GLOBAL EQUITIES IN VERY SHARP SELL OFF, DOW TAKES OUT 10,000
October 6th, 2008“Plunge Protection Team, please pick up the white courtesy phone.”
So much for the 10,000-as-support theory. HA. Like a hot knife through butter.
Via: AP:
Wall Street tumbled Monday, joining a selloff around the world, as fears grew that the financial crisis will cascade through economies globally despite bailout efforts by the U.S. and other governments. The credit market remained under strain, and investors piled into government bonds. The Dow Jones industrials skidded more than 300 points and fell below 10,000 for the first time in four years.
The markets have come to the sobering realization that the Bush administration’s $700 billion rescue plan won’t work quickly to unfreeze the credit markets, and that many banks are still having difficulty gaining access to cash.
Over the weekend, governments across Europe rushed to prop up failing banks. The German government and financial industry agreed on a $68 billion bailout for commercial-property lender Hypo Real Estate Holding AG, while France’s BNP Paribas agreed to acquire a 75 percent stake in Fortis’s Belgium bank after a government rescue failed.
The governments of Germany, Ireland and Greece also said they would guarantee bank deposits.
The Federal Reserve also took fresh steps to help ease seized-up credit markets. The central bank said Monday it will begin paying interest on commercial banks’ reserves and will expand its loan program to squeezed banks.
“These programs are going to be effective I believe,” said Rob Lutts, chief investment officer at Cabot Money Management. “Shorter term we’re in a very challenging environment that’s going to take a while.”
In the first hour of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 336.43, or 3.26 percent, to 9,988.95, dropping below 10,000 for the first time since Oct. 29, 2004.
Broader indexes also tumbled. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index shed 40.26, or 3.66 percent, to 1,058.97; and the Nasdaq composite index fell 77.35, or 3.97 percent, to 1,870.04. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies dropped 22.30, or 3.60 percent, to 597.10.
In Asia, the Nikkei 225 closed 4.25 percent lower. Europe’s stock markets also declined, with the FTSE-100 down 3.24 percent, Germany’s DAX down 5.28 percent, and France’s CAC-40 down 5.60 percent.
The picture I just saw on CNN.com of the trader on the floor of the NYSE with his eyes wide and his hand over his mouth was just fucking priceless.
{/smacks self on wrist with wooden stirring spoon} Bad Loveandlight, bad, naughty, bad! No sweet-rolls for desert for you tonight!
There is something to be said for not being in stocks right now, but that is really nothing much given what is happening in the world these days. I’m going to try my best to look at the bright side of life, as the Monty Python movie once depicted in one of their funnier diatribes.
Money and wealth, after all, are in some, actually most respects, illusionary. The money presses will keep moving here in the U.S., and elsewhere in the world – and if things keep on going south in the stock markets, well then, we just might have to rescind that sucker of a bailout! In my dreams.
The bright side of life is having food, water, and shelter, and maybe having friends you can barter with for all of the above. Maybe take enough cash out of the bank to pay for a month of expenses, tomorrow. Buy some food in cans, or whatever. Things are in a stall right now, clouded by Mercury in retrograde. Come this weekend, when things in the sky start moving forward again, and the full moon on Tuesday, Yikes.
I for one wish I had done a lot more to prepare for the times to come. A lot more. But I am who I am.
I think for me, it is very important to remember that we are all in this together. We did or didn’t, by our actions, create this crisis, but I believe we chose this time to incarnate, and we can all bring influence – for good or ill, to this time we live in.
Kevin, the “white courtesy phone!” Thank you for the laugh. That was too good.
Eileen:
Don’t forget Saturn and Uranus moving into opposition to one another this week. This aspect will hit my natal Venus in two weeks. So, I wonder which straight-boy at work I’ll fall totally, inappropriately in love with? Just kidding…mostly.
Loveandlight:
Saturn and Uranus BOTH afflicting your Venus?
Be sure to tell us what happens….
If I remember correctly, this aspect happens a couple of times in 2009 also.
I have a hard time with Venus afflictions. I suppose that’s because Venus is just not very well situated in my chart.
I hope you have a well supported Venus, darlin’.
Sharon:
I’m not sure what you mean by “well-supported”, but the natal Venus of yours truly most likely doesn’t qualify. It is the only personal planet in my chart afflicted with major hard aspects within five degrees of orb: Venus in Gemini squaring a within-three-degrees conjunction of Uranus and Pluto. My Venus is also quincunx Neptune in Scorpio within one degree. On the plus side, my Venus is trine Mars in Libra within four degrees.
The last time both Saturn and Uranus (they were in conjunction) were transiting my natal Venus in the mid-80’s, my social life underwent a self-inflicted meltdown as my high-school fantasies about my social life in college collapsed like a bank with too much derivative-exposure. But I shouldn’t compare then to now because I was socially such a baby back then. I call it the “Kidd Video” era of my life because my worldview was a music-video ego-fantasy. Crazy shit.