Dow Future -270 at the start bell 03/17

[rsmith6621]

http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks/futures.html

[quiet.american]

1. The phrase, "sea of red ink" comes to mind. nt

[keep_it_real]

2. It's all good and for the greater good, one way or another.

It's all just a economic correction for the better.

[tridim]

3. I read the topic as "start hell". Probably not too far off.

I hope we get this thing solved before it causes too much damage, but honestly I don't have much hope with BushCo at the helm.

[high density]

4. The start bell is at 9:30

It is 11:30

This is as useful as posting those Democrat vs. McCain polls.

[bluestateguy]

5. I gave up trying to predict the stock market years ago

I'm never right.

That's why I keep mymoney out of that cesspool.

[marvinsmith]

6. well

I think it will probably rise start of day tomorrow. News is saying JPMorgan is going to buy out Bear Stearns and also the Fed is instituting a lending rate cut.

However, it won't really help and it won't last, maybe not even the whole day.

The day by day stuff is kind of irrelevant, however fun to try to predict, but overall the market is going to crash, I suspect. It's a house of cards, nothing but bad debt being passed around like a hot potato. Maybe 30% or so of that "money" being bought and sold doesn't exist - it's uncollectable debt off the subprime and some of the prime mortgages.

It's just a matter of time and bank failures are to be expected, although analysts say nothing like the Great Depression.

[marvinsmith]

7. market 17th

The news had an interesting statement on Bear Stearns this morning:

"After days of denials that it had liquidity problems, Bear was forced into a JPMorgan-led, government-backed bailout on Friday. The arrangement, the first of its kind since the 1930s, resulted in Bear getting a 28-day loan from JPMorgan with the government's guarantee that JPMorgan would not suffer any losses on the deal."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080317/ap_on_bi_ge/jpmorgan_bear_stearns

In context of most other financial news sites saying they reasonably expect multiple bank failures, it sounds like the market is going to take quite a beating this year and next.

It finally scared oil though, which they claim "plummeted" to a mere $106 for crude down from $111.

The dollar is at an all time low against the yen, Asian market took a beating last night and today the IMF checked in with this:

"The head of the International Monetary Fund said Monday that the global financial crisis is more serious and more widespread than even a few weeks ago."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080317/ap_on_bi_ge/world_markets

Market is currently down about 100 points, but no way to predict because the kinds of people who gamble on this sort of thing don't have a lot of use for fact or data and tend to live in a world of delusions.