Wall Street close watch

My calculator saids the same thing.......

HOLLA

well the snowball has definetely started rolling...bernanke and bush are aiming their heat guns at it but it may be too late! could even be counter productive since now everyone knows the big chiefs are worried. the rest of this move should be fairly exciting, hold on to your hats!!

I can't, I'm already holding on to my shorts! Need both hands, they're so BIG!

*pun*

The market was like sniffing 2 or 3 days ago.

The 3 musketeers (or stooges, like suggested elsewhere) added to the stench:

IT IS A BIG FAT STINKING B-E-A-R

And the SOB's got the nerve

http://www.comedy-zone.net/pictures/.../animal023.jpg

Ah I don't get it. One index was down -3.0% and then moved to the positive side at +0.6% and the other index went from -2.6% to + 0.2%

My math shows 3.6% swing and a 2.8% swing / negative to positive.

Maybe the Bloomberg story was poorly worded, I don't know. The link didn't work for me.

S&P 500 negative to positive volume was "only" 59% today compared to 93.85% on thursday. Maybe an end to the selling is coming. Although major support I see is in 1268-1248 area or 57 points away and most years a bottom in the first half of the year is usually in the month of March into April tax time.

You will always find hyenas hunting for carcasses here and there.

But everytime they lift the market a notch, comes the desperate lions selling all they couldn't on the day before. Been this way since 12.5K.

It will be on the Discovery Channel eventually.

Some reading from an email I got at work today about the wackiness of Wall Street lately. Now the trick is to force everyone to sit down and read this before I start punching people because they won't calm down. As for us traders, hell, short it and ride it down, as we watch the ride up in our account value.


Market history - corrections and bear markets are a fact of investing life (source: RiverSource Institute)
Markets are not built to go up indefinitely. Long-term investors must remember that market corrections and bear markets are a natural part of the market cycle and will occur from time to time. The following are a few historical facts that shed some light on past corrections and bear markets.

1. By definition, a bear market occurs when declines are in excess of 20%, while a correction occurs when declines are in excess of 10%.
2. By our analysis, since 1950:
   1. There have been 10 bear markets, or one every 5.8 years.
   2. There have been 29 corrections, or one every two years (Note: The current correction makes 30).
   3. The market has finished higher in 42 of 57 years, or 74% of the time.
   4. The average annual returns of the major U.S. asset categories from Dec. 31, 1949 through Dec. 31, 2007 is as follows:
      1. S&P 500 Index (price only) 8.02%
      2. S&P 500 Index Total Return 11.88
      3. 30-Day T-Bill Total Return 4.88
      4. Long-term Corporate Bond 6.26
      5. Long-term Government Bond 5.99
      6. The long-term performance of the S&P 500 Index also provides some additional historical information of interest including:
         1. From its peak on March 24, 2000 to its trough on Oct. 9, 2002, the index fell 49%, or 46% with dividends reinvested.
         2. From the index’s March 2000 peak, it took until May 2007 to get back to even on a price-only basis (or with dividends reinvested, until October 2006), so even with the severity of the index’s drop, it eventually fully recovered.
         3. An even more important point is that investors not properly diversified (no small cap, value, international, etc.) would have ultimately recovered their gains only to see them given up again two months later in July 2007 when the current correction began.
         4. To further illustrate the power of diversification over this timeframe, let’s examine a specific example by comparing the hypothetical performance of the RiverSource Portfolio Builder Moderate Fund, using its blended benchmark (with a composition of 50% Lehman Aggregate Bond Index, 35% Russell 3000, and 15% MSCI EAFE) to the performance of the S&P 500 from March 31, 2000 forward, until it fully recovered its lost value (Note: We used monthly data to facilitate this analysis, recognizing that the S&P 500 actually peaked on March 24, 2000).
         5. In the case of the S&P 500, its month-end peak total return value actually occurred on Aug. 31, 2000. From that point forward, it took until Oct. 31, 2006 to return to that level to stay. Starting with an investment on March 31, 2000 of $10,000, the ending value on Dec. 31, 2007 was $11,152.

Recessionary markets (source: Ned Davis, Lehman Bros.)
There has been much conjecture recently that the U.S. economy is headed towards a recession, with some economists suggesting we are already in one. While we are not currently forecasting a recession, we thought it would make sense to share some data that discusses market behavior as it relates to a recession.

1. 1. 1. 1. Since World War II, there have been 10 recessions, with a median duration of 10 months.
         2. On average, market declines began approximately six months before the start of a recession and continued to decline for another five to six months after the start. They then began to rise in anticipation of the next recovery.
         3. The average market decline during these recessions was 22.6%, while the median decline was 17.4%. The highest decline was 46.3% in 2001 and the lowest was 6.6% in 1980.
         4. The current market decline, from its peak of Oct. 9, 2007, is 14.8% through Jan. 17, 2008.
         5. If you look at the subsequent gains from the market lows following a recession, they have been impressive:
            1. After 3 months, they gained 16%.
            2. After 6 months, they gained 24%.
            3. After 12 months, they gained 32%.

Thanks Jedi...

Interesting because this is being a bull market for 5 years already. Most of the people here (including myself) don't know how it's trading in such conditions...

Worst of all is that, here in Brazil, in the last 2 years the "average Joe" is being invited to the stock market. Most of them don't even know what is this market all about completely.

Many people are rushing to buy Oil and miner companies (mostly) and IPOs are going through the roof here....

Right when this market is bound to turn bearish. What a mess...

Hi all,
I seriously recommend you read the most recent of John Maudlin´s weekly newsletters, titled More BLS BS, www.frontlinethoughts.com, the big picture hasnt changed a bit, no matter what recent data may have suggested (jobless numbers etc)
The BEST are the pics of Bernanke during his recent congressional testimony-PRICELESS! (Wish I could post it here but I guess copyright laws say I cant...)
take care, Raz

Nice article... And the picture says it all...

I wouldn't leave the electric chair to be in Ben's skin right now.

awesome post man, i had to read it 3 times! leave it to history to put things in perspective

now back to the panic..... im thinking that tomorrow being a holiday will have some sort of consequence. if we see selloffs around the world tonight, and NY isnt open for trading, that could be a recipe for disaster!

We saw

Bull, how cute.

Well, if I understand these "definitions" of 10% correction / 20% bear market correct - 14255 DJI futures high, 2550 fallen leaves 2851-2550=301 pips left until the bear market shapeshift, no?

< 11400 and it's on - or off? Or?

--

This will be interesting as it could be 11330-11700 that may have initial s/r / possible buyers it appears..(I am very much lacking proper historic index data)

I wonder what it would take to lose 10650.
I also wonder when everyone will stop screaming "bargain prices" and simply whimper in fear - as that then in turn likely IS a bargain price.

Very odd stuff all this reactive stuff.

Say, is red IS the color of the day, innit?

Europe is a bear.

Stoxx 600 at the 20% off high milestone

how about this scenario,...today we reached bottom in asia, and carries,...tomorow boe leaves rates,..and stocks in asia soar rapidly,...then the Us stocks open lower but continue north...., or what...

I think you meant BOJ.

Just be aware about "soaring". They can soar 1% and still be very bearish... Sellers are liquidating systematically these days. Any 1% up is being price to resume the selloff at these levels...

Being this way since 12.7K. Futures are now poiting 11.7K (-3.4%) and -8% off highs

yee boj ofcourse...ok. so dump evrything,..., i bet the boe will make a cut, and will screw evrybody,...how about that...then we will have the bigest range between closed and open stocks in history asia/vs wall street....:,...

Now add this:
- rate cut sentiment about ECB
- post-Olympics bet that Chinese bubble is gonna burst

And you will have a year that you'll be proud to tell your grandchildren about 50 years from now.

"See this big red candle here, kids? Granpa was somewhere about ... HERE.. thinking it was the bottom"

good one...,...