Dow down 100 points

[Cruzan]

Second trip.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Pfft. More "fat fingers?"

[Dawgs]

2. It's been all over the place this morning. It was up 60 points about 40 minutes ago.

:hi:

[Inuca]

3. 45 down now

It's going to be a see-saw day I guess...

[spanone]

4. how about -185....like a rock

[Cruzan]

5. Now down 200.

[kentuck]

6. It should be up?

with the positive jobs report.

[spanone]

8. fear, they don't know why yesterday happened...it's a lot of perception

[NeedleCast]

11. Nope

The market hates facts and loves speculation. Even good news is usually bad in the short term for the DOW.

For the huge majority of Americans who have money in the stock market, the daily fluctuations of the market mean very little.

[SpartanDem]

18. Blame Europe

all of their major markets now are down big today.

[fasttense]

19. As long as they ignore the unemployment rate. n/t

[earthside]

20. Ahem. It was negative.

The unemployment rate went UP to 9.9 percent.

And the more folks are looking at the analysis of the survey, it is becoming more obvious just how bad the unemployment situation really is.

[Kalyke]

22. Well, yes and no.

Unemployment was up because so many new workers entered the employment market, but it was effectively down since it's the first time in years that we've created jobs rather than losing them.

[nmbluesky]

7. Greek destory

the world....

[girl gone mad]

9. Let's see if yesterday's bottom feeders learned their lesson.

That lesson being: If you're brave enough to jump into the market when it's tanking and provide some price support and liquidity, we'll just cancel your orders if a big guy on the other end got reamed, so you might as well stay the fuck out.

[B Calm]

10. Hows that 401K thingy goin fer ya?

[NeedleCast]

12. Good

Short term market fluctuations mean very little to 401(k)s.

[Lochloosa]

15. Same here. 48% over the last year.

[Skink]

16. True but things rebounded with one of the great run ups in history.

best place to move 401k funds is to managed funds that pay dividends.

[Statistical]

17. Very well.

Over decades and starting with a 100% gain from employers match pretty hard not to make money.

When most people say they "lost" in the market they look at the peak.

So if their 401K at the peak was $400K and it drops to $200K they say I "lost" $200K.
Now it might have recovered to $300K and they say I am "only down" $100K.

The reality is they never put $300K into the account thus the BASIS = COST is much much lower.

Especially for those in the market for very long time.

If we work backwards from the $300K peak lets say the person got to $300K like this.
Contributing say $5K a year w/ 100% employer match = $10K and gained an average of 8% over 20 years.

$5K contribution + $5K employer match compounded at 8% average over 20 years will be worth $424K. So lets say this hypothetical investor had $400K at the peak. However their cost was only $5K (not $10K including employer match) per year for 20 years = $100K.

So when they "lost half" and the market crashed they really were still up 100%. Most investors don't look at their basis and measure success from the last peak which is a false metric.

[Renew Deal]

25. Great. Thanks!

:D

[B Calm]

26. checked it lately?

[Joanne98]

13. Down volume twenty times up volume CNBC

[madmax]

14. The Stock Market is rigged.

It's my ignorance of finance I'm sure. When I was younger I didn't have any money to 'invest'. What we have now we earned and saved - Money Market, CD's etc. Bird in the hand mentality here.

[Kalyke]

21. It's down because employment is up.

Every time more people are laid off, the market booms upward like a rocket. When nearly 300,000 people find jobs, the stock market tanks.

That's why I simply don't understand why news organizations quote the state of the stock market as the end-all, be-all indicator of our economy. Quite simply, if people are working, they have money in their pockets. If they have money in their pockets, they're likely to spend all or a sizeable portion of it. That makes for a good economy - not pushing around papers and betting on the failure of companies and countries.

[Statistical]

23. When people spend that money what happens to corporate profits?

They rise right. Thus stocks are more valuable.

If you know for certain stocks will be more valuable in the future it would make sense to buy now. If majority of investors agree with you prices rise. If they don't prices decline. So market is a preceding indicator.

[Inuca]

24. SEC probing what happened yesterday

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37017845/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

Some reports said the sell-off might have been caused by a typographical error at Citigroup. Citigroup Inc said Friday there was no basis for rumors that it was responsible.

Citi had been conducting an investigation into the rumors on Thursday, but said on Friday morning that its investigation had determined that the rumors were false.