Stocks Stage Dramatic Rally; Dow Surges Almost 300 Points

The poor got scared and sold off their stock at a loss

The rich scooped it all up and made a nice profit today

Buy low, sell high is something even I can understand.
Besides, if the poor have sold all their stock, and now
only the rich have stock, then the next time the market
tanks, we can all rub our hands in glee, right?

Playing this roller-coaster market takes nerves stronger
than mine, anyway. I ain't buying or selling anything. I'm
just collecting my paycheck, and watching how few euros it buys!

That's the best way to travel.

Cheers

I am stationed over here in Euroland, though I keep my Texas residence,
and though I am paid in dollars, I live mostly in euros. Travel expenses
for work are, of course, reimbursed, but personal expenses hurt. I have
experienced an effective 55% or so salary reduction since 2001, although
I was granted an emergency 17% cost-of-living increase last year after a
cry for help (oh, well, better than nothing). My wife is a German citizen,
and although she only takes home about 1750 euros a month after taxes, at
least it is in euros, and it helps buy groceries and pay for gas. She drives
to work, but I'm usually on planes or trains, and those are Company expenses.
In addition, since my wife is German, she has no health expense worries. Since
she has had cancer, this is no triviality.

Read: The Conspirators by Al Martin.

It is the same gang doing the same things over and over.

The "poor" don't own enough stock to make a dent...

What happened, in a nutshell, is that panicked elements started to dump their holdings. Bargain hunters (myself included) that know what to get into lapped up cheap stocks. Once the panic subsided, prices started going up.

Anybody who had a minimal amount to invest (eTrade, Scottrade, etc. all require just $1,000 to open an account) could have made a tidy sum these last few days. (A number of tech stocks are going to announce huge earnings next week, so I took advantage of the cheapness and snapped some up. Next week, they will grow, at minimum, 20%. It's like printing money!)

This is a game that anybody can play!

This is a game that anybody can play.

This should get the Rubbish Of The Week award.

You really have no clue what is going on in the financial system do you?

Nor does it seem that you care.

Yes, Yes, I know. It's all about feeling good and what you can get while the getting's good.

I got mine, fuck everyone else.

They sold too late. You just happened to be on the upswing when others were on the downswing. The institutional investors, the real big movers, weren't really hurt by this. They play long-term and ignore short-term swings, and they already got a bail-out from the Fed in the form of cash subsidies and cut interest rates. Every investor would be lucky if they had the kind of lobbying power that banks had in terms of getting the Fed to bail them out.

between the fed dumping money to bail out the markets, and having emergency rate cuts the markets may be "saved" for a day

but the markets are very volatile - we are not seeing a smooth ride. excitement spurring the lemmings to buy, or panicking the lemmings to sell - it's the extremes in the drivers seat.

this is not good, it means the markets, and the economy are not stable.

think of someone on a tightrope over Niagara Falls losing their balance, only to catch it in time - but there's still alot of rope left to walk.

I've been told the markets are not the economy - which is true, the markets are part of the economy, and people (whether they invest or not) look at the markets as a 'spot check' on how well the economy is doing. If the markets are on a nice steady upward trend, then people think the economy is doing well, if the markets are heading down - the economy is doing poorly. It's a question of perception.

We're in a wild up and down motion in the markets - no one knows for sure what the markets will do from day to day - or even hour to hour.

there is a total lack of confidence in the market's stability, the economy and the bush mis-administration. A perfect example of the lack of confidence was the big drop that occured when bush opened his piehole last friday and announced the stupid rebate bandaid. If people thought this scheme would work - the markets would have either remained stable or gone up when he opened his piehole.

markets went up yesterday because investors are anticipating yet another rate cut when the feds meet next week and scuttlebutt is the fed is being pressured to make the cut larger than 1/4%

:rofl:

the rate can only go so much lower and we'll be at zero pretty soon :)

talking about how they have to close all the borders because of surge of Americans sneaking into the country illegally

I think it is a common thing for a rebound after an oversold condition. All investors (i.e. poor, rich, and in-between) are aware of that. I predicted it yesterday.