Could it have been Friday we were talking S&P 1100? Now looking at potentially 1000?
As we've discussed, there was support at 1160 from April 2004; and if that held there really was nothing major below it, because then we go back to 2003. Which was essentially straight up (after our last horrific period: 2000-2002). So with no real base building, there is no real support. Not that support matters when there is a complete buyers strike.
Again, in 1987 companies came in and bought back their shares - but they had cash and access to credit. Now, some still have cash - but that access to credit part is an issue.
We've surpassed everything historic so it's simply "remember these past few weeks because they will be talked about for a few generations".
S&P 1100 is psychological "support" if you'd like to call it that, but then again so was Dow Jones 10,000 - so it's quite useless.
I would not be shocked at all to see (yet again) some sort of government response overnight, but will anyone care? The problem is we've had so many government responses since August 2007, the patient is building immunity to it. Remember, when we bailed out Fannie and Freddie we had a 24 hour rally - that's it, before we lost all of it. I remember, because I remarked at least with Bear Stearns we got a nice month of rally. Now with this huge bailout the response was a massive sell-off, not a rally. So I'm not sure what stops it, until everyone simply gives up.
But just like 2000-2002, another generation of investors will have simply given up on this market. Thank you free markets, lack of regulation, and the masters of the universe who run the global financial system. Another job well done.
Last stat of the day, for those wondering: Post-Great Depression, the average bear market is -30%. Obviously I never thought this would be "average" but then again I thought it would have be drawn out over a much longer pace - but in a leveraged world, margin calls leave us with no time frame. With today's action we are in the mid 30%s from the highs, almost 1 year ago to the day.
The worst since the Depression have been upper 40%s in early 70s and 2000-2002. So to reach the worst non-1930s scenario there is 10-12%ish to go. Again, not unexpected, but I never expected these moves in such a straight shot.
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This article has 3 comments:
- Smarty_Pants
- 929 Comments
My Website
Oct 06 04:33 PMOops. We made shorting a no-no didn't we? Never mind.
As for "free markets, lack of regulation, and the masters of the universe who run the global financial system" at least you got one out of three right. We haven't had free, unregulated markets since the Sherman Anti-Trust act was passed in 1890.
Unregulated? Really??
1) No short sales.
2) Price curbs for big down days.
3) Reporting requirements for more than 10% of publicly traded shares
4) Limits to corporate officer compensation
5) Sarbanes-Oxley reporting
6) etc. ad nauseum.
These markets are anything but unregulated. They are regulated to death in fact. The costs of complying with many of those regulations weakens the bottom line.
- Herbert Hoover
- 81 Comments
Oct 06 04:36 PM- AlexS
- 181 Comments
Oct 06 04:41 PMMore by Trader Mark