These types of threats take a toll on the markets world wide. Whether you want to face it or not. Its the US consumer that drives the economy and when they are concerned and their confidence is low... they are not swinging money around too easily. We need to capture Bin Laden or something to get some off this fear of the markets back. Bottom line is that hedge funds and big institutions arent gonna start pouring money over to US when all of this instability and turmoil hits our shores. --MIKE
I agree 100%. And the fact of the matter is...with HAMAS willing to go the extra mile to cause pain....we could soon start to see suicid bombers here in the US. If such acts where to take place, you would have a total shut down of consumer spending......beyound what the US has ever seen. Also, dont forget the economy combined with the terror...the head in the sand routine is not gona work for the 9 to 5ers anymore. Reality could hit them hard as they feel the PPI's most recent gage of inflation.......as well as possible layoffs to come. i never did see a case for the rally we just had. Im not biased , i trade both sides of the market. But, i could never understand the BULLS rational......better earnings? better revenue? that was only because the expectations and quarters before were horriable. This earnings season is gona be key......not so much if they meet or beat, but if they miss.... MU kicks it off... this should get to be fun soon
If they want to see the U.S. take over the "Palestinian State" and clean out all the terrorists all they need to do is have a suicide bomber or two act over here with proof he/she was Hamas.
very true indeed....on the politcal front,,,,such an act of Hamas here in the states would open the door for Israel to do what she did during the Yum Kimper war. Now, if this turns out to be the case...THE GLOBAL MARKET will react for sure.
Yeah, that too. But it might be short lived. What really needs to happen is oil needs to keep going up into the $40+/barrel range so other forms of energy will be demanded by the consumer and we can get off the OPEC bandwagon. Once we can do that, we can let that part of the world go back to being a bunch of camel jockies fighting amongst themselves.
I agree with that these threats take a toll on the markets worldwide. However, I believe that we must distinguish between the US consumer and the investor. I was in Home Depot this evening, and at the local malls over the weekend. From what I was able to see, US consumer confidence is robust to say the least. Maybe everyone is buying material to build residential bunkers. It seems to be the investors that have decreasing confidence. It's evident in the canceled bids, increasing short interest ratios and mutual fund outflows which may all just be conincidence and reactions to the markets of late. I certain agree with your opinion on the hedge funds and institutions, their "proprietary trading method" has always been to buy on fear and sell on greed.
aahhh good observation...as do i see a lot of consumer buying, however on credit...i dont see to much hard cash pulled out when im shopping. I use nothing but cash and i get strange looks from many of the sales people behind the til. Also, remember, much like the brilliant philophical movie called the Matrix, these people you and I see are doing, acting, and living life as the Matrix tells them. They percieve reality that the Matrix provides.......thus this reality is "reality" to the many droids, void of will and freethinking. However, much like Neo, i took the red pill, i can see how deep the rabbit hole goes.....
ur oil point is good...however, if you notice today, OPEC backed off raising prices....seems like the Presure is on them....what could happen...not sure if or when, OPEC could split into fractions if this war becomes WWIII, which it already is.... If OPEC falls, then Oil prices could SKY ROCKET higher than say, 50 or even a 100 dollars. This would turn our mild , whatever we are in, into something close to the depression......with out a massive % dive in the markets due to the circuit breakers established after the crash.
Irrespective of an expanded war, I don't think oil prices at $50+ would send us into anything worse than that we experienced in the mid 70's. We saw gas prices go from around 19 ct/gal to over $1/gal which was over 5 times. If it happened again, after a few painful years we would find some way to get off oil. I might even plant some corn, setup a still and what I don't drink I would give to my car.