Stock market thread

8 copters this am 1 was a pickup.
10919.06 -7.71‎ (-0.07%‎) Wed May 5 10:53am ET

Hey somewhere - does it still hurt?

Yes, this load of cash is pretty huge, I'm being crushed under all the weight. It still hurts a bit, but I'm getting used to it.

How is poverty?

When the Fed is driving liquidity and consequently stock market levels anyone in the market has to realize they owe it all to Bernanke. Market gains feel very synthetic.

As long as the money is real, I won't complain.

As long as the money is real, I won't complain.

LET'S JUST HOPE NOT EVERYONE HEADS FOR THE EXITS AT THE SAME TME...

yeah.. like nyc re... let's not bum rush to GW bridge...

Amazing, SWE: you're all long and are STILL making money! What are your holdings?

RS, for once I agree with you: it's synthetic, and way, way ahead of itself. Sovereign debt has a long way to play out, banks are about to feel the hit of that and new regulations, and housing...

HAHAHAHAHA!

How low do we go? 9000?

I think the commentators have this sudden move down all wrong. It's not Spain & Greece, but noise out of Washington. Today Levin is talking about a tax on hedge funds and private equity to be included with tne new jobless benefits package.

Oh I'd love them to tax the hedgies

9k? Nah. 10k and would be nice time to carefully start buying.

The market was overbought. SWE owes me that huge apology - though when the market was down 900 points today her long positions were amazingly still making money.

I think there's no question we retest today's lows.

We had a cyclical bull run in the stock market. The secular trend is down. We're over-valued.

May 6th 2:48 Dow lost 1000 points from 10866 at open to 9977 then bounce back to 10400 10mn later.... Some scary $hit!
I've never seen it drop 1000 point like that ...Did that ever happen?

We had a sucker's rally, RS, as I called it weeks ago. We now know where the computer programs are set to start buying: 9980. I think there's going to be some reprogramming going on tonight.

I said it all along - banks are not lending. They are being re-regulated. Housing got a bounce off of an expired tax break. It's headed down again. Commodities (and emerging markets) got a bounce from a slowing China, which has nowhere to sell its goods. Unemployment is not improving nearly quickly enough.

This was government induced, and the markets are calling the governments' bluff.

Grantham called it big time. This is classic reaction to Fed policy..

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/blog/JGLetter_ALL_1Q10.pdf

but watch out for the inflation.

sledge, i don't remember how much it fell in '87. anyone?

I missed the 1k drop while I was in the gym. Wow.

Inflation is very difficult with 10% unemployment.

just in case it wasn't obvious, that was sarcasm.

There are many kinds of inflation. It is not impossible to have inflation mixed with unenployment.

Ar, the only info i found is from google finance.
It says the 10/02/87 Dow @ 2641 then 10/23/87 Dow @1950, meaning the DOW dropped 23% in 3 weeks.
Less points lost (obviously) but a much more dramatic crash in %.

it fell about 500pts, or 23% on Black Monday. Nice cover on your shorts, Steve

Anyone know what percent of NYSE volume is algorithmic trading. I try not to put too much into short term moves.

sledge, from bloomberg's home page

The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its biggest intraday loss since the market crash of 1987, the euro slid to a 14-month low and yields on Greek, Spanish and Italian bonds surged on concern European leaders aren’t doing enough to stem the region’s debt crisis. U.S. Treasuries rallied.

so my guess is that on one given day it did fall a greater % than today. i don't agree with RS that this is solely caused by US gov't activities, but again this is a great political oppportunity for the administration. they can push through regs, contribute to the tanking of the market, and blame it all on europe and the slowdown in china. sometimes opportunity just falls in one's lap.

well, what changed in our Economy since March 09? Did the economy improve that much? I believe the market has responded to gov't measures more than anything else.

What i'd like to know is what financial institution can be powerful enough to put a sell order and make the dow drop 1000 points. It's virtually impossible that several financial institution placed that sell order on the same time. It was too dramatic and too fast to be a collective move.

It's all those hedge funds that Riversider doesn't want to see taxed. God forbid they actually pay more than 15% taxes.

Hello!
Portfolio insurance in Oct 1987 did just that.

The P&G trade may have been the big culprit.
I'd bet on someone's fat finger hitting the 5 instead of 6 for $52 ...OR...
Someone typing in an order instead of a stop loss order.
THen you have everyone elses computers kicking in.

"well, what changed in our Economy since March 09? Did the economy improve that much? I believe the market has responded to gov't measures more than anything else."

Honestly? The economy has shown substantial improvement since March '09 - to start with, the banking system has stabilized, and the industry has had very strong earnings. Manufacturing has rebounded sharply - take a look at industrial production numbers. Employment has bottomed out. Corporate profits are up sharply. Consumer spending has picked up. Do you really not see that?

We're talking up 70% from the low. I don't buy it. The improvements in the economy have largely been one of inventory correction. You can't explain 70% up using GDP measures.

Some trader ar citi f'd up

Here's why! I would have loved to take advantage of that... Just for fun!

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/programs-e-minis-trade-snafu-said-contributed-to-market-plunge-2010-05-06

FLMAO.... who cautioned that this aint' over by a long shot... how ya lemmings feeling about your nyc "home" purchase now... flmao.

WHERE THE F is ERICHO? hey man..... good call on the equity mkts... fking foolz... LMAO... yeah... tax credit gone, interest rates set to rise, banking reg TBD, 1000pts gyrations on the DOW.. .GREAT TIME TO BUY... who's laughing at my 2% yield on my FDIC savings ACCT... and the OLD DUDE at the yacht club who told me to buy BGY and BOE GO STUFF IT... FLMAO.....

where's spunky?

Tomorrow should see some action as well.
Holding a stock for 3 days looks less appealing after today.

how's somewhereelse's portfolio doing?

People can spin this anyway they want - the 1,000 point drop wasn't the issue; the 350 down close was. Traders are deceiving themselves by looking at the small picture - a 1k drop - instead of the bigger, macro picture.

printer is partially right: things are better than they were, but they're nowhere near where the stock market got to. Right now the recovery is still not self-sustainable; in the long-term the fiscal situation in the world is not self-sustainable. Interest rates will need to go up; taxes will need to go up; spending will need to come down. But it's a vicious circle: those things can't happen until the recovery is self-sustainable, and even when it is it will have to be done slowly.

people bought durables in march. typical tax return receipt behavior. retail didn't do so well. retail apparently did quite badly in april. and any pce gains that did occur during the first quarter do not seem sustainable. most states' budgets are due july 1st, by then the temporary boost from hiring for the census will have largely disappeared. and employment bottoming at 9.7% isn't a return to good times (printer, in deference to your delicate sensibilities i won't mention the U6). the dollar is extremely high, which won't do good things for this summer's tourism, or our exports, but is good for the consumer in terms of gas prices.

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/05/q1-pce-growth-came-from-transfer.html

all of this wouldn't matter to the stock market if there were alternative sources of demand for our goods and services. but global demand, with the possible exception of south america (and maybe india, i haven't heard much recently about that economy) appear to be declining or on its way to doing so, including china.

you can't say that the 350 down close was independent of the 1k drop. you need some time for this to clear out to see what the real impact of the rumoured mistake was. which is why i think covering your shorts when the mkt was down 800 was a great move.

I wonder if china tigthening and its RE mkt imploding gonna have any impact of global equities.... .questions questions questions... my 2% yield is starting to look genius!!!! Thank you wifey....

Well I can tell you everyone....EVERYONE has depleted their inventories,producing and stocking strictly on near term needs. So we'll see a lot of oversensitive ups and downs in the next year as inventory replenishment will be much more a slave to snapshot conditions as inventory orders come in.
Overseas containers from China just went up 1K per 40 footer (30% hike). That's just transport.

Calculated Risk is reporting that there is an unsubstantiated rumor that some euro banks are having liquidity issues.

tomorrow could indeed be interesting.

truthy... unless of course the level of consumption was based on a "bubble" and we are trying to find a new lower base... yes, will leading inidicators still lead, absolutely... but caution is called for... we may just be laddering our way down to a new lower base as we work off excess debts.... jsut my .002 yen

truths - the GDP "growth" of the first quarter was primarily to replenish depleted inventories. There was virtually no actual growth in the economy.

Borne out by the employment figures, distorted by the census.

"The market was overbought. SWE owes me that huge apology - though when the market was down 900 points today her long positions were amazingly still making money."

Hmmm... Steve's sucker rally call was 6 weeks ago... dow is UP since then.

Where's your apology steve?

> how's somewhereelse's portfolio doing?

Up about 100% over yours... I took the 60% up ride, you took only the down ride...

Thanks for asking, Steve!

> Traders are deceiving themselves by looking at the small picture - a 1k drop - instead of the bigger, macro
> picture.

Sounds like Steve is making the exact same mistake... talking 350 vs. 1000 point drop, when the rise is still 4 THOUSAND or so!

> but they're nowhere near where the stock market got to.

And we're nowhere near where the stock market go to... again, what, four THOUSAND off the high?

Too many rumors out there. but the computers are running amok. The SEC needs to step n with regards to high frequency trading.

cnbc of course plugs Jim Cramer
http://www.cnbc.com/id/36999483

According to multiple sources, a trader entered a "b" for billion instead of an "m" for million in a trade possibly involving Procter & Gamble [PG 60.75 -1.41 (-2.27%) ], a component in the Dow. (CNBC's Jim Cramer noted suspicious price movement in P&G stock on air during the height of the market selloff. Watch.)

good luck elsewhere--cocky guys like you always outperform the market

re euro banks--if greece goes bankrupt, euro banks are in fact dangerously exposed to greek debt and to other nations whose debt will tank when it becomes apparent that bankruptcies will be allowed

cautious humility is always the best investment attitude--certainly a good approach right now

You're missing the context, ubottom, as usual you're completely off.

Steve literally started threads bragging about his stock market prowess (with some of the worst calls in the history of the universe), we're all just responding out of amusement.

government debt-----

THE NEW SUBPRIME!!!!

who's next??

"Hmmm... Steve's sucker rally call was 6 weeks ago... dow is UP since then."

Not quite, swe. Nobody ever tries to catch the very top or the very bottom. I'm up a very comfortable 20% from when I made the call.

"I took the 60% up ride, you took only the down ride..."

Only 60% I'm up nearly 50% since January alone.

"Steve literally started threads bragging about his stock market prowess"

Wrong.

"(with some of the worst calls in the history of the universe)"

Really? All of my positions are up massively.

Thanks for asking!

SWE - I found your ancestors:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/science/07neanderthal.html?hp

HAHAHAHA!

Market has topped out. I don't see how 1000 point drop gets pinned on a computer glitch. Time to wait for the market to pull back further and cherry pick some best of breeds for the long run. Will be interesting to see if we get a serious retrenchment. I'd be more positive if the market was 15-20% lower.

> "Steve literally started threads bragging about his stock market prowess"
> Wrong.

Don't lie, Steve...

We know you'll resort to pretty much anything else to cover your mistakes, but now you're just being completely dishonest as well.

Shame on you, Steve.

My favorite... steve starts a thread TITLED

"Dow Below 6,500! Y ou laughed when I said it! "
"And you will cry when property prices accelerate their descent."

So, not only did we just demonstrate Steve's lie... he has multiple times bragged about his prowess...

he LIED about his prowess!

"Nor did I say that we would go to 6,500 on the Dow."
- Steve 3 months before that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love it, Steve is even lying about his lying...

"Market has topped out. I don't see how 1000 point drop gets pinned on a computer glitch"

how can it be pinned on anything but? Accenture stock trades at .01? PG down 30%, NYSE voids trades? Obviously something wacky went on.

Well, its a little of both. Clearly you need the "environment" for that to work.... but clearly you need the "prick" as well.

"Not quite, swe. Nobody ever tries to catch the very top or the very bottom. I'm up a very comfortable 20% from when I made the call."

So your call was wrong, but you made some other call, so that makes the first call right? LOL. Once again, your logic is nonsensical.

Nasdaq to cancel all trades more than 60% above or below market that happened this afternoon during that crazy time

A bad trade could have been a catalyst... agreed. We can argue about whether catalyst equates with cause. I been thinking for a while this is a market looking for an excuse to sell off. We're clearly in a better position than two years ago, but lets not be too sanguine either.

Of course... only question is is 30% off the value of everything enough or too much of a discount to account for this...

Wrong again, SWE.

You can keep repeating yourself steve, but, sorry.... its in black and white.

Wow, they REALLY ARE cancelling the trades!

yes I get cnbc updates on my phone

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6456QB20100507

from 2:40pm to 3pm

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/05/market-changes-tone-during-correction/

So an error by our government,,,err I mean a Citi trader gets a mulligan.
Would Goldman Sachs have gotten the same?
The slow death of Capitalism before our very eyes.

Oh, truthy! Seems it was computerized trading. Nonetheless, the correction is long overdue. 9.9% unemployment, and mostly part-time jobs created do not warrant the run up we've had in stocks. Things are undoubtedly better - just not that much better.

Mulligans are for pussies, ah I mean Goldman, aig, gm, underwater 'owners', overleveraged foolz and Greeks. Am I missing anyone?

296 stocks! holy mother of god...

296 'funked up' stocks -- trades canceled

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/07/markets/explaining_wall_street_turmoil/index.htm?section=money_markets&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_markets+%28Markets%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

Fat finger theory doesn't seem to be holding water. This is an indictment over high frequency trading. When over half the volume is only intending to take a position for under one second, it cannot be healthy.

Helicopters!

ouch, 450 points. That hurt.

Don't count it till you sell it, SWE. Not going to last.

# Goldman Sachs Expects More Investigations
# US Fed Reopens Currency Swap Lines with ECB, Others
# Euro Zone Central Banks Buying Government Bonds
# EU, IMF Agree $1 Trillion Emergency Fund
# Blog: Trillion Dollar Bail-Out— Here We Go Again!
# Fannie Mae: Long-Term Financial Sustainability Uncertain
# Trend of US Mortgages 'Underwater' Grows: Report

Just some of today's headlines.

> Don't count it till you sell it, SWE. Not going to last.

Funny, thats what Steve about 9k as well...

And, of course, I did sell some! Locked in quite some tidy profit.

Hey SWE, how's your portfolio doing today?

Not good, I went from beating your returns by 170% to only beating them by 165%

So instead of being up 50% this year, you're up by 132%?

Nah, overall.

Steve, I know you like to ignore the 95% decline before you recovered a small fraction of that back... but you can't.

wait, steve, now you're changing your story. You claimed "headed toward" 50%. Now you went up 50% in 10 minutes? That would be impressive.

So how's your portfolio doing, SWE?

So how's your portfolio doing exactly, SWE?

I'm up 70% so far this year - locked in a tidy 15% profit in a couple of weeks.

Steve, steve, you've already been caught lying... its no fun anymore bashing you. Its just too easy.

You are a glutton for punishment.

Too easy...

You're right, SWE: I recalculated, and I'm actually up 80% this year.

Last trade: LHB bought on 6/10 at about $41.75, sold yesterday at $47.00. 13% profit in 3 weeks.

Nice.

All cash right now...just waiting.

William Fleckenstein had a great piece on Bloomberg. The stock market has lost it's discounting mechanism having failed to discount the impending stock market bubble in 2000, housing bubble, etc. Not sure why, the theories about the Fed easy money and bailing out the players, joke accounting in the financials, High Frequency Traders monopolizing the market etc but if this is the case it must make one question their commitment to stocks, Or at least that the market is rationale.

swe, bsx--you guys are waaay underwater based on the portfolios you spec'd for me several weeks ago--the rest is just talk--my cash (as spec'd) feels sweet in here--employment in minutes can change much

if youre puking anything up in here, dont forget to include that in your return calcs

i plan to starting buying in the teensiest of ways down appx 3% from here--will leave me essentially uninvested in stox

mixed bag my azz

the rate is rigged, the rest is shlt
hours, earnings, private
all dog meat

less jobs, less private jobs, less hours, lower earnings

the rate dipped cuz so many died of hunger in the unemployment office lines

all better----quick.....add to longs

ericho75
about 11 weeks ago
ignore this person
report abuse Junk bonds confirming this move above 11K.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SHIAX&t=3m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=

It's all good fellas.

ERICHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

12K Dow
S&P 1300

"Last trade: LHB bought on 6/10 at about $41.75, sold yesterday at $47.00. 13% profit in 3 weeks."

Subtract short-term capital gains tax plus commissions on both ends.

No commissions. No capital gains - using carry-forward losses from 2008.

In any case, you always have to pay tax so what's your point?

You can't carry forward previous losses and pretend they make your cap gains on the short-term sale here magically disappear. That's like saying I won the lottery, so the $200k loss I took in the stock market doesn't really count. And no, you pay more tax when it's a short term gain. 3 weeks is short term. And I thought you didn't "trade"?

I said I don't "pattern day trade." Of course I trade stocks, just not day trading.

If you're willing to forgo an 80% gain in 6 months merely because the tax rate is different - and only federal taxes, BTW, not NY taxes - then that is your investment decision. When you adjust for the risk between holding stocks more than a year versus the higher tax rate for short-term gains, I'll pay the tax any day.

You pay no social security or medicare tax on these trades. It's better than working.