Clouds gather on Wall Street (weaker growth, lower profits ahead?)

Clouds gather on Wall Street

Suddenly investors, economists are worried that much weaker growth, lower profits are ahead.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - After cruising along for much of 2004 and the start of this year, the U.S. economy may be having engine problems.

Economists and investors who were confident about the pace of growth only a week or two ago are suddenly much more concerned about a slowdown in the months ahead.

As the first-quarter earnings reporting period speeds up next week and key economic reports are released the next two weeks, there will be talk about whether factors such as high gas prices and rising short-term interest rates could choke off growth in the months ahead.

"We've seen a sea change in the way the financial markets and economy watchers are looking at the world," said Anthony Chan, senior economist with JPMorgan Fleming Asset Management. "For many months, people thought the economy was so strong and robust, they could ignore these head winds."
"But what we've seen is if you hit the economy over the head enough times with higher energy prices and short-term interest rate hikes, it reacts."

http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/15/news/economy/slowdown/index.htm

that without figuring in the high price of gas, we actually spent less last quarter. With the price of gas, it was a small increase.

Added:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ibd/20050413/bs_ibd_ibd/2005413general

Higher prices at the pump fueled a 2.1% monthly increase in gasoline station sales. Excluding gas, retail sales edged up 0.1%. Excluding autos and gasoline, they fell 0.1%.

Millions of people have lost their jobs. Some are working part time gigs at low pay trying to hang on. People who still have jobs are starting to realize how vulnerable they are to offshoring, and any job that doesn't require face to face service is vulnerable, even taking orders at fast food joints. Some jobs requiring face to face contact are being replaced by machines like self serve checkouts in supermarkets. It's a scary world out there, and people are either not spending because they don't have any discretionary income or not spending because they're afraid of losing their jobs in the near future.

Two thirds of the economic picture of this country is consumer driven. When the consumers stop spending, demand drops, and more are unemployed by retail, restaurant, and other industries, thus creating even less demand. It becomes a vicious cycle, and you're left with a destitute majority and a tiny minority of overstuffed fat cats who are sitting on their antique furniture and wondering why they're not getting richer.

And that, NPR, is why the economy sucks. Gas prices are only a very tiny part of it, a part that could be easily absorbed were we to get a healthy dose of DEMAND SIDE ECONOMICS.

purchases had dropped, rather than NPR. On the other hand, if it makes you feel better, I never spend my money in the self serve check out line and I tend to avoid returning to those stores.

Personally I love them. Since it's "new" there usually isn't a line. I find the only irritating thing is that I usually want to scan faster than the PC will let me.
Now outsourcing our "high tech" jobs is the problem. If we had a decent education system (not knockin teachers, I know you work hard) that went beyond 12 grades and then had LOTS of help getting into additional school programs to develop our future generations we would be getting somewhere.
We need to keep the high tech jobs here, then train our people to fill them. Japan is becoming more robotic every day. Are they having the same economic problems as us? If so is it because of the robots?

I went to Home Depot on Thursday, and bought one cheap little plant. ($1.25 + tax = $1.36 total)

I was standing on a long line. There was one employee trying to coax people over to the self checkout. He noticed that I had one item, and asked me to go to self checkout. (He was going to do the checking out work.)

I refused. Told him they should hire more cashiers, and if I went to the self checkout, it would not encourage them to hire more cashiers. He said something about the line being long, and I said that was because they needed to hire more cashiers.

I will never use self checkout. Someone is out of a job because of those. Since they have approximately 10 of them, I assume 10 people are out of jobs.

Warpy ? ... I couldnt have said it better ..... But I do believe that gasoline prices have a greater impact than a 'very tiny' impact ... even so: great post ....

This guy is single-handedly destroying out economy - at least in the short term. Somebody get rid of this idiot-son.

Or maybe the talking heads are finally realizing that you can't jawbone a recovery and that we've been in a recession all along.

If we ever get a real president again, I wonder if we'll see all the government statistics from the Bush years recalculated and the real numbers finally reported.

It would probably set off a public panic.

The only thin thread holding this economy together is the absence of "panic"; otherwise, we'd be officially IN a depression. Here's the thing though,...power players who want to remain in power are perfectly willing to manipulate information at will, whether they are in power or not.

Think about it. Someone had better be totally on top of the real #s versus the manufactured ones which will be utilized for "power-maintenance" purposes.

We're just in such deep caa caa,...it's pretty distressing if one allows the thought of such things invade everyday living. It's just that bad.

That's what Bush did. The line you keep hearing about how the current economic recession started under Clinton? Bush had the beginning date changed by the National Bureau of Economic Research (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_08/b3871044.htm).

Push comes to shove.

selling stocks short instead of long.

The economy has been downright anemic since Li'l Boots was made President. The Clinton-era peak of 15,000 (DJIA) seems to be the ceiling the Bushistas don't have the competence to break through. And even that figure has been inflated by the 40% loss of purchasing power of the Dollar in international markets.

Today, the oil markets are high, but backing off from the near-$60/bbl price they hit recently. But another price surge is inevitable, as well as other energy/finance problems as we enter the era of oil depletion.

It's quite sad that we don't have capable hands at the helm. Most presidents, even the Republicans, would make softening the blow their first priority. Not this one -- he's not for the public, he's not even for the general business community. He's for the big businesses, period.

--p!

is the all-time high on the DJIA. And it's about 1,527 or so for the S&P 500. S&P's now at 1143.

We got up to 10,900 or so on the Dow in early March, IIRC, but that's as close as * will ever come even to 11,000, much less the old high.

I also notice that the Dow is off by nearly 200 points today.

My mother has most of her retirement money in non-stock securities, but she's still going to poop masonary when she hears this.

--p!

eom

I finally found employment via unexpected places after nearly 40 months of floating through whatever contract or temporary work I could find. It's not a position which offers appropriate compensation and bumps me down several professional notches; but, it's better than unemployment.

I sincerely hope something opens up for you.

I admire your strength in hanging tough.

eom

But not by much

Despite what others say.

I had a job interview last week with a real company.

However, I had the distinct impression on leaving that I am significantly overqualified for the position and hence a threat to those already working there.

Mind you I have dumbed down my resume to the extent I can.

I keep sending resumes though - not sure exactly why anymore.

Hell, it's been dark, cold, and rainy ever since December 2000.

The Wall Street cheerleaders were touting the strength of the Bush recovery for ten months without a shred of data to support their claims. Now, three down days later, and they're ducking for the exits shouting "we told you so".

You see, we've had such a long and fabulous recovery that the Fed just had to put on the breaks. Riiiighttttt.

,...for quite sometime. It's freakin' outrageous that they've gotten away with that crap this long. But, hey,...it's all about the lust for money,...not the consequences to the rest of the people or the nation.

When some of the "big guys" start jumping off bridges and tall buildings, maybe people will start paying attention. But, then again, maybe not since we have a fairly well-orchestrated mass media machine.

the economic stability set up by the fiscally responsible previous Democratic administration.

When will Americans learn?

Never, ever trust a republican. The one's that are not innately evil are dangerously stupid.

U.S. Stocks Plunge; Dow Has Biggest Loss in 2 Years, Led by IBM

April 15 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks tumbled, pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its biggest drop in almost two years, in a selloff sparked by International Business Machines Corp.'s disappointing earnings report.
snip---
``The significance of IBM is more than just technology -- in the eyes of the market, it's indicative of the slowing economy,'' said Christopher Sheldon, who helps manage $76 billion as director of investment strategy at Mellon Private Wealth Management in Boston.
snip---
Losses circled the globe amid renewed concern that demand in the world's largest economy may be waning. An improved profit outlook from General Electric Co. and better-than-expected earnings from Citigroup Inc. failed to boost the U.S. market.

The Dow average slid 191.24, or 1.9 percent, to 10,087.51, its worst one-day performance since May 2003. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 19.43, or 1.7 percent, to 1142.62, its largest drop since September 2003. The Nasdaq Composite Index slumped 38.56, or 2 percent, to 1908.15.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aiJBv9L5E7iE&refer=news_index

I'm shocked I tell ya, I'm shocked!

And bankruptcy "reform."

It all just makes perfect sense to somebody, I'm sure.