STOCK MARKET WATCH, TUESDAY AUGUST 5.....(#1)

Good morning! :donut: :donut: :donut:

My DU is sooooo slooooow.

I am afraid that this is the extent of my participation this morning. My son has a fever (teething) and there's other work to do.

You folks have a great day.

Ozymandius

Starting out on the down side again

Dow 9,167.35 -18.69 (-0.20%)
Nasdaq 1,708.48 -5.58 (-0.33%)
S&P 500 980.14 -2.68 (-0.27%)

I have been unable to even get in before now. Sorry to hear about the man-child dear. I know all about that sort of thing. Miserable baby=miserable everyone in house.

On to the markets, 9:38 and things look a bit dark:


Dow 9,153.06 -32.98 (-0.36%)
Nasdaq 1,706.77 -7.29 (-0.43%)
S&P 500 979.26 -3.56 (-0.36%)
10-Yr Bond 4.299% -0.021


Hmmm.

Julie

. . . or maybe it just seemed that long.

From the posts on the Latest page, it looks like the performance of the board is still sporadic. By the time I can post this, the market should be open:

Dow-------9,162.09 -23.95 (-0.26%)
Nasdaq----1,708.06 -6.00 (-0.35%)
S&P 500-----980.13 -2.69 (-0.27%)
30-yr Bond 5.265% -0.023

At least, I can stay connected! Just think of it as a reminder to practice meditation and patience skills!

:donut::hangover::donut::hangover::donut:

How old is he?

Did the Simian catch a fish or something? ;-)

Dow 9,182.05 -3.99 (-0.04%)
Nasdaq 1,710.92 -3.14 (-0.18%)
S&P 500 981.86 -0.96 (-0.10%)
10-Yr Bond 4.299% -0.021


Julie

Low volume in the summer=high volatility and lots of movement without meaning (full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, to quote some British guy's Scottish play...)

Dow 9,165.88 -20.16 (-0.22%)
Nasdaq 1,707.33 -6.73 (-0.39%)
S&P 500 982.06 -0.76 (-0.08%)
10-Yr Bond 4.294% -0.026

Dow 9,145.43 -40.61 (-0.44%)
Nasdaq 1,704.13 -9.93 (-0.58%)
S&P 500 979.17 -3.65 (-0.37%)
10-Yr Bond 4.293% -0.027


Zowie!!!

Julie

10:40 and getting darker...


Dow 9,108.80 -77.24 (-0.84%)
Nasdaq 1,696.92 -17.14 (-1.00%)
S&P 500 974.06 -8.76 (-0.89%)
10-Yr Bond 4.324% +0.004


so far just a welt, could become permanent scar material though...

Julie

Job cut announcements up 43%
Report: Planned reductions jump to highest level since April, as jobless recovery continues.
August 5, 2003: 10:26 AM EDT
By Mark Gongloff, CNN/Money Staff Writer
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - U.S. job-cut announcements jumped in July to their highest level in three months, an outplacement firm said Tuesday, another sign that the longest job-market slump since World War II continues.
U.S. employers announced 85,117 job cuts in July, a 43-percent jump from 59,715 in June, according to Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which publishes monthly tallies of job-cut announcements.
One troubling aspect of the report is that the size of the cuts ran counter to normal seasonal patterns

The guns of August
It's not hard to find excuses to get out of the market right now.
August 5, 2003: 8:38 AM EDT
By Justin Lahart, CNN/Money Senior Writer
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Sell in May and go away the old saying goes. Following that advice this year, so far, wouldn't have been a bad thing.
Since the beginning of June, the market has barely budged, with the S&P 500 locked in an incredibly tight channel. It looks as if stocks have fallen into their typical seasonal pattern, with a big jump out of a messy October that peters out into sleepy, rangebound trading once summer gets underway. That's troubling, because seasonally August and September have historically been awful months for the market.

All the BS about how the deficit is not a bad think...this is from a newsletter I receive (http://www.safemoneyreport.com):

1. Just based on the latest estimates, the 2003 deficit is already up to 4.2% of GDP, a level that was not exceeded during 51 of the last 57 years.

2. And that assumes the economy will improve right in line with the government's forecasts for the rest of the 2003 fiscal year. If it doesn't, the deficit burden could be worse.

3. The $455 billion deficit projection also assumes that the surplus in the Social Security fund is a part of the government's budget, available to spend right now on everything BUT Social Security payments. That's patently false. The Social Security funds are NOT a part of the budget and never have been. They are NOT to be spent, but rather to be held in reserve to cover Social Security deficits that are inevitable in the future.

What happens if you treat the Social Security surpluses correctly and you take them out of the government's revenue calculation? The 2003 deficit burden on our economy immediately becomes 5.7% of GDP, the second largest in history.

4. Also excluded from the official deficit estimates are the costs of the reconstruction efforts in Iraq ... the cost of prescription drug coverage ... and the deficits of agencies that are controlled or sponsored by the Federal government. Add in these, and the actual deficit is close to 10% of GDP!

that I will try to find today. It took a hypothetical situation of total deficit spending by the gubberment and ran with it. It wasn't long before all there was money for in the budget was defense and interest on the debt. It was chilling and I'm sure I'm not doin git justice but, the jist of it was how very harmful deficits can be.

More on that later, thanks for posting this!

Julie

Can you imagine any household or business trying to regularly borrow 10% of its revenues!!!

but still a bit sickly at 11:35


Dow 9,143.82 -42.22 (-0.46%)
Nasdaq 1,700.83 -13.23 (-0.77%)
S&P 500 977.69 -5.13 (-0.52%)
10-Yr Bond 4.371% +0.051


Maeve, I caught a talkinghead on CNBC who talked about this lay-off stuff too. Challenger was his name from a firm with his and others names. Anyhow he said that while today's numbers were much worse than last months they were better than last year and last year was an improvement over the year before it so things are looking better, slowly.

I don't buy it.

Julie

So we're still in a hole and digging deeper but at a slower rate--that's better?

seems to like the area:

12:54


Dow 9,142.98 -43.06 (-0.47%)
Nasdaq 1,699.40 -14.66 (-0.86%)
S&P 500 977.56 -5.26 (-0.54%)
10-Yr Bond 4.387% +0.067


Good thing things are continually getting worse at a slower pace. ;-)

Julie

Dow 9,073.93 -112.11 (-1.22%)
Nasdaq 1,681.08 -32.98 (-1.92%)
S&P 500 969.40 -13.42 (-1.37%)
10-Yr Bond 4.441% +0.121


Money leaving markets and treasuries.....how's gold doin'?

Julie

This doesn’t fit the usual pattern. Strange.

What happened?

No one rushing in to save things, you are right. Geez I jsut posted ugly numbers a couple minutes ago and they are still getting worse--


Dow 9,065.04 -121.00 (-1.32%)
Nasdaq 1,679.91 -34.15 (-1.99%)
S&P 500 968.56 -14.26 (-1.45%)
10-Yr Bond 4.441% +0.121


(3:36)

Julie

I'm not the observer y'all are, but when I do take notice, it seems that on heavy loss days, up to 50% of the loss will come in the last hour, i.e. dicounting the ups and downs previous.

I don't know about gainer days. Does the same pattern of late gain follow?

At any rate, why is this the case? Do institutional traders have the leeway to make all their trades at day's end? Certainly, it flies in the face of the much discussed automatic trading, as I (barely) understand it, as that should spread the changes across the day more proportionately, right? Or does acceleration of a trend, broadly speaking, beget futher acceleration of automatic trades?

Confusedly yrs,

DS

P.S. Dow lost 24 pts or so as I wrote this. Possible - 9,000 in next 14 minutes?

is last minute profit taking. Of course that isn't the case when the markets have been red all day.....

No telling what to expect anymore.....up is down, black is white, freedom is slavery and all manner of orwellian thinking applies.

Julie

They tend to kick in when an index (or specific stock, whatever one's set for) hits a pre-determined number. They are a major reason for the use of "curbs" which stop trading if an index falls more than X points (Dow is 100 pts. for previous day's close). and yes, many traders have the discretion of when to trade--auto-programs are mainly big instutions and the like.

A lot of big traders use specific ploys, such as selling short during the day (thus lowering prices), then buying in the last half hour at those reduced prices to cover the sales.(Think of it as offering to sell apples you don't have at $5, watching the prices fall then buying the apples for $3 to deliver to the buyer) Others see the lower prices as bargain buying time. When there is a run-up during the day, some traders will sell off at the end what they bought in the morning and take the profits. This results in a drop in the final minutes.

Hope that helped a bit.

Or thereabouts...have to go out, so the numbers many vary slightly with final trades
Dow 9,034.57 -151.47 (-1.65%)
Nasdaq 1,673.56 -40.50 (-2.36%)
S&P 500 965.34 -17.48 (-1.78%)
10-Yr Bond 4.441% +0.121

but will we recover before tomorrow?


Dow 9,034.57 -151.47 (-1.65%)
Nasdaq 1,673.56 -40.50 (-2.36%)
S&P 500 965.34 -17.48 (-1.78%)
10-Yr Bond 4.441% +0.121


Still might be some loose change to settle but this is about the end of it.

*whew* None too soon either! Catch you marketeers in the AM.

Julie