Blog Archives

The Heart of Darkness

February 18, 2009

Good morning. The hits just keep on coming. Last week the market (SPY) was down $4.22, or 4.9%, and yesterday it followed up with another drop of $3.54, or 4.2%. That brings the unhappy totals for the year to down 12.2%, and it is only mid-February. Yesterday’s “official” reason for the sell-off was the continuing stream of bad economic numbers from Asia and Europe. Remember how we were forced to listen to some of the so-called “experts” within the last couple of years ago telling us how Asia was so strong that even if we went into a recession it would not matter to them? How is that theory working? And why were those morons on my TV set?

Trillions

February 2, 2009

Good morning. Another week, another sell-off in the S&P. The good news is that the week was only down a little, about .3%, the bad news is that there was a 3.4% up day erased. The up day was caused by the announcement that the Obama administration was going to announce a so-called bad bank to take bad assets from struggling commercial banks, the subsequent sell-off was caused by glitches in that plan as well as increasing issues with the new stimulus package.

The Money Pit

January 12, 2009

Good morning. The first full week of the New Year felt like a slower version of some of the weeks of the old year. The SPY fell from $92.96 to $89.09 (4.2%) and the VIX advanced from 39.18 to 42.81, as the ongoing fears of unemployment and access to credit continue to weigh on the market. We had a nice upside earnings surprise in Monsanto (MON), up almost 20% in one day, but most earnings announcements are bringing a steady stream of bad forecasts going forward, cuts in planned capital spending, and either hiring freezes or layoffs of some kind.