Massive Market Sell Off As Investors See Recession

Wall Street looked beyond the government's bailout plan on Wednesday and saw more signs that the economy was in for a slowdown.

And investors sold.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[CharlieMarlowe]

That's it! From now on I'm only investing in tulip bulbs and that South Seas Company I've been hearing so much about.

[jojojo]

check the facts...For 70 years, the stock market has done better under Dems than Repubs, according to the Wall Street Journal's magazine, Smart Money. They also point out that about 70% of our national debt has been run up under just 3 presidents, Reagan, Bush and Bush. 70% of our debt in 20 years, of our history of over 200 years!

Supply-side, trickle-down clearly does not work, but McCain promises more of it. Bush Sr was right about 2 things, though. He didn't invade Iraq and, before he embraced Reaganomics, he rightly referred to it as "Voodoo Economics."

[DuganS1]

The correlation between the party of the President of the US and stock market performance is meaningless. First, Presidents of even the same party often have far different policies. Two, the President often has a congress controlled by the opposition party. Three, there are far too many variables that determine how strong the economy and stock market is for the Presidential policies to matter much. Four, timing is a much more important variable re stock market performance than anything. For example, if Clinton's term went thru mid-Sept 01 or George W's term ended in October 2007, then the statistics would look much different.

[KillTheMessenger]

You still would have a hard time explaining the statistics away as it is...

:-)

[olephart]

Try this on for size and get back to me on your meaningless argument.

"Using the Dow Jones industrial average as the benchmark, Stock Trader's Almanac shows a $10,000 investment compounded during Democratic presidencies since 1901 would be worth $279,705 after 48 years. The same $10,000 investment during 56 Republican years would have been worth just $78,699."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/krantz/2005-12-02-presidents_x.htm

[Jeridhs1962]

I want to be very clear - It takes money to turn things around! McCain mentioned several areas where reform is needed -hey Mister, whether you use a scalpel or hatchet you're going to move money around and probably need an infusion of some new money to make it work. If we don't put wise money into educating our youth in 40 years we'll have another G. W. Bush in the White House! Education, equitable education not only means correcting what is wrong with our current system but understanding that poor neighborhoods can never shoulder the financial responsibility of improving their schools. We need federal funds and yes the mandates that must come with it to correct what is wrong - you bailed out Wall Street now help our failing state schools and HBCU's -but you have to start with Head Start! It will take $$$$ and bi-partisan participation to turn this thing around

[CharlieMarlowe]

We need a new term. Everything that has happened would make sense if we just called it the "Arbitrary Market".

[rkimball]

wall street needs to be cleaned up,regulated & rebuilt.
it must be done in a way to make it so that even the small investor can benefit. violaters must be procecuted to the fullest extent of the laws.

this should have a higher priotity than bank bailouts. this is choking our economy. banks will recover. wall street has work to do to regain investor's trust.

[RoloTomassi]

Before it is rebuilt it needs to be completely torn down and restructured for a Keynesian mode of operation under new [and reinstated old] regulations; if the CSE policies aren't discredited and removed from the system it is only a matter of time and greed before we are affronted with this kind of situation again.

[Kanashi]

I don't trust them,
I'm taking money out of the bank.

[Weathermaker]

Just to give an idea how bad things are:

UBS dumps $60 billion dollars of toxic paper into a Swiss government cesspool. Problem is, UBS has a market cap of $47 billion. And this is a bank that praised itself for being in a better position than its US counterparts who had significant exposure to the subprime mess. This should give you all an idea how much our banks are worth.

[Weathermaker]

Japan crashes 11.4% while their prime minister questions the effectiveness of the US bailout plan. Very nice... 2 days of rally for more than 2 trillion dollars pumped into the market. Cute. isn't it?

[PT6]

We have a CRISIS of CONFIDENCE in the BUSH-CHENEY-REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION!

We need a CHANGE immediately following the election! Even though Obama Needs a Rest!

It is time for thinking Independents and Republicans to come to the Obama Camp!

Lets unite as One: Independents, Republicans, and Democrats and get out of this Crisis of Confidence!
_____________________________________________________________________________

[dadw5boys]

Feb, 08, 2008 Washington Post -- Spitzer wrote that the Bush Adminstration used thier power to prvent States from using Cunsumer Protection Laws to stop Predatory Loan Companys. The Subprime Loan mess was a planned event !!!!!!!!!!

[zizyphus]

Do you think that is why Spitzer was busted?

[RobinSeattle]

It was a Republican operative who turned Spitzer in, but the fact of the matter was that Spitzer was guilty as all outdoors, so I have little sympathy for him. Kind of ironic, though, that Spitzer got jail time and David Vitter didn't.

Same with Republican House members Elton Gallegly and Ken Calvert (busted getting hummers from street prostitutes in their cars). Were they even charged? If they were, they didn't do any jail time.

[strangerinthenight]

Plausible theory. You don't investigate AIG and Greenberg, then get away with it.

[vippy]

I don't believe that the subprime loan mess was the real cause either. We all knew that wtih
dwindling jobs and income the high price of gasoline would wreck this country, and it did.
For the longest the media was claiming that the consumers are still driving, well, DUH, if you had
a job you had to go to work but the pawn shops were blooming with business. The media left
that out conveniently. Houses, yes, Bush bragged about how many new home owners, but that
only pointed out that something was not kosher. House prices were unaffordable when compared with income. 50% of Americans make $ 32,000, one has to wonder how they were
able to buy a house. Bush always bragged but anyone could have seen that his economy was
built on a house of cards. He tried to drag out the mess but it collapsed way ahead of time.
Now there are some people who actually blame the democrats with all of this. Amazing.

[darthdarcy]

These "Patriots" on Wall St. treated America as they would any company in a hostile takeover, broke it up sold off it's greatest assets and plundered it's wealth and exported it's prosperity and now they are shocked and whining about the aftermath..and ruin..!

No segment of our society, no activist or left wing intellectual or author has ever served or advanced the interests of Socialism as much as the so called "Conservatives" or Republican party and corporate or banking pirates..and barbarians..!

Ironic isn't it..?

[strangerinthenight]

AND THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS SANCTIONED IT.

[ErnestineBass]

Have any of these "Masters of the Economic Universe" @sshats spent a single afternoon outside the confines of New York City or Washington, D.C. lately?

IMHO, a field trip to an abandoned auto plant or a shuttered textile mill is in order.

Any economy that depends on un- or under-employed "consumers" is doomed.

[Zeje]

All they would have to do is take the #6 IRT to the Bronx.

[RobinSeattle]

So that $700 billion bailout just vanished into thin air like that plastic wrapped planeload of cash to Iraq did? So doesn't that make this the biggest embezzlement of a national treasury in world history?

What a complete farce.

Lock them all up and throw away the key.

[zizyphus]

Yes, it was the biggest heist in history. Meanwhile the hedge funds are busy laundering the trillions in narcotrafficking dollars. Where will all those dollars go? May we see the client lists now? Until the hedge funds are made transparent, this sort of thing will continue and get worse.

[ErnestineBass]

Hedge funds deserve to implode.

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

Reaganomics, anyone? Not so much anymore? WAKE UP SHEEPLE.