Stocks dive, Futures dive, Jobless claims up, Unemployment Debt Foreign Economies

From the Chicago Tribune May 20, 2010.

“Stocks take hard tumble
376-point drop puts major indexes at a loss for year”

“The stock market had its worst day in more than year Thursday, with the Dow industrials tumbling more than 376 points, as fear intensified that a debt crisis in Europe could jeopardize the global economic recovery.

The sell-off put the major U.S. stock indexes, including the Dow, in the red for the year and down more than 10 percent in less than four weeks, the market’s sharpest retreat since March 2009, when prices bottomed at 12-year lows.

Analysts said there was no dramatic news to explain the day’s declines, including the largest one-day point drop in the Dow since February 2009. And despite the fiscal problems of Greece and other European countries, most forecasters predict the U.S. economy will continue the moderate recovery it began last year.

But mixed signals coming from across the Atlantic about the ability and willingness of leaders there to manage the crisis has made U.S. investors anxious.

As a result, volatility in the stock market has increased sharply of late. Thursday’s drop was the 13th time in the last 18 sessions that the Dow has had a triple-digit move.”

“The crash appears to have damaged the psyche of some individual investors just as they were beginning to regain confidence in stocks after the deep bear market of 2007-09.

“People are more nervous than they would have been, say, three years ago, with this sort of decline because they’re picturing what they went through in 2008,” said Mark Wilson, a financial planner at the Tarbox Group. “The basic question is: ‘Are we going right back to where we started from? Should we be getting out now in anticipation of going back to those 2008 levels?'”

Wilson said he was cautioning clients not to overreact, pointing out that 10 percent declines, known as corrections, that merely interrupt longer bull markets are normal.

Nonetheless, in the week that began the day of the crash, individual investors pulled $14 billion from mutual funds, the first such net withdrawal since March 2009.”

“The outlook was not helped by two discouraging pieces of news about the American economy.

The Labor Department said initial claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose 25,000 last week, to 471,000. Meanwhile, The Conference Board, a private research group, reported its index of leading economic indicators fell 0.1 percent in April, its first decline since March 2009.”

Read more:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/feed/sc-biz-0521-markets–20100520,0,4858776.story?page=1

Bull Market?

I don’t see it.
Glenn Beck has done a good job of covering the US debt situation, our jeopardy of losing our borrowing rating,  out of control spending and the impact it is having on our economy and future generations.

What is happening in the stock market is no mystery. Out of control government spending, anti business, anti jobs growth policies are exacerbating an already gloomy economy and job market. Overlay that with financial crisis in Greece, Europe and pessimism in China and you have a recipe for a stock market retreat.

I do  not have a crystal ball. However, the November elections can do more than saving this country from ruin. Removing many jackasses will restore confidence in financial markets and alllow Congress to control spending and create jobs.

Let’s roll.