The Market - She Be A Down

The Market - She Be A Down

Man, it's a good thing congress was able to reach across the isle and come up with a debt ceiling raising agreement. Otherwise our economy would have gone all sorts of crazy and the market would have taken a nose dive.

Oh wait, what's that? What exactly happened to the markets yesterday? What were the numbers again:

AEX 300,85 -3,2%
AthexCompositeShare 1 086,43 -1,35%
BEL 20 Index 2 223,67 -2,9%
CAC40 3 320,35 -3,9%
DAX 30 6 414,76 -3,4%
FTSE 100 5 405,76 -3,2%
FTSE MIB 16 128,07 -5,2%
IBEX 35 8 686,50 -3,9%
OMX Copenhagen 20 389,50 -2,1%
OMX Helsinki 25 1 885,71 -5,1%
OMX Stockholm 30 939,63 -4,3%
OSEBX 375,36 -4,8%
PSI 20 6 325,27 -3,3%
SPI 4 845,24 -3,7%
TA-25 1 159,00 -1,5%
WIG20 2 487,66 -3,5%

In total this is what the markets looked like at the close of the bell.

OSLO 375,36 -4,83%
NASDAQ 2 556,39 -5,08%
DOW JONES 11 383,68 -4,31%

Wait, I know my reading audience may not be familiar with the market, so perhaps they need some sort of frame of reference on all this. The Dow ended up being down 500 points. It's the biggest single-day drop for a long time. Gold, Silver and Oil were all down. It seems to be a combo of Eurozone stuff and a lack of faith in the U.S economy.

What does all that look like in the form of an image? This:



If you aren't aware, the line should fall off a cliff like that. So if you're still wondering what happened to the markets. Well, they're dying, cloud. You must save them. No wait, there's no way to make a sort of adventure out of this. It's dead. I killed them. Me. ME!

Though you're probably thinking that the market typically falls like 500 points every couple of months anyway. But in this case, it's the type of fall that hasn't been seen since the fall of 08. And for those of you who don't recall, that was when the great recession happened.

Yeah, it's that bad. The economy is clearly now dead. Though it's been pretty dead for a few years now. The Markets are just now finally figuring it out. I don't want to get too excited because I've been waiting for this moment ever since they re-inflated the bubble and I sure as hell don't want to be disappointed if they find yet another way to prop it back up.



But hey, the good news is that even the media will probably stop saying we're in a "Recovery" now. Because, seriously. 700 points in 4 days.. HA! The depression.. tis be coming, yo.

I would feel good about this because of the whole death to Capitalism and all that, but I know that the only people who are actually going to feel adverse effects from this shit are the poor and the downtrodden already and the fuckers who are responsible will sit in their golden palaces whining about how they're slightly less rich than they already were.. or actually celebrating being much more rich. Because, isn't that just the quintessential capitalism right there

Before trading opened on Wall Street, the Labor Department announced that the number of people applying for unemployment benefits last week fell slightly from the week before. But the report, following a raft of disappointing economic data in recent days, was taken by many gloomy investors to indicate only that the stalled job market was not improving.

Some investors also were selling to protect their portfolios before Friday's monthly announcement of unemployment data.

"It’s almost a very simplistic thing here, there has just been indiscriminate selling," said Michael Purves, chief strategist at BCG Financial. "Markets work in strange and mysterious ways –- and sometimes it takes awhile for routs like this to get going."

Where's the Jobs, Obama?!? WHERE?! Who cares if it's your birthday.. In fact, Hey, Happy birthday. Love, the investors.. I'm sure Obama's reaction to that question would be to pull his pockets inside out, shrug his shoulders and makes a funny face. *Curb your enthusiasm theme plays*



President Obama calls the local pound, looking for the economy. Vice-President Biden believes he has seen the economy crossing the street the next house over.

I wonder if he's going to lose the election to theoretically unelectable republican X now? But then again, part of me really hopes that this is enough to make Obama lose. Then the realist in me sees that Obama losing won't make a difference. It's not like his replacement will be any different except maybe on abortion and gay marriage (Both of which Obama is already against, HA!)

I do love the headlines from yesterday though. "Markets in turmoil - CNBC tonight at 8!" Though you have to remember that most banks and financial institutions have CNBC on at all times in offices and trading rooms across the country.

Speaking of which... July employment numbers are released today. Oh man, I wonder what percentage of a stadium the new jobs will fill this time. Probably by the time you read this you're looking at around 9/2%, at least according to CNBC.

Oh goody. I wonder at what percentage of a stadium the new jobs will fill this time. And what with Obama cutting more than a million jobs recently, I wonder how many portfolio will look covered in blood and feces.

And those who think that only the rich, state oil investment companies and some middle class pension funds have something to worry about here with stock assets, I don't think you understand the extent to which even public employees' retirements are funded through the markets and entities like CALPERs, the Cal. State employees' pension fund, never recovered from the downswing in the 00's, which will lead to less collective bargaining and further austerity at the state and municipal levels.

Maybe the disappearing pension funds will mean people will be more radicalized, right? RIGHT?! And you would think that the price of oil going down would mean that gas prices are potentially going to go down. But it's really just a case of "bad things happens so you pay more" situation.

Then there's those poor soles who in 2008 thought that they wouldn't have to worry about all of this because they still had 4 years until they graduated and need to get a decent job to pay back those loans. It'd all be over by then, they thought.. Yeah, welp. Guess that's not going to work.

But hey, are you a student with educational loans? do you have two kidneys? And if losing an organ doesn't sound like your thing, maybe you can just sell your body as a sex worker?

A bigger question is why the hell are gold and silver going down? I guess according to some article, when major financial traders are in shit spots like this they have to pony up more hard cash. Especially since they're trading with a ton of borrowed money. So a bunch of people liquidate their gold stocks just in case.

It's not even like this is a whole double dip recession, because it never went "back up" as a double dip implies.



Apparently the Asian markets are nose diving as well. My guess is that Europe will see the US and Asian markets, look at the problems in their own back yard, and respond in kind by dropping their market like a rock. Then the US stock exchange thinks Europe is panicking and they'll fall down and go boom again today.

Europe is already fucked in the matter. So it's not like the markets will open and crash into hell, but it's sure as hell going to be a situation where it's not going to be good. Then America's market will open and plummet with it. But once the jobs reports comes out, man oh man, then Satan will walk the earth.

You should basically cash out everything you can at 9:30:01 today if you own capitalist equities because it's going to be blood in the streets. But hey, maybe if you knew what a stop loss was, you probably would have used it by now. Though it's odd of me to consider that anyone reading this actually participates in finance capital and is not a broke college student or a poor member of the underclass.

I figure this is what is going to happen. Some arbitrary stock values will go down, the fed will do a qe3, the stock values will go up. Everyone will cheer the recession is over. Then most people will still be homeless and will continue to lose wages and benefits.

Maybe you should just get a job immediately, buy a firearm and kill all possible competitors for that job. I just have one question for you... Any big plans for the recession? You know, other than death. Maybe you can go painting...

I started another burning bank painting today, this time the Chase branch in Van Nuys. I got lots of thumbs up and likes from passersby but after an hour and a half the cops showed up. They said someone called thought I might be a terrorist.

What sort of terrorist would paint their plan before doing it? That's not a terrorist, that sounds more like a super villain move than anything else.

But back to the whole politics of all this. The absolute worst and best thing about all this is that all of the idiots who go on saying "install social democracy, problem solved!" and imagine that we'll somehow go back to the post-war economic boom by rewinding the metaphorical clock. Oh boy, do they have another fucking thing coming.

I don't really see a way to make social democracy and the good old social compact work within the context of an utterly financialized and internationalized capitalist economy so basically the days of trying for capitalism with a human face are going to vanish... like tears in rain.

Time... to die..