Stocks Plunge on Soaring Oil Prices (Dow off 99, oil near $55/barrel)

[RedEarth]

NEW YORK - Stocks slid Wednesday as the prospect of rising inflation sank in on Wall Street, sending yields on long-dated Treasuries to an eight-month high. A weaker dollar and volatile oil prices also made equity buyers scatter.


A gradual acceleration of inflation and a rally in commodities have combined to make investors nervous about stocks, as many on Wall Street predict a slowdown in corporate profits for 2005. A feeble U.S. dollar and bearish bond market, combined with a rise in gold and oil prices, underscored those concerns Wednesday.


"Profit margins have peaked, inflation is on the way up, and those aren't generally good things for stocks," said John Caldwell, chief investment strategist for McDonald Financial Group, part of Cleveland-based KeyCorp. "So weakness in the bond market on top of that tends to make people skittish. ... It just makes people question their thinking that much more."


In the final hour of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 89.86, or 0.82 percent, at 10,822.76, diminishing hopes that the index would soon break the 11,000 mark.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=543&ncid=749&e=3&u=/ap/20050309/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/wall_street

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. Things are better than ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Long live our wise oil-executive administration!!!!!!!!
:crazy: :silly:

[bahrbearian]

7. I feel so much safer with the grow-ups in charge,

I'm glad chimpy gave the WH a good cleaning.
To bad the next administration will have to use DE-greaser.

[Cocoa]

2. some sectors of the economy benefit when oil prices are high

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.newgas09mar...

<snip>

Some sectors of the economy benefit when oil prices are high.

Yesterday, Standard & Poor's, the credit-rating agency, spoke favorably of the outlook for Halliburton Co., the Houston oil industry services company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

The oil services industry picks up when crude prices are high and companies are eager to explore for potential petroleum fields.

"The stable outlook reflects Standard & Poor's expectation that solid financial and operating performance in oil field services will improve," S&P said.

More…

[RedEarth]

6. yep, it's unlikely the republican donor base is too upset with high oil

prices.....from their standpoint it's just one more way to soak the public and line their pockets.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. er..what will THAT do to our SS privatization accounts???

[disillusioned1]

4. I found this the other day....

A Ponzi scheme, named after its early 20th century inventor Carlo Ponzi, is a form of pyramid scheme. Basically it involves selling a nearly worthless security to a small group of investors, with the promise of great returns if they promote the security to more investors, and so on, ideally, forever. Like any pyramid scheme or chain letter, of course, it eventually collapses when it runs out of suckers. The first ones in get rich, and the last ones in (much greater in number) get shafted.

As we all know, the stock market is focused on the short term, and fluctuates wildly in response to a single quarter's earnings, external economic events, even rumour. If you look at it holistically and long-term, however, it has all the markings of a century-long Ponzi scheme, the most lucrative, and potentially most devastating, in history.

...

Eventually we, or our descendents, will learn (or have no choice but) to 'just say no' to dysfunctional stock markets and all the evils they breed. Until then, we'll continue to be addicted to short-term thinking, the illusion of perpetual growth, paying too much for everything we buy, subsidizing public companies with our taxpayer dollars, downsizing and outsourcing and offshoring as 'productivity enhancement', and putting up with the atrocious greed, corruption and devastation of insatiable global corporations that pull the strings of politicians like puppeteers, all in the name of 'maximizing shareholder value'. It's addictive gambling with a staggering cost, it's insane, and it's fraud.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/05/07.html#a723

[xray s]

8. you might want to check out this thread

along similar lines...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x14733

[disillusioned1]

14. Thanks for the link to the other thread

So, the stock market is a Ponzi scheme and 401k's aren't insured. I'd call that theft.

[Wright Patman]

5. Oil's well that ends well

especially for those with oil wells.

As a voluptuous babe used to say on commercials for an oil driller named Eddie Chiles here in Texas, "If you don't have an oil well, get one!"

Then she'd say, "May we drill it for you?" I was a teenager at the time and I was thinking of "drilling" in another context whenever I'd hear her.

http://stommel.tamu.edu/~baum/ethel/2000_10_22_ethel-archive.html

Scroll down to Oct. 24, 2000, in the above blog for the inevitable connection between the late Mr. Chiles, chairman of Western Company and former Texas Rangers owner, and the BFEE.

[Inland]

9. But Sunday's NYT reported economic conditions were "just right"!

Therefore it can only be a good thing that oil is at $55/barrell. Thanks, Bush!

[swag]

10. "plunge" just another down day in a short-term

trend of high volatility:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EDJI&t=3m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=

The broad market is almost exactly where it was at the end of 2004, nicely priced in accord with earnings (oh, I can hear the howls already).

Much bigger econo-news is how consumers will be fucked by the bankruptcy bill and petrol co. gouging on the heels of oil futures markets.

But the stock market is just fine.

[denverbill]

11. Prosperity is Just Around the Corner!

After over 4 years in office, the Dow Jones is ALMOST back to where it was when the idiot came to power. The Bush economy just keeps powering along.

[DeepModem Mom]

12. kick

[98geoduck]

13. Japanese Stocks May Decline, Led by Toyota; Banks May Gain

" Companies that rely on the U.S. for their profits may also fall as higher costs for raw materials such as copper, raised concern that the Federal Reserve may accelerate the pace of interest-rate to contain inflation.

``The biggest worry in the market right now is higher commodity prices at a time when currency moves aren't helping either,'' said Koichi Seki, a Tokyo-based equity manager at Chuo Securities Co. ``The increases in prices may prompt the Fed to take action, which is bad for market sentiment.'' "

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=a4AF2jhiQpEA&refer=asia