A Blacker Monday
The Dow is down over 800 points, and the day isn't even over. This beats last week's all-time record of 777 points. A global credit crisis is in full swing, with versions of what just decimated Wall Street repeating itself across Europe as governments swoop in with bailouts of high-profile banks. Verily, blood is in the streets. Hm, what's that old saw? Oh. Right. Buy when there's blood in the streets.
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Yowzer!
Wee! Good to see the bailout saved our economy.
Should I panic right now, or wait ten more minutes?
Ouch. I don't really understand how the market works, but watching it go down has been quite interesting. I sense some people are in panic mode now.
But, won't this thing self-correct later in the week and go up quite a bit in the next few days...?
@Sunflower1970: I would assume so - at least that was the point of the bailout. With no bailout, they figured there'd be no way to calm the rout. with the bailout, investors are supposed to realize that the troubled assets are going to be flushed from the system (hopefully). Unless we've past the point of no return, and now other assets are being devalued. At some point, investors are going to realize there are extremely good buys out there. The market is too volatile right now though.
Well, the solution to this is simple. We must bail out Europe!
fool me once-shame on you
fool me twice-shame on me
fool me....ah forget it.
I just started my 401K this month. I'll just lose a sock instead of my shirt.
Why don't I just set up the government a direct debit link to my checking account? We're going there anyways.
Is the DOW down alot? Yes. Does it really matter? Experts seem to disagree. A lot of financial gurus believe that the DOW is NOT a good indicator of the overall health of the financial system. Just sayin...
Right now the DOW is down "only" 492. A far cry from 800.
Ah... see, I knew all those years of living paycheck to paycheck, unable to save or plan for my future, desperately poor and suffering would pay off!
NAH NAH NAH SUCKERS!
Ladies and Gentleman. What you are currently experiencing is the feeling of the a stock broker as they manage high risk investment funds. Feel the swoops, surges, and that empty weightless feeling in the pit of your stomach without the hassle of a roller coaster!
Watch as the money you are responsible for looses value.
[This simulation brought to you by the United States Government. Please enjoy the ride]
Hey, don't worry, you can trust the stock market!
And don't worry about that other browser window...I'm not selling off my stocks...promise!
@wgrune: The problem is that our American political system is governed by the DOW. If the DOW is doing bad, politicians will scamble to do something about it, even if the rest of our economy is doing fine.
@discounteggroll: I actually thought the Bushism version was brilliant:
"Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me ... uh ... I can't get fooled again!"
@ARP: To be clear, the rest of our economy isn't doing great either- I was speaking to the knee-jerk reaction to the dips of the DOW.
It's great to see that news is getting posted before it even happens. The market hasn't closed yet for the day, and yet the post suggests that the market set a record point loss. Go Consumerist! for not understanding that the DJIA moves throughout the day! I'd be scared if it was at -800 at 4:30PM, but during the day anything can happen.
Note to Ben: PLEASE wait until the market closes before freaking out your readers.
@2copper: You are one of the few people who are in a relatively good position. Even though I've only had a 401k for 4 years, I lost $13,000 in the last three months. At least you are starting much closer to the bottom than I did.
Like many others, I don't understand the stocks and all the numbers, but you'd think the people controlling these things would go to work on a Monday morning and say "You know that thing we did last week that made the market crash 777 points? Lets NOT do that today!" I mean, there are acutal people controlling these things right? Its not a naturally occurring thing like the weather?
So....I like how the dumb bail out plan has been received. I wonder, will they be man enough to recant?
@dinger_82: As someone who only started a 401k in June and as a person who loves cheap gas, It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
@dinger_82: No, but it's neither unprecedented nor surprising. Reporting "The Dow is down over 800 points, and the day isn't even over.." suggests the belief that the market is going to continue to bottom out for the rest of the day, whereas the market's reaction to the current situation can't be predicted. Dropping the index below the 10,000 mark would normally send a mental shock that sparks investment, but the lack of faith in the government is making everyone hold onto their capital.
@Corporate_guy: The only "warm fuzzies" that come from stagflation is when you chase Spaghettios with a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck.
@Diet-Orange-Soda: Today's response is more of a response to international problems than domestic. Everyone is just in a selloff mood to hold onto their cash, and noone wants to buy until the market has hit a clear low. We're in a slow and unpleasant 12-month crash that hasn't showed but a moments strength a few months ago. Just about everything worth anything is marked underperform, so it's just incredibly dangerous to jump back into this market.
That's how I've been understanding it all day, anyway.
So the market goes down when the bailout doesn't pass and it goes down when it passes. I guess that proves that no one knows what the hell is going on.
I was thinking that this may be a good time to go in or up my contribution being that stocks are so low.... cant really go anywhere but up.. Am i Wrong on that?
They should call it purple Mondays, because purple is the new black... that and considering how many people are getting beat up, purple seems more apropo.
@ribex: And right now, it's down 363. Yet, the USD is up nearly 3% against the Euro and 2% against the GBP.
@Sunflower1970: It's gonna take years. I suspect the market will be going a lot lower before it goes higher to where you can actually see some type of upward trend.
@bilups: It's probably due to the fact that, unlike Americans, Europeans know the $700B will be "confederate cash" as opposed to solid money.
Evidently, you CAN'T just print money and fix the economy.
@Woofer00: So, right now its dangerous to jump back into the market, but, if everybody in combined effort jumped back into the market all at the same time, would that make it swing back for the positive?! Though, I guess that is a lot like saying: There wouldn't be any traffic jams if everyone just hit the gas pedal at the same time.
you were just off by 450 points, not bad for internet work.
And the record 777 point drop happened within the last few minutes of the market closing.
@yaced: If you aren't close to retirement, then no matter what the market is doing, it's a good time to open a 401(k) or increase your contributions. If your employer has a matching program, you should contribute no less than the maximum they will match: it's free money, and particularly if you're 40 years or more from retirement, it'll grow like the national debt.
I guess one caveat is that if you're in a difficult financial position right now, you might want to work on that before you put away 401(k) money ... if Capital One is calling to find out how much you have in your wallet, you might not want to put 10% of your salary into investments just yet.
@Sunflower1970: This will most likely take years. You can't just make $700B magically appear (much to the chagrin of our government-types right now), and yet it's something that we essentially just did. That's not a mistake that corrects itself in a couple of months.
@bilups: In the end, it matters little whether the bad assets get flushed out of the market. It's the value of the dollar that suffers here, and it will suffer greatly. That will impact the market, and the economy as a whole, for many, many years.
@yaced: Provided you have several years to wait without your money (as in, you're under 40 or so), absolutely.
@bilups: Wall Street was smart enough to know the 'bailout' is a sham and only prolonging the inevitable. Wait until the Default Credit Swap crisis hits. That's when the real fun begins.
@LastVigilante: At the moment it's more like the key players are rubbernecking at a pile-up and everyone is trying to find the best detour around the jam.
@Woofer00: I fail to see a problem with the story. At the point in time it was posted, the market was down 800 points. News outlets the world over were reporting it, because, guess what, it's news. The beautiful thing about the Internet is you don't have to wait until the end of the day to get your current news. As for the title, you are free to interpret any way you want it. Don't read if it bothers you that much.
Sorry, Roz. Outside comment code, I know. Couldn't help myself.
Ben, considering this is an article about money and, thus, numbers, I would recommend that you choose your words more carefully here, with respect to the following quote:
"...with versions of what just decimated Wall Street..."
The word "decimated" does not mean "devastated", as is commonly believed -- it means "reduced by ten percent". I trust you see the problem, here.
I don't understand the markets at all. I figured that the bailout would at least create optimism that some of these bad securities would be removed from the system - we can be certain of that at least. After the plunge last week I thought today would be a buying opportunity, but I guess the problems in europe are creating panic here.