The traders on Wall Street had a busy day today as they put a few dollars back to work after the huge selling last week. The record day was the biggest single day more for the stock market in history, or at least since the Great Depression. The Dow Jones Industrials (3 day chart above) move up 936-point gain and gave investors and many worried politicians a breather after 8 consecutive down days.
While it will not be a big surprise to see some of the gains given back over the next few weeks, it may offer a signal that some are seeing stocks as over sold. The big move came as the leading banks look to be getting together in Washington DC at the request of the Bush administration in order to get loans moving again. The Europeans are already making move to pump $2 trillion on the line to protect their banks.
As I post this on Monday night, the markets in Asia are up on Wall Streets rebound, although I’d hang on for an uncertain ride.
It’s nice to have the kids home from college this weekend for my son to be able to return to his high school for the homecoming game and dance with is girlfriend (a high school senior). They had a great time at the dance and Lakota East even won their Friday night game. (it has not necessarily the best of seasons)
Sunday afternoon we finished up the laundry and are starting to get them ready to go back to school … while I take a moment check in on the Cincinnati Bengals struggle to play football against the NY Jets. My daughter completed her Jack O’Lantern to put in front of her apartment to welcome the trick or treaters.
Wow … excellent job of creatively carving this pumpkin!
As the political campaigns near November, we’re starting to see more from each campaign attempting to discredit the other. Political action committees and independents from Hollywood to news organization are getting in the act to take swipes at either McCain, Palin, Obama or Biden. It is particularly noticeable with the Gov. Palin “troopergate” investigations (smears) being announced a couple weeks before the campaign and the questionable associations of Senator Obama (suggesting he has closer ties to domestic terrorist and radical leaders than he admits).
Here’s the kind of support from Louis Farrakhan floating around that is probably most disturbing for the Obama campaign … I doubt this kind of support for Obama goes over well in mainstream America?
After reflecting on the doom and gloom of our economy and state of most investors, I thought I would go back a few days to a nice autumn weekend in western New York. We enjoyed pleasant weather and time with my mother and father-in-law at Letchworth State Park. If you’re looking for a great weekend trip with plenty of autumn color and hiking trails, I can highly recommend a visit to this area in October. What surprising is that over these past 27 years that I have never driven those couple of hours east of my wife’s home in Jamestown to even see this beautiful park.
The history and natural beauty of this 14,350 acre “Grand Canyon of the East” New York State Park on the Genesee River is impressive, considering a significant chunk of it was a gift from William Letchworth in 1906. It is located 35 miles south of Rochester and contain a huge canyon with 600 foot walls and three waterfalls. There is a trestle bridge at one end, a century home turned restaurant (the Glen Iris Inn) and many parking and short hiking opportunities — 66 miles of hiking trail in fact. While not quite on the grand scale of a hiking trip to Montana, the Grand Canyon or the Canadian Rockies, its a perfect weekend trip for those of us within a reasonable drive or a great place to rent a cabin or camp. While traveling from Jamestown NY to Letchworth Park, we passed through my mother and father-in-laws college alma mater as well — Houghton College; it happened to be homecoming weekend and was fun to listen to them reminisce — a nice weekend.
No buyers on Wall Street — the collapse continues to drive stock prices lower and cut even deeper into ordinary Joe and Jane’s retirement and college savings. Not only has today’s drop put the DJIA to extremely low levels, it is frightening all who have savings associated with stocks and mutual funds. Blood is flowing and the survival of many companies is also on the line. It is looking more and more as if this world impacting crisis might threaten what we see as normal life in the U.S. for a long time to come. I’m no longer worried about future prosperity, but am concerned more and more about today; job losses for many are right around the corner — start watching for company and store door closings. Without a fast change, its going to get very ugly.
The National Debt Clock in New York City has run out of numbers and as a temporary fix has replaced the “dollar sign” with a digit to move past the $9 trillion and to $10 trillion. The sign was put up years ago by a real estate developer when the U.S. national debt was approaching $3 trillion. For a temporary time the clock stopped when the U.S. started running a surplus, but has picked up the pace after 9/11, the War on Terror and heavy government spending. With the recent economic crisis and slowing economy there is little chance that this 10.2 trillion dollar debt will be worked on soon, so perhaps the sign needs to be permanently expanded?
In an attempt to get money/credit flowing around the world, six central banks in coordination moved to cut interest rates on Wednesday. The goal is to offset a global economic slowdown that has been rippling through the financial and business world. This half-point rate cut included the central banks in the U.K., Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.S and in Europe. These cuts followed separate rate cuts in China, Hong Kong and Australia. The Fed’s reduction brought its interest-rate target down to 1.5%, ahead of its regularly scheduled meeting October 28-29, as the U.S. economy faces the prospect of deteriorating significantly in the coming months due to credit-market turmoil. Until recent weeks, Fed officials had resisted further easing due to worries about aggravating inflation risks after watching volatile swings in commodity prices throughout the past year.
I headed home to check on the arrival of the shingles for the south side of my roof in order to repair the damage left by Hurricane Ike … yes I’m in Ohio.
😀
As the economy struggles, Obama and Biden gain as the McCain/Palin campaign take the bruising. There seems to be a backlash against the GOP for the mess we are in? Perhaps its the Wall Street “fatcat” image or just the fact that a Republican has been in the Whitehouse for 8 years. Nevertheless, most polls have Obama up with near a comfortable 8 point lead going into the second debate and less than 30 days from the election. Unless something changes for the McCain campaign, prepare for a one party dominance this next go around.
The financial crisis is rippling around the world and that fear is being reflected on Wall Street as the DJIA dropped a full 800 points during trading on Monday, although recovered somewhat to close off only 370 points at 9955.50. Almost all stocks took a beating again today shrinking all who invest for college or retirement. Where this will “blood in the street” be enough?
As the political campaigns near November, we’re starting to see more from each campaign attempting to discredit the other. Political action committees and independents from Hollywood to news organization are getting in the act to take swipes at either McCain, Palin, Obama or Biden. It is particularly noticeable with the Gov. Palin “
No buyers on Wall Street — the collapse continues to drive stock prices lower and cut even deeper into ordinary Joe and Jane’s retirement and college savings. Not only has today’s drop put the DJIA to extremely low levels, it is frightening all who have savings associated with stocks and mutual funds. Blood is flowing and the survival of many companies is also on the line. It is looking more and more as if this world impacting crisis might threaten what we see as normal life in the U.S. for a long time to come. I’m no longer worried about future prosperity, but am concerned more and more about today; job losses for many are right around the corner — start watching for company and store door closings. Without a fast change, its going to get very ugly.
The National Debt Clock in New York City has run out of numbers and as a temporary fix has replaced the “dollar sign” with a digit to move past the $9 trillion and to $10 trillion. The sign was put up years ago by a real estate developer when the U.S. national debt was approaching $3 trillion. For a temporary time the clock stopped when the U.S. started running a surplus, but has picked up the pace after 9/11, the War on Terror and heavy government spending. With the recent economic crisis and slowing economy there is little chance that this 10.2 trillion dollar debt will be worked on soon, so perhaps the sign needs to be permanently expanded?
This half-point rate cut included the central banks in the U.K., Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.S and in Europe. These cuts followed separate rate cuts in China, Hong Kong and Australia. The Fed’s reduction brought its interest-rate target down to 1.5%, ahead of its regularly scheduled meeting October 28-29, as the U.S. economy faces the prospect of deteriorating significantly in the coming months due to credit-market turmoil. Until recent weeks, Fed officials had resisted further easing due to worries about aggravating inflation risks after watching volatile swings in commodity prices throughout the past year.
