General Fund of income and corporate taxes to repay taxes already paid once before. Now standing at $13.3 billion in debt markers, this trust fund represents taxes that were already paid by travelers, money that was stolen by the government and spent elsewhere. Now, you are repaying it from general taxes and doing without something else, like education or defense, that might otherwise have been provided with that money.

Highways withdrew $6.1 billion in the Department of Transportation's continuing repair of Interstate Highways. This was money that was already paid from gas taxes for which you are now being double billed because the government spent that money elsewhere and put bogus bonds in the Highway Trust Fund, then added annual interest by simply handing the trust more bogus bonds. The DOT still has $20.6 billion in the Highway trust fund to double bill you.

The Unemployment Trust Fund, for obvious reasons, withdrew $12.1 billion from the Treasury during June. This trust still holds $76.9 billion in debt markers from employers who paid this money oiginally. Now, the general tax-paying public is paying it a second time. The Beltway Bandits would have you pay it a third time if they could figure out how to do it.

Does anyone in the nation's Fourth Estate mention any of this? Absolutely not. The "penetrating" news services are all off in Mayberry interviewing Goober, Floyd, the Sheriff, Aunt Bee and other politicians. None of them ever go to the source, the nation's bank, because they choose to deal in hearsay.

In fact, the nation's number one daily (except weekends) newspaper, USA Today, on its front page is still reporting the "yield" on a 30 year Treasury bond that doesn't even exist. The Treasury took the long term 30 year bond off the market in February of this year in response to the administration's plans to launder the honest part of the national debt to entitlements on the dishonest side. (see "Surprise")

Here's the actual trust fund table from the Treasury's "Monthly Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government" for the month of June, 2002.


You can download the full report at: http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/index.html

With three months still to go in the government's fiscal year, the Bush administration has already increased the national debt $319 billion. We have returned to borrowing additional money (not just replacing maturing bonds) from investors for the first time in four years and that portion of the debt is up $125 billion so far this year.

Mitch Daniels, the head of the Government Accounting Office (GAO), the President's own accounting firm, now predicts that "the deficit will reach $165 billion" this year.

Please note that the government does not include money stolen, or in their words "borrowed," from Social Security or other entitlements as part of the deficit. They only consider honest borrowing and ignore dishonest borrowing--theft. How's that for hiding debt and crooking the books?

At this rate, the government will again be bumping its head against the brand new debt ceiling of $6.5 trillion by March of next year.

You should also note that EtherZone was the only news outlet in the country telling you that the reason for the emergency to raise the national debt limit last month was so that the government could continue stealing your entitlement money. The rest of the country's "investigative" news people had their heads in the sand (or elsewhere).

Seems like Bush is pursuing his father's 1992 record when the national debt went up $478 billion, almost one-half trillion, in a single year.

It also seems that Dubya has adopted Ronald Reagan's trick of doing things on Friday when there's no one around to stop him. On the last working day of June he managed to raise the national debt $105 billion in a single day. And then he delivered a speech condemning WorldCom for cheating people out of $3.9 billion. How's that for hypocrisy?


"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."

[Oldeconomybuyer]

[GraniteStateConservative]

Mitch Daniels, the head of the Government Accounting Office (GAO), the President's own accounting firm, now predicts that "the deficit will reach $165 billion" this year.

Wow, he has like a million mistakes in just one sentence. There is no Government Accounting Office. It is the General Accounting Office. The GAO works for Congress and not the president. The head of the GAO is David M. Walker and he is the Comptroller General. The GAO is not an accounting office, it's an accountability office which is different. However, Walker did work for Arthur Andersen before 1999-- so he sure knows plenty about accountability. Mitch Daniels is the Director of OMB-- a Cabinet-level appointment-- and he used to work for Eli Lilly.

[andy_card]

I wanted to buy shares in an electric utility on Friday, thinking it was near a low and had good fundamental. Fortunately, I didn't get around to it. That stock has been off as much as 16% today. Arrrggghhh. My portfolio has been dropping 5% a day for a week. This isn't good. Oh well, its only money...

[SamAdams76]

I vote for the first guy mentioning "dead cat bounce" in this thread getting banned for the rest of the day. I HATE that cliche!

[wardaddy]

Is it just me or does it appear to everyone else that your average FReeper pays little attention to these market threads. It's like many FReepers have an economic/political disconnect.

In my view, this bear capitulation is serious business. I hope we are near the progress of bottoming. This afternoon's close will tell who's got the momentum: the hedge fund shorties and panickers or the buyers. I doubt we'll close any better than 2% down across the major indices.

It's a very odd time. We have a relatively sound economy but an emotive and quite Bearish market. Usually a big Bear like this is accompanied by a poor economy.

[Dialup Llama]

It put up a good show early on. People spoke of the market stabilizing. Ha! Then kablooey.

[freebilly]

Watch Dems in upcoming elections use this bear market to push a big increase in Social Security contributions. Bigger Brother is coming.

[per loin]

A bit of a buying run brought it up to 7880, but that run seems to have already ended. The drop back could be swift. False hopes breed despair.

[Mo1]

Shall we take bets on how low it will go??

[marshmallow]

Somewhere in a mountain rabbit hole, Bin Laden is laughing.

The lemmings that dash over a cliff at the slightest sign of difficulty are doing to the market what he never could on 9/11.

Way to go guys.

[It'salmosttolate]

Below is a link to a Miami Herald article that you may find of interest:

Economy threatens president's standing

[backhoe]

This is just FYI, FWIW- I haven't used it in years, but the "volume indicator" used to be very good for predicting short-term price levels. It is extremely simple- just look at a chart of whatever indicator you use- DJIA, S & P, whatever, and note where the peak volume is, whether going up or down-- that will be about half-way in either direction. If Friday was indeed the heaviest day, the market therefore should be about halfway down.

And I again stress, I have not used it in years- it used to be a very good indicator, and it will be interesting to see if it is still accurate.

[Destructor]

Hurry fools! Call your Broker and sell everything, so that I can buy it! Don't delay make that call now, before you lose it all!! Destructor thanks you.

[steveegg]

Bears still foraging bump.

Dow -68
NASDAQ -18
S&P -14

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

From a post here on FR titled "The Angry Market". This is excellent!!

The blunt message: Investors are repricing stocks to reflect a more honest picture of earnings, options, and the future. Ultimately, that's good.


Markets are fragile things. They depend on a confidence that accumulates gradually but can be shattered suddenly. Our financial markets survived the devastating attacks of September 11 as the nation rallied to the banner of aggressive self-defense. But in recent weeks, an epidemic of corporate scandal seems to have picked up where Osama bin Laden left off, demoralizing investors and threatening the economic recovery. Wall Street and Washington now are embarked on what amounts to nothing less than a restating of the 1990s. The markets will be a long time sorting through the economics of corporate reform. In the meantime, investors should find solace in the hope that the next bull market will rest on a solid foundation of reality.

Some $7 trillion has vanished since the market peaked in March, 2000, but it seems that only in the past week or so has it dawned on most of us that no one--not George W. Bush, not Alan Greenspan, not even Warren E. Buffett--has the power to prevent the further depletion of America's retirement accounts. There was a whiff of panic in the air on July 15, as the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 440 points, only to abruptly reverse course and rise 400 points in the last hour and a half of trading. Some market strategists argue that this kind of convulsion in market sentiment is a classic sign of the beginning of an end of a bear market. They might be right, but there has never been a bear less classic than the one that afflicts us now.

Start with the cataclysm of September 11 and the cosmic economic and political uncertainties it has engendered, the prospect of a full-bore war with Iraq not least among them. It took only one horrific day to shatter the nation's false assumptions about its security in an increasingly hostile world. The discrediting of the American corporation took much longer.

The notion that every high-tech and telecom castle can reach to the sky collapsed well before September 11, depressing the market. The destruction of the World Trade Center sent share prices into a tailspin, but they quickly rebounded and then some on a wave of patriotic fervor and relief over the U.S. military's resounding early victories in Afghanistan. The national preoccupation with finding bin Laden and the free-floating terrorist menace--What next and when?--delayed Corporate America's day of reckoning. It wasn't until the lid was pried off Enron Corp. late last year that the market began dealing in earnest with the unsavory underpinnings of the speculative mania of the 1990s.

Enron's transgressions were at once so flamboyant and so arcane that at first, the company could plausibly be dismissed as an aberration--a "bad apple," in the President's terminology. But the scandals just kept on coming: Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing, Xerox ( ), Adelphia Communications, Tyco International ( ), ImClone Systems ( ). With each one, investor confidence took a hit, yet calls for systemic reform continued to be sloughed off by corporate leaders and the White House. The tipping point finally came in June, when WorldCom Inc. admitted that it had magically converted operating expenses into capital costs, artificially boosting income by $3.8 billion. The brazen artlessness of this scheme shook the market to its core and altered the political calculus in Washington virtually overnight.

Accounting issues have periodically bedeviled the stock market, but never so pervasively as they do now and never at a more ticklish time. At this point in the business cycle, the paramount question for investors should be: "By how much will corporate earnings rise?" Instead, it is: "Are anyone's earnings real?" Actually, these two questions are linked in ways that might continue to roil the markets for months. The dilemma is this: Many of the same corporate reforms that are needed to restore investor confidence will depress earnings--and stocks--at least in the short term.

Take the suddenly hot issue of stock-option accounting. It's easy for an accountant to make a case that options are an expense and should be recognized as such on the books. This argument stood little chance when options were making executives filthy rich, but its time appears to have arrived, some 17 years after Buffett began championing it. In the past week, two companies closely associated with Buffett--Coca-Cola Co. ( ) and Washington Post Co. ( )--as well as Bank One Corp. ( ) announced that they will start expensing options. If all of the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index had expensed options in 2001, their earnings would have declined by 24.5%, says S&P.

In many ways, companies have already begun to embrace more conservative accounting methods, often with little fanfare. When CEOs have to personally vouch for their companies' financial statements, as they must start doing on Aug. 14, it's a good bet that they will play it safer than they did in the 1990s, even if it shaves more than a few cents off of earnings per share. Boards are now equally motivated. With investors and politicians alike demanding better governance--and real consequences for directors who don't deliver it--audit committees suddenly are snapping to attention.

Here's an idea: Wouldn't we all be a whole lot happier if we not only admired (and envied) Warren Buffett but truly took the Sage of Omaha as an investing role model? We would buy only the stocks of companies we understood and believed in, and we would hold tight to their shares through thick and thin. We would closely follow the news but never be unnerved by it. We would acknowledge the likelihood that the stock market will not outperform the economy over the coming decade as it did in the 1990s--and we would welcome this as a return to common sense