http://finance.yahoo.com/news/World...36802.html?sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=&ccode= The media just perpetuates one story after the other making excuses why the market is up and why its down...traders know why the market is down today. Its because price has simply retraced due to an oversold situation in March and will continue its downward spiral. The media doesnt understand price...nor does its readers understand price...so they have to grasp at straws. Last week, the flu wasnt on my radar. I thought that the story of the stess tests would bring the market down. I was wrong...I guess this time its the flu...dont forget your cough drops. Market down today...its flu season...
Your ignorance reigns Supreme! Go back to the Yahoo board.....oops, I forgot, this board is just an extention of the Yahoo board.
absolutely not, that's why I wouldn't jump on the shorting bandwagon yet. You can't short a market on the basis that what we see could at some stage turn into a pandemic. unless, well, you know, it's already one which I don't believe. What's the probability this become really nasty?
"What's the probability this become really nasty" it's called black.... http://029d6c2.netsolhost.com/images/Black-Swan-logo-Revise.gif
News over the weekend that at least one bank...will need more capital, even after the stress test. Negitive interest rate at -5 needed to contain the bleeding ....so to speak is one news report. Unemployment will continue to post 600k plus for the rest of the year and targeting 10% to 12% before leveling off. Housing has not hit bottom on the defaults and Commerical RE is defaulting at record rates. These are just some of the new bullets coming across my screen. I read one that talked of a possible Flu fall out in Europe with Retail Sales. However nothing directing such for the US. So, IMHO....NO THE FLU IS NOT PUSHING THIS MARKET DOWN. However could this FLU become the BLACK SWAN. Yes. There are odds in that favor. More so for EURO LAND and their National Health Care program not being able to contain and treat causing massive deaths in that region. Would the US be hit, sure. But the death tolls much much much less and the Economic Impact short lived. However, could take the market down to new lows. There is all way that possibility....
The problem that is real here is that this strain is a direct descendant of the 1918 variety, and if it quickly mutates into the superkiller that the 1918 strain did, given its progeny, we will have real issues that we haven't seen as a global health crisis before. The fact that this is attacking 15 to 40 year olds in otherwise good health, predominantly, is extremely troubling to epidemiologists. The 1918 strain killed 20 million in a much smaller and less mobile and connected globe.
The point is the flu doesnt matter. They would have found a reason anyway...stress test...flu...it doesnt matter. They would have sold off even if there wasnt any bad news and simply said it was because of "profit taking". The news doesnt matter. Traders dont operate on the news. Its all about price, averages and trends.
It is NOT a direct descendent of the 1918 flu virus... are there similarities? Yes...HIgh fatality - young people dying... But this Quadruple hybrid strain has NO predecessors...there are no weaker forms of this strain, which all but guarantees that it can't have been formed naturally...
This reason for the discrepancy between the deaths in Mexico and the US is likely due to the conservative way in which bacterial infections are treated outside the US. This flu bug seems to create conditions for a super bacterial (yes I know the flu is viral) infection that attacks the lung and throat tissue. If the bacterial infection is treated urgently with antibiotics it seems not to do too much damage and the viral part runs it course much like the normal flu. In Mexico they are very slow to treat bacterial infections and in one that is as aggressive as these superinfections seem to be, a lot of damage can be done while the doc decides to step up treatment. If this is what is causing the mortality then the US shouldn't suffer many casualties beyond a normal flu season, the key is early treatment it seems. Tamiflu (or some such antiviral) and an early course of whatever seems to be the most effective antibiotic should limit the severity in most people. Early and aggressive treatment seems to be the key.